Save our Railways: Rally and Lobby of Parliament 12.30 25th October 2011 Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, London

RAIL UNIONS will join up with passenger groups and community supporters for a mass rally and lobby of Parliament next Tuesday - 25th October - as part of the national campaign to stop the Government from implementing the recommendations of the McNulty Rail Review.
The Government was expected to respond formally to McNulty this month. There is a suspicion that it may have been delayed due to the moving of former Transport Secretary Phillip Hammond to defence in the wake of the Liam Fox scandal but unions are keeping up the campaigning pressure regardless.

McNulty’s core proposals include:

Axing more than 600 ticket offices, de-staffing stations and turning the network into a criminals paradise.
Throwing guards off all trains and compromising safety and security on services right across the country
Jacking up fares, offering train operators even longer “gold-plated” franchises and even more opportunity to mug the travelling public
Cutting maintenance and lining up infra-structure for a return to the lethal cocktail of conditions under Railtrack that led to Hatfield and Potters Bar.
Ignoring the cheap and efficient option of returning the railways to public ownership and instead repeating and compounding all the failures of rail privatisation.
RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said:

“McNulty represents the biggest threat to our railways since privatisation. Staff and passengers have a common interest in resisting an attack that would wipe out safety-critical jobs, de-staff trains and stations and jack up fares in the name of private profit. We all have a stake in stopping this carve-up dead in its tracks.”