Let the rail firms run under their own steam

Times Online - Towards the end of the last century, before the privatisation of our railways, I wrote a sorrowful column about the neglect by British Rail of the cross-country traveller. Commuters make up the bulk of passenger travel, but for ordinary families away from the metropolis, travelling between places in the regions and home counties (especially at weekends) is their principal experience of trains. So when a private company took the CrossCountry franchise and more recently acquired some spacious seven-car, refurbished InterCity 125s, there seemed some hope.