State rail firms eye up British franchises
Deutsche Bahn targets juiciest parts of East Coast while SNCF-linked group gets Thameslink contract
THE government’s mad dash to hand Britain’s rail network to overseas operators continued yesterday as German and French state-owned companies lined up to take over more services.
Overseas operators now run 70 per cent of Britain’s rail network, raking in taxpayer-funded subsidies of hundreds of millions of pounds.
Rail union RMT revealed that German state railway company Deutsche Bahn is being primed to snatch the contract for publicly owned East Coast Mainline.
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