Morning:
8°c
If National Express were forced into the arms of FirstGroup or were to opt for a defensive merger with one of the other big five British train companies, it would be vindication for all those who criticised the great 1990s sell-off of the railways.
The privatisation of British Rail has taught us several things.
We know the private sector has made a lot of money out of the railways, both by foxing the Department for Transport into giving them generous franchise agreements and subsidies, and by riding the economic boom and the growth in train use. We know the train bosses have been minting it - routinely being paid £1 million a year - and that City shareholders have enjoyed fat dividend cheques.
And we know that at the first sign of economic problems, the train companies go running to the Treasury for handouts.
We have also learned that competition does not work, and that the railways are as regulated as they ever were.
If the big five players - the other three are Stagecoach/Virgin, Go-Ahead and Arriva - all start to merge with each other, the argument for a national train operating company begins to make sense.
You could add to that control of the tracks and the signals and the stations - currently called Network Rail and effectively owned by you the taxpayer - to eliminate wasteful intra-industry disputes. And you could also merge in the engine-buying companies, currently run by profiteering banks.
You could call the resulting entity British Rail.
