Bring back Railtrack

Saturday, 3rd July 2004

Tom Winsor, the Rail Regulator, tells Boris Johnson why he has hopes for a privatised future — in spite of unwarranted political intervention

Winsor himself agrees that Network Rail is seriously inefficient, and has demanded savings of 31 per cent; but he does not believe that in the long term these arrangements can give the taxpayer the value he deserves. And that leads him to a surprising conclusion. ‘What I predict is that in a few years’ time Network Rail will be converted back into a private company. It will go back to being a plc, and you would thereby restore the discipline of equity. People behave more efficiently when they are looking at the loss of their own money.’

Really? I exclaim. You mean there’ll be Railtrack Mark Two? Surely the City won’t touch it, not after what Byers did to Railtrack? ‘It won’t happen immediately, but I expect it will happen if there is a change of government.’

Bring back Railtrack, eh? Well, I won’t mind, not least since one of my proudest possessions is a Railtrack tie, nice, colourful, 100 per cent polyester and wholly soup-repellent. As I take my leave from Winsor, I find it impossible to blame him for the nation’s millions of wasted minutes on the platform.

I blame Byers and Prescott and Blair, for their bungling and interference. As I recover my bicycle outside his office, I remember the denouement of that awful night when we went to Wolverhampton by way of Beachy Head. When I got back to Marylebone, I found a poor bike skeleton, with both wheels nicked. Trains, cars, tubes, bikes. What’s left in Blair’s Britain? I was going to suggest horses, except that the equestrian industry will probably be half-destroyed by his odious ban on hunting.