Last month we took a train to London from a station on the network run by the c2c rail company. c2c provides services from London to parts of Essex along the London, Tilbury and Southend railway and is the sole operator of the line.
We were returning from an event in the county of Essex which adjoins Greater London and which, in the UK referendum of June 23rd 2016, voted without exception to leave in every one of its electoral districts. Indeed, Thurrock and Castle Point had one of the country’s biggest percentage of ‘Leave’ voters with 72%.
(Essexians at the time of the 2016 referendum)
Essex also happens to contain one of the UK’s most deprived areas, Jaywick, which is receiving EU funds as part of a project to improve the quality of life of its inhabitants. (See http://ec.europa.eu/competition/consultations/2012_regional_stateaid/uk_tendring_district_council_annex2_en.pdf ).
(A street in Jaywick, part of the Essex Riviera)
My wife was pleasantly surprised to note this writing on the train we were boarding. It was almost like being at Bagni di Lucca station (apart from the weather)!
In fact, Trenitalia c2c Limited, also manages 25 stations of the 28 stations it calls at.
The history of denationalization on this part of the UK railway network had been fraught since British rail’s privatisation in 1996. It was first purchased by Prism rail and ran under the name LTS. It was then rebranded as c2c (a name whose precise meaning no-one can agree on). In 2000 c2c was bought by National Express which also runs bus companies (!) National Express did not prove to be an ideal company to run the railway network and sold it to the Italian Trenitalia last year (2017).
In case you didn’t know, ‘Trenitalia’ is the primary train operator in Italy. It’s a subsidiary of ‘Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane’, which is owned by the Italian government and was established in 2000. So, in all senses of the word, the Southend lines in one of the most brexitian counties of the UK (should Essex not be rebranded Bressexit?) is run by a part of Italy’s still nationally-owned railways. Clearly those brexitians’ fares on these lines are helping to subsidise the Italian railway network! No wonder Italian train fares can be so cheap when compared to the UK’s!
I wonder if these Essexians are going to get their railways as well as their country back if brexit goes through?
Trenitalia is now bidding for the West Coast Partnership. Hopefully, that network, a disgrace to the UK, will improve under Trenitalia management.
Incidentally, the Italian railway system is one of the most important parts of the infrastructure of Italy, with a total length of 15,054 miles of track (compare that with Britain’s 9,824 miles of railway track). The Italian network has recently grown with the construction of new high speed railways (‘Le Freccie’). Italy now has 974 miles of high speed track compared to Britain’s 71 miles of high speed track.
As for electrified track, compare Italy’s 7,407 miles with the UK’s 3,062 miles.
That’s quite apart from the fact that one can actually afford to use trains in Italy as distinct from so many journeys in the UK when (for example) it’s clear that taking a bus from Stansted airport to London is so much cheaper than going there by rail.
Incidentally these are the figures for comparison and using second-class tickets purchased at the station at the time of departure:
| FROM – TO | DISTANCE IN MILES | TICKET COST IN STERLING | COST PER MILE |
| Pisa airport to Bagni di Lucca | 24 | £7.47 | 30p |
| Stansted airport to Liverpool St, London | 29 | £17.00 | 60p |
Meanwhile in Bressexit, I recall a conversation in which one person asked another ‘how did you vote in the referendum?’ The answer was, predictably, ‘leave’ but the man added ‘I did it for my children.’ Just wonder what the children will say one day?
I won’t conclude with a Bressexit joke here but I’ll give a twist on a familiar one
““How many Brexiteers does it take to change a lightbulb? Whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn’t say there was a lightbulb.”
I was truly amazed to see this Trenitalia logo in the UK I had heard that some tracks were being looked after by other countries but I had not realised that the trains would also be Italian and that the stations were also being updated. So why I ask myself this Brexit makes no sense whatsoever at all. I posit the question is not UK part of Europe that was supposed to be included in the United States of Europe. Why this nasty rebellion against Statesmen that fought for the UK to be formally included in the EEC does not this all seem a retrograde step to exclude oneself from this Union which supports youth projects farmers and much much more. We have been whimsically misled by misinformation the best solution would have been to list all pros and cons with factual evidence not vacuous statements maybe also held Debates on the subject. This is a travesty of what actually is going on and the shame is that issues such as NHS poverty food banks that should be addressed is just not happening! Again a well researched blog and I love the poster simply fabulous!
Thanks for your comment. The weirdest thing is that there are brits who love and own properties in Italy and spend so much of their time in italy who, despite all the facts that have come out since the non legally binding referendum, are still convinced they did the right thing to vote leave. It’s a truly sorry case in my opinion of self-harm.
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I am pleasantly surprised that Italy has still good things to export. The news from Brussels seem to tell us “you are finished, your pubblic debt will keep you under our fist”. But this enomous debt is well accepted by burocrats who favour the banks which are thriving with rocket high interests!