The railways were in decline in every way before privitization, it had next to no public investment, cost the government £1,5 Billion per year, passenger levels were plummeting. Now the railways get £3 Billion per year from the companies, passenger numbers are on the increase every year, not to mention the massive affect it would have on the freight industry if the railways went private again.

I'm not saying franchising is perfect, far from it, but one company has started to make money, pay it back and get a good service, maybe they should be the template for what the industry should work from. And now they are working on a more transparent bidding process so that companies like First Group and National Express can't pull figures from thin air to achieve a contract they can't deliver on.

This happens in all spheres now. Local authorities though public bodies outsource just about everything to private companies. My wife works as a school secretary and over the years she has done the job more and more stuff has been outsourced and the council provides less and less direct support for schools such as maintenance, refuse collection and so on.

This requires less council staff so the wage bill drops and the council can point to how efficient they are. What they don't tell you is the huge amount of waste as in wasted money working this way results in. No one in the council has a real handle on the costs because they are spread across so many suppliers. The people in my wife's position now have to organize the work she would normally just have called the maintenance department to fix for example.

It is now down to the efforts of all the individual staff like my wife to ensure they are not being ripped off and get the best deal. My wife does do this as she comes from a public service background where councils spent money in a very guarded way but I know for a fact most people in her situation either don't give a toss or have not got the time to do it. It is far easier just to pay the invoice then chase incorrect amounts or whatever.

The end result is councils are cash cows for private companies and it costs us all more.

Spot on.

Agree on that.

Even I think taking back ownership of the railways is a reasonable idea, so long as we don't go back to the old British Rail days of late, old, uncomfortable trains, with no facilities, no investment and total disinterest from rude and incompetent staff.

Hate Northern Rail with a passion, but it has to be said, their trains are by and large on time, even if they are old, smelly, too small and garish looking. They're the rail equivalent of the local council.

Virgin Trains have shown how train travel should be done. After a shaky start, they're now pretty much always on time. They've introduced pendolinos, shortened journey times and added excellent customer service into the mix. Trouble is, they're bloody dear unless you book three months in advance.

No, if we're going to renationalise the railways, then nothing less than the standards you get with SNCF in France will do. But even that's not perfect. Their TGVs make a lot of money, but most of that profit, plus a lot of public money, is diverted into their regional services that lose silly amounts.

And then you have the problem that rail travel isn't always massively convenient. It's great if you live in towns and cities, as you can walk to the stations, it's no good for those who live in the suburbs or in rural locations. Surely there needs to be a massive programme of station building out of town, with lots of car parking available, so people can drive to their nearest station, and get the train the rest of the way? I'd certainly do that, especially if the cost of parking was modest, and added to the cost of the rail ticket, and even better if a nationwide Oyster-style system was implemented.

If the government wanted the railways, they'd take them back, but I'm sure that successive politicians have looked at the books, and looked at the kind of investment that would be needed, and shut the book very quickly.

The sad fact is it will probably take 30 years or more of solid investment to turn the railways into a proud network that is modern, on time, fast, convenient, frequent, fare-dodger proof and reasonably priced. Even if the country had the money, what government is going to instigate this kind of project, with it in the back of their minds that the 'other party' might cancel this investment when they get in power?

No they were not, they had been largely sorted out, just in time to sell them off BTW.

Sorted out? How?

Apart from being divided into "sections", ready for those sections to be taken over by private companies, I don't see how.

I can't help but notice that my ticket from Leeds to Birmingham on the 8.11 on Monday morning has just arrived priced at £53.

The last time I used the service about six months ago, and previous to that, the price was always around £41, same service, same operator, same time train.

Thats not a bad price increase to get away with and I'll bet my seat is occupied again.

Just booked a Hull/London KX return.
Still only £20 when booked in advance and prepared to travel off peak.

Doesn't matter what time you book the Leeds/Brum route, its the same price, even the 03.15 train is the same price (and I'm NOT getting up that early).

The other thing thats tweaking my tail is that my usual hotel is fully booked because the Conservative Party Conference is in town next week - bloody good news that is, my train arrives in Leeds from Darlington which means it'll be full of North Yorkshire landowners in tweed on their way to cheer on Panface - I'm having to stay in a poxy Travel Lodge out of town which has 83 reviews on Trip Advisor the best of which says "I suppose it was ok", look out for my Facebook updates on Monday