[Verse 1]
Ninety-three, an Act came down like a gavel on the line,
British Rail cut into pieces, Railtrack takes the spine,
Rolling stock goes to the ROSCOs, leasing wheels for rent,
Twenty-five franchises scattered, Parliament's experiment.
Ninety-six, the float goes up, one point nine billion pound,
Shareholders toast the engine while the tracks lie underground.
[Chorus]
Рельсы вверх, рельсы вниз — rails go up, then rails go down,
Продано, but risk don't leave, it just moves across the town,
Государство платит after — the treasury answers last,
Рельсы вверх, рельсы вниз — history repeats so fast.
[Verse 2]
October, two-thousand, Hatfield — a rail cracks under strain,
Gauge corner fatigue, the metal forgot its own name,
Four lives gone, the network shudders, speed limits spread like vines,
Stephen Byers signs the order — administration, no disguise.
Twenty-oh-one, the firm's wound up, declared insolvent, done,
A private promise broken open, cost the public everyone.
[Chorus]
Рельсы вверх, рельсы вниз — rails go up, then rails go down,
Продано, but risk don't leave, it just moves across the town,
Государство платит after — the treasury answers last,
Рельсы вверх, рельсы вниз — history repeats so fast.
[Verse 3]
Two-thousand-two, Network Rail rises — no shareholders, no dividend,
A company limited by guarantee, private clothing, public friend,
Off the books it stood a decade, borrowing cheap through the City's door,
But the debt kept climbing quiet — thirty billion and more.
[Bridge]
Twenty-fourteen, statisticians speak, the ONS draws a line so neat,
Thirty billion pounds of borrowing marches home to Downing Street,
Control is public, so the debt is public — Eurostat's rule, plain and stark,
Государство несёт бремя — the state must own what it marked.
[Verse 4]
Twenty twenty-four, the Passenger Act is signed, the circle turns again,
Great British Railways gathers track and train beneath one pen,
From flotation to administration, guarantee to balance sheet,
Privatize, collapse, reclaim — the Treasury's steady heartbeat.
[Verse 5]
Twenty twenty-five, the ink still wet, the franchises fade away,
Great British Railways takes the helm, the public learns to pay,
History spins a familiar wheel, from private hands to state,
The lesson written in steel and debt, arriving always late,
Every cycle swears it's different, every ledger says the same,
Рельсы помнят — the rails remember every name.
[Chorus]
Рельсы вверх, рельсы вниз — rails go up, then rails go down,
Продано, but risk don't leave, it just moves across the town,
Государство платит after — the treasury answers last,
Рельсы вверх, рельсы вниз — history repeats so fast.
[Outro]
Приватизация, крах, назад — say it soft, say it loud,
Risk on paper, debt in truth, written plain in every cloud,
Рельсы вверх, рельсы вниз, the lesson rides the rails tonight.