I have maintained from the very first that the way that Majors' Government 'pirvatised' the railways was farcical to say the least.

The railways are NOT private, everything is still in the public sector operated on the basis of a franchise with TOO many companies involved and I am surprised there have not been more accidents.

Whilst I am not in favour of 'Re-nationalisation' unless the situation is sorted along the lines of 1923-1947, when we had FIVE companies, things could go from bad to worse.

And for those who are not familiar with that period EACH railway company OWNED EVERYTHING, buildings, track, locomotives, rolling stock, vehicles, property, workshops and even sometimes BUILT what they needed themselves - they took FULL responsibility for what went on.

Railwaymen and others who go on about BR's 'botched privatisation' would do well to compare it with the privatisations of the time which *did* work; BAA and BT, two businesses which can be compared with Network Rail in their economics, and BA, whose economic structure could be compared with a TOC.

The difference? These businesses don't need subsidy, except at the margins (HIAL comes to mind). The railways need subsidy at the core, because their costs are out of all proportion to what people are able to pay for their services. That is why the privatisation of what is essentially a loss-making monopoly, did not work.

#1 - same old excuses from who I assume is a Labour supporter, always blame the previous Government. HOWEVER Labour have been in power for 10 years and that excuse is wearing very thin. They have had ample time to do something about the state of the railways, NHS and so on, despite all this time having elapsed, have they done anything and has anything improved - NO. He also seems to forget that at the end of 1947 the railways had had no investment for about 10 years and were in a completly run down state that something had to be drastically done. So 'sorting' it along the lines of 23-47 is going to work how?