The end of the line for the rail franchise fiasco

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. In doing so, it fractured the industry into a myriad of separate owners, operators and service providers that rarely worked in harmony or created competition for the benefit of users.

The consequences of this structural fiasco were as random as they were unsatisfactory. Unintended fortunes were conferred on owners of obscure rolling-stock leasing companies. Railtrack, the company created to own lines, land and stations, was confiscated by the Labour government. The whole system was perpetually hobbled by contract disputes.