The 500 Club - Aslef

22 Bring back BR the ASLEF JOURNALEllie campaigns tobring back BRLast month’s tUC fringe meeting stressed the need to reachout to other transport groups to campaign for radical changeon the railway. We have close links with the better knownorganisations like the Campaign for better transport, butthis month we look at a small but active band called ‘bringback british Rail’, the brainchild of the author of this article,Ellie Harrison …SiNcE i founded the ‘BringBack British Rail’campaign in 2009, it hascaptured the imaginations of railpassengers and train companyemployees alike. its simplemessage aims to do ‘exactly whatis says on the tin’ – to bring ourcountry’s railways back into publicownership and to start runningthem as one newly unifiedorganisation that puts peoplebefore profits.the message seems to strike achord with all those who traveland work on railways, becausenobody seems happy with thepresent system. it might be seenas ‘a big ask’, but it feels importantthat, nearly 18 years after therailways were sold-off, the BringBack British Rail campaign existsas a bold statement thatprivatisation was not progress -and a radical rethink of ourcountry’s rail network isrequired.A PASSIONAtE PASSENGERi’ve never worked for the railwaysand i was actually only 15 yearsold when British Rail was killed offby Major’s government. i havesome memories of the oldintercity trains travelling toScotland and Wales on familyholidays and of NetworkSouthEast where i grew up inEaling. But, as a teenager, i wasoblivious to what was happeningpolicy-wise. i describe myself nowas a ‘passionate passenger’ –someone who endured years ofdelayed, over-priced and overcrowdedjourneys around the UKand finally snapped. that’s when iset up the campaign.Because we are a smallorganisation run by volunteers(largely just me in my flat inGlasgow!) we have begun tocollaborate with largerorganisations with more fundingand manpower. in August, weworked with the campaign forLively Ellie brings great enthusiasm to the campaign for public railThe first outing for Ellie’s new banner - which she hopes will makemany public appearances!Better transport (cfBt), theenvironmental group climateRush and trade unionists to puton a mass demonstration outsideLondon’s Waterloo Station againstthe government’s train fare rises.IDEALIStS AND REALIStSthis grouping worked really wellas it echoed the campaign’s ethosof uniting both the passenger andthe employee perspectives –bringing together the idealists(like us and climate Rush) and therealists like the cfBt. this protestgot a lot of media attention andwas the first outing of our BringBack British Rail banner - which ihope will make far more publicappearances over the next fewyears!the central focus of thecampaign over the coming year isthe e-petition on the newly relaunchedgovernment website.the petition is acting as a usefulplace to channel people’senthusiasm for the campaign’smessage and to amount support.We aim to get 100,000 signatureson the e-petition before it closeson 4 August 2012, in order toforce the issue into Parliamentnext year. We are want to workwith other organisations to coordinatefurther demonstrationsand actions.LOOKING FOR LINKSAt the moment the campaign islargely happening online, wheremy own skills lie in social mediaand web-development. i amconscious, however, that this mayisolate a large number of potentialsupporters without easy access tocomputers.Over the next few years we arehoping to bridge this divide, bysetting up a network ofsupporters in different areas ofthe country to do groundwork atstations and with local unionoffices. this’ll take time, of course,but we have the patience to keepat it… We are in this for the longhaul!the Bring Back British Railcampaign will continue to exist –kicking-up-a-fuss and puttingpressure on the government – justas long as the railways remain intheir current mess. We will keepgoing strong until there is aradical restructuring of the railnetwork so that the passengersand the employees benefit ratherthan the shareholders of privatecompanies. Only then, perhaps,will we be able to feel real pride inworking and travelling on ourtrains again. to join our mailing list orFacebook group go tofacebook.com/bringbackbritishrail if you’d like to get involvedwith BBBR, please get in touchviainfo@bringbackbritishrail.org Why not sign our e-petitionand circulate it to yourfriends? you can also support us bymaking a donation, buyingmerchandise or joining ourmembership scheme (seedetails online).