RENATIONALISING Britain’s railways is the only way to fix the “completely broken” franchising model that has wreaked havoc across the country, Jeremy Corbyn said on Saturday.

Addressing the TSSA conference in Leicester, the Labour leader said he was “utterly determined” to bring rail franchises back into public ownership and also reaffirmed the party’s manifesto pledge to invest £2.5 billion in Britain’s railways.

Mr Corbyn attacked the eight years of Tory austerity that had compounded the errors of the great railway sell-off, telling delegates: “You can’t cut your way out of austerity. You invest your way to growth in the future.”

He described the franchise system as a “racket” that had resulted in “the highest fares across the whole of Europe and the poorest service” and called for “a railway system that is publicly owned and railway management that are publicly accountable for what they do.”

Mr Corbyn said: “Public ownership will allow us to reinvest profits back, instead of being siphoned off into the pockets of shareholders.

“Under public ownership we can cap fares, improve services and ensure safe staffing levels and put an end to driver-only operations.”

He pointed out how “ludicrous” it was that infrastructure remained essentially the same as it was under British Rail.

“The trains are the same, the staff are the same — it’s the logo that keeps on changing and the system that keeps on getting worse — and passengers and staff are paying the price for Tory privatisation.”

Mr Corbyn also welcomed TSSA president Mick Carney’s call for Transport Secretary Chris Grayling to “do the decent thing for once: admit privatisation has failed, admit he has failed — and go. Go now.”