Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

The end of the line for the rail franchise fiasco

iStock 
issue 26 September 2020

Good riddance to the passenger rail franchise system which has finally been killed off by Covid, though a majority of the travelling public might say it should long ago have been put out of its — and, more pertinently, their — misery. The complex scheme to privatise British Rail launched by the Major government in 1993 defied those who said it couldn’t be done and was designed by the Treasury to maximise proceeds to itself.

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