The government has set out its vision for the future of our railways in its recent Rail Command Paper.

This will involve more freedom for private train operators to cut services, raise fares and cram more people on to overcrowded trains. Massive cost-cutting will see the loss of thousands of jobs across the network. Hundreds of ticket offices are lined up for closure, leaving many stations deserted at all hours. And new regional ‘alliances’ will see Network Rail broken up and managed by private train operators. This heralds a return to the bad old days of Railtrack where safety-critical maintenance and renewal work was placed in commercial hands with tragic results.

The TUC and rail unions will shortly be launching a joint campaign to bring rail workers, passengers, community groups and campaigners together to fight these proposals and promote an alternative future for rail that puts passengers, communities and services first.

But this week, we’ve a good chance to get the issues further up Parliament’s agenda, ahead of the campaign launch. 

97 MPs have put their names to Early Day Motion 2299, which calls on the government to protect jobs and services, putting the interests of passengers first. It would be great if we could get this number above 100.

Please contact your MP and ask them to sign EDM 2299 now.

Type in your postcode above and we’ll help you find your MP and check whether they’ve signed, or if not see if you can persuade them to.

Early Day Motions are statements submitted by MPs for debate in the Commons. While very few actually get debated in the end, they're useful for raising awareness of new issues in Parliament. As such, we’d like you to call on your own MP to get behind EDM 2299 and help us prepare to build an effective campaign against rail cuts.