THERE are a lot of promises wrapped up in this week’s handover of the East Coast rail franchise to a private consortium led by Stagecoach and Virgin.

The Government says we will see a “transformation” of the service, with £140m investment, 65 new trains being assembled by Hitachi at Newton Aycliffe, and the first ever direct links to Middlesbrough and Thornaby from London, albeit not for another five years.

But, behind those promises, lie a number of concerns about whether the re-privatisation of the line is more about political dogma than what is really best for rail passengers.

The £3.3bn offered for the franchise by Stagecoach and Virgin will ultimately come from rail users who pay the fares, and in that context a £140m investment doesn’t really look that enticing.

Further context is added by the fact that the publicly-run Directly Operated Railways (DOR) had made rather a good fist of running the East Coast Main Line, having returned £1bn to taxpayers since taking over from National Express in 2009.

We should not forget that National Express – and GNER before that – had fared far less impressively, handing back the franchise early, having failed to live up to their promises.

It really does seem to come down to politics, and putting the prized franchise for the rail service into private hands in advance of next year’s general election.

Privatisation, after all, stimulates competition in the market and that will surely benefit fare-payers in the long run.

But it is hard to swallow that argument when Richard Branson now runs not only the West Coast Main Line, but has a large stake in the East Coast Main Line as well.

Not for the first time, he has secured himself a very good deal. Time will tell whether the promises are delivered for commuters.