Simon Jenkins’ overview
“The truth is that railways, since their pseudo-privatisation in the mid-Nineties, have been consuming subsidy at five times the rate they did when nationalised.
“They take 20 times more bureaucrats to oversee them, while fares have risen to as much as ten times the European average. Rail oversight has been one of the great failures of modern British government – without a word of inquiry or remorse.
“Service quality is at the mercy not of professional managers, but of passing politicians with no knowledge of transport economics, besieged by company lawyers, the Office of Rail Regulation and the Health and Safety Executive.
