Rolling stock firm’s £80m dividend payout fuels calls for UK rail nationalisation

Unions argue that the hundreds of millions in profits diverted overseas by rolling stock companies such as Porterbrook should be reinvested in rail. Photograph: Richard Saker/The Guardian

The rolling stock firm Porterbrook paid out £80m in dividends to its mainly overseas shareholders last year, accounts show, fuelling further calls for Britain’s trains to be nationalised.

The firm’s train leasing arm made profits of £144m in 2023, when the railway was still beset by strikes over frozen pay and passengers faced widespread cancellations and fare rises of almost 6%.