Tory Policy on Rail Services,

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IN 1980 just 12 new engines were built for the whole of British Rail.

The diesel units used for most local services were designed for a working life of 10 years. Seven out of ten are now over 16 years old, many around 30 years old.

The signalling equipment on more than 4,000 miles of railway. is over 40 years old.

Only 22% of BR's track is electrified. This compares with 62% for Sweden, 52% for Japan, 46% for West Germany, and 38% for France.

Services are being cut. This June, Southern Region lost over 20% of its Saturday and Sunday trains.

Delays and cancellations are at an all-time high.

Many stretches of track have permanent speed restrictions because of lack of repairs.

And accidents due to delayed repairs and maintenance are increasing. In 1980 nine derailments "occurred at locations where a deliberate decision has been made to defer attention to the track."

The British Rail Board has been reduced to putting adverts in the papers begging the government to find the major investment needed even to maintain the present rail network. But the Tories' policy is to sell off the profitable bits and let the rest rot.

Decaying British Transport Hotels, the Sealink service, and even the highly profitable Victoria-Gatwick line could be hived off.

For railworkers, this means a decaying, ill-paid industry. For all working people, it means less (and worse) public transport, and more crowded and polluted roads.

BR's electrification programme would cost £42 million a year. The government spends £420 million a year on roads (though, under this government, that is being cut).

Road hauliers - who do not have to pay to build the roads — are obviously likely to be more profitable than the railways. Also, the road hauliers can pick and choose the profitable business, while the railways are supposed to provide a public service.

Rail lines in rural areas, or commuter services used heavily just for a few hours each day, are difficult to make a profit on.

In some areas in the USA, this dilemma has been resolved just by letting the public transport services go broke. Then the well-off have their cars, and the poor just have to manage as best they can!

The same crazy profitsfirst logic is behind the rundown of British Rail, too -a rundown which began in the 1960s, and has continued since under Labour and Tory governments dlike.

Nationalisation of British Rail has not led to it being operated as a public service under democratic control of the working class.

BR is a state capitalist corporation, controlled by capitalist interests and run on capitalst unes. And nationalisation will always produce that result until we have a government genuinely accountable to the working class, and workers' control in industry.

Year after year, the TUC has passed resolutions for an integrated transport policy. To make those resolutions reality is now a vital need for the maintenance of jobs and vasic services.

We must demand that the next Labour government is a government controlled by the labour movement, not by the hard-bitten Tories who run the permanent apparatus of the British state. We must demand that it nationalises the whole transport industry, to be run according to a democratically decided workers' plan, with jobs guaranteed by work sharing with no loss of But, while organising for these demands, we cannot deliberately created this conafford to wait for a Labour government. Railworkers have the power to stop BR's jobs rundown, to form committees which can veto BR's cutbacks, to enforce a shorter working week, and to build links with other transport workers.

The strike should be a great opportunity to go on the offensive, to start a fight for a transport policy based on the needs of the working class. the clearest wording possible