RMT union responds to West Coast mainline cost announcement

"The stench from the fall out of the West Coast franchise continues to hang over Britain's transport industry as it becomes clearer with every examination that the ministers responsible for this shambles could not be trusted to run pitch at a car boot sale let alone multi-billion pound government contracts. No wonder the Thameslink/Siemens fleet contract remains unsigned nearly two years on with these jokers at the helm and the case for that work to go to Derby and not Germany remains rock solid."

"Underpinning all this is the fact that privatisation is a corrosive and expensive political project doomed to repeated and costly failure, twice on the East Coast and now on the West. Fiddling with processes won't work, its the whole, rotten policy that needs dumping with a return to public ownership. "