a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWKMqpzd_4NcqXYpKcskDw91lF90T46e_weMLK3PKJlevLPROm4rA_qd4CMwKZ0T9d0nB5Epg5o9XmGOygxHhAguvZv50WtysD0ratY22mH9oRuMV7L56objGtyN_j-2EO5TZUAaxpo_Da/s1600-h/nationalexpress.jpg"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353624724490910226" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 319px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 131px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWKMqpzd_4NcqXYpKcskDw91lF90T46e_weMLK3PKJlevLPROm4rA_qd4CMwKZ0T9d0nB5Epg5o9XmGOygxHhAguvZv50WtysD0ratY22mH9oRuMV7L56objGtyN_j-2EO5TZUAaxpo_Da/s320/nationalexpress.jpg" border="0" //aIt is no great surprise to see a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jul/01/national-express-london-to-edinburgh"National Express/a handing back the East Coast Main Line franchise.br /br /British railway companies stopped making profits around 1914, yet they were supposed to raise enough from the line to satisfy their shareholders and pay £1.4bn to the government over the next seven-and-a-half years.br /br /I doubt that National Express will be the last company to find there is no future in the privatised railway business.br /br /It is not as if the private railway feels more free. Quite the reverse.br /br /Ever since privatisation railway stations have been festooned with notices warning the companies' customers about their behaviour and threatening them with all sorts of penalties and reprisals if they think they can pay for the company's services on the train.br /br /This is partly the result of giving a private company an effective monopoly and partly because those companies are desperate to raise money to pay the government and their shareholders.br /br /Then this position is overlaid with New Labour's target culture. Never mind if you give your customers a good service, just make sure you meet the centrally decided target.br /br /Which is why this evening it was announced at Leicester that the train I was waiting for would not call at Market Harborough, as advertised, but run not-stop to St Pancras instead. Sod the customers. Just make sure you meet the government target.br /br /All of which explains why the privatised railway has taken far more public money than British Rail ever did, yet has in many ways less concern for its passengers than the nationalised railway did.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6606798-7219836707103543155?l=liberalengland.blogspot.com'//div
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