Third-Class Trains Plan 'Must Be Stopped'

Rail union bosses and the Labour Party have reacted angrily to a leaked document which says third-class travel may be poised to return.

The return of the three-tier system - last seen on UK railways in 1956 - has been proposed for the East Coast Main Line to London and Aberdeen in a draft prospectus for would-be private bidders interested in taking on the franchise from the Government.

The document gives bidders the option of establishing an "intermediate class between Standard and First", paving the way to three classes of travel on East Coast.

It has led to accusations that the Government is turning the clock back 60 years.

Shadow transport secretary Mary Creagh said: "David Cameron should tackle his Government's cost of living crisis and cap rail fare rises for struggling commuters, instead of obsessing about handing East Coast over to the private sector.

"East Coast is working well and will have returned £800m to the taxpayer by the end of this financial year.

"David Cameron says we're all in this together, but if that's true then why is he going back to the 1950s and reintroducing third class? East Coast passengers deserve better than this.

Mr Crow described the leaked document as 'political dynamite'

"This Government has learned nothing from the West Coast franchising fiasco, which saw over £50m of taxpayers' money wasted in compensation to train companies, through ministers' incompetence."

RMT general secretary Bob Crow described the leaked document as "political dynamite which blows the lid off the lengths to which the Government are prepared to go to bulldoze through re-privatisation".

"The fact that the public option is putting over a billion pounds back into the Treasury, while improving services and delivering more capacity, has been cynically airbrushed out of the final document in a disgraceful piece of political chicanery which must be called in for scrutiny to hold back this full-tilt dash for privatisation," he said.

"If the Government are allowed to get away with this, passengers can expect third-class services, shoddy performance and higher fares while the private companies get a gold-plated, 11-year franchise that will enable them to launder hundreds of millions of pounds into the pockets of their shareholders. It stinks and it must be stopped."

But a Transport Department spokesman accused the RMT of "ill-informed scaremongering".

"By choosing to release inaccurate information, they are misleading the public," he added.

"We have no intention of requiring a 'third class' service, reducing performance levels, or in any way devaluing this vital railway.

"As the independent Brown Review concluded, franchising works for passengers and taxpayers alike."

East Coast has been in the public sector since autumn 2009 but is due to return to private ownership in early 2015.

The union also claims the prospectus redacts sections highlighting the good punctuality and performance of the service under public ownership.

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