LABOUR has described the Tories’ new rail strategy as “a total smokescreen” while transport unions branded it “another dose of privatisation.”

Publicly owned Network Rail will share its responsibility for running the tracks with private train operators under proposals announced by Transport Secretary Chris Grayling yesterday.

Joint teams managing day-to-day operations are to be rolled out across the South Eastern network with a new director taking overall responsibility.

Mr Grayling said Network Rail would be “devolved” with separate franchises for regional services and long-distance routes — including the troubled Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise when the current contract with Govia Thameslink Railway ends in 2021 and on Great Western Railway (GWR).

The government will extend the franchise for GWR’s current operator First Group until March 2020.

Proposals were also outlined to reopen several rail lines, including between Bedford and Cambridge, to be delivered by a new independent East West Rail Company from the mid-2020s.

However, Campaign for Better Transport head Stephen Joseph warned that it is “desperately difficult to reopen a rail line.”

Shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald called the plans “a total smokescreen,” pledged to “step up the campaign for public ownership” and claimed the plan to split franchises is a “massive admission of failure.”

“This unambitious strategy stands in contrast to Labour’s plan to upgrade and expand the rail network across the country.”

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: “From what we have heard this lethal plan could well spell the end for Network Rail as a national, strategic and publicly owned body.

“It is no good building new lines if no one can afford to travel on them. Fares are up by twice the rate of wages, with another massive increase due in January, and it’s shocking that this announcement has said nothing about the affordability of rail fares.”

Branding the plans “jam tomorrow and cuts today,” he said the solution lies in public investment, free from “racketeering private train companies and their demand for ever-increasing profits.”