Days after the First Group posted a huge rise in rail profits to more than £108 million, the union will be asking Paddington passengers to join the call for Great Western rail services to be returned to the public sector.

Bob Crow will be available for interview at Paddington Station from 08:00 on Monday, May 21.

In the coming weeks RMT activists, alongside passenger groups including More Train Less Strain, will leaflet commuters across the Great Western franchise, as the first step in a new national campaign for public ownership of rail.

“When passengers are expected to endure overcrowding, service cuts and inflation-busting fares hikes and rail staff are left to pick up the pieces, First Group’s profits are simply obscene,” Bob Crow said today.

“First’s promise to shareholders of ten-percent dividend hikes every year is an insult to passengers who are treated worse than cattle, and to our members who have to get out there and deal with the consequences every day.

“Rail franchising is a total mess, yet First and the other privateer rail operators are raking in £15 million a week in profits between them.

“We believe that has to stop, and in the coming weeks we will be calling on rail users across the networks to join our campaign for the railways to be brought back into the public sector where they belong,” Bob Crow said.

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Contacts and notes follow:

For further information contact Derek Kotz on 020 7529 8803 or 07939 595 092

More Train Less Strain can be contacted at www.moretrainlessstrain.co.uk.

Notes for editors: Early Day Motion 1447, calling for First Great Western services to be brought back into the public sector, has been tabled by Stroud MP David Drew and signed to date by 18 others.


Early Day Motion 1447:

First Great Western Train Services

"That this House notes with growing concern that despite First Great Western train services making substantial profits and introducing significant fare increases, passengers on these services have had to endure poor levels of punctuality, cuts in services and severe overcrowding; is further concerned at reports that 12 extra trains introduced by the company to alleviate the collapse of rail services in Bristol and the West of England last winter will be withdrawn by the end of this year and that this again will result in train cancellations and amount to an astonishing 20 per cent. reduction in the number of trains since First Group took over the Greater Western franchise in April 2006; believes that the interests of passengers should come before the interests of shareholders; and therefore supports the call by passenger groups and rail unions for First Great Western services to be run in the public sector."

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FirstGroup was awarded the new Greater Western franchise by the Department for Transport just over a year ago in return paying the government around a £1 billion premium. On Friday 5 January 2007 FirstGroup chief executive, Moir Lockhead and FGW Managing Director, Alison Foster received a ‘yellow card’ warning from Department for Transport officials that unless services improve FirstGroup will lose the Greater Western franchise.

On May 16, First group announced a 36.7 per cent rise in its rail division profits to £108.8 million, and promised its shareholders annual dividends of ten per cent.