Grayling should have nationalised the east coast mainline much sooner | Andrew Adonis
Making our trains actually run on time is more important than political ideology, either of the left or the right
• State takes back control of east coast mainline
I confess that I never expected, nor wanted, to share membership of an exclusive club of two with the transport secretary, Chris Grayling. And yet, as of yesterday’s extraordinary U-turn on what to do about the failing and over-extended east coast mainline, Grayling and I are the only living British politicians to have nationalised a railway.
In fact, we both nationalised the same railway. In 2009 I took the east coast mainline – which runs between London and Edinburgh and is a vital artery for the UK economy – back into public ownership. National Express, the private company that had been running east coast, wanted to hike prices and at the same time wriggle out of their obligations and debts to the government. It was a poor deal for fare-payers and taxpayers alike. So I took the railway away from a private company that was failing and created a new, public company to run it instead.
Source: Guardian Transport
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