THE Government's rail privatisation plans received another
embarrassing jolt last night when it emerged that the multi-million
pound transport firm Stagecoach was pulling out of its rail services in
Scotland.
Stagecoach has been one of Britain's transport success stories in
recent years, and opponents of rail privatisation say that if Stagecoach
cannot make money out of selling rail seats, then who can.
Government Ministers made great play of Stagecoach's involvement in
the railways last year when the company began running two of its own
coaches on the overnight Aberdeen to London service.
Within six months, however, it was clear that the Stagecoach service
was losing money. In a move which critics felt was to save the
Government's blushes, Stagecoach stopped running the coaches but instead
agreed to take between 20 to 30 seats every night on the InterCity
coaches.
It also contracted a set number of seats on the Glasgow to London
service, so although their coaches were mothballed they could claim in
fact to be expanding their service.
Now even that limited form of private involvement on the railways is
to halt in October, industry sources confirmed last night. There was
no-one available for comment at Stagecoach's Perth headquarters.
However, its annual report this year showed that the Stagecoach Rail
subsidiary was losing #500,000 a year.
Not unexpectedly, Labour transport spokesman Brian Wilson claimed the
demise of Stagecoach on the two major Scottish lines to London, showed
what a disaster privatisation was likely to be.
''It demonstrates the vulnerability of private rail operations, and I
hope that Transport Minister Roger Freeman, who made such a meal out of
launching the service, will turn up to mark its demise,'' he said.
''Fortunately British Rail are still there to pick up the pieces, but
after April, if privatisation goes wrong, it will be prevented by law
from doing so.''
A spokesman for InterCity said it was for Stagecoach to say what its
future plans were, but added that both parties had learned a lot from
working together and that InterCity would contine to serve the overnight
seated market.
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