'WHETHER it is part of a franchise change or fleet rebranding our rail refurbishment services can suit your needs.' 

So runs an advert on the website of a graphics firm which specialises in giving railway rolling stock a fresh coat of paint.

These types of businesses are among the big winners to emerge from the rail franchising programme. No sooner have they coated a County Durham-built Azuma model in Virgin livery, for example, than the operator changes hands and a new paint job is required. Some of the rattling old HSTs still in service on the network must have had so many coats of paint down the years it is a wonder they can fit through a tunnel.

Every rail passenger has a view on what’s wrong with our trains. Most  are infuriated by carriages that are fit to burst and rip-off ticket prices which means a standard class single on tomorrow’s 7.03am Darlington to King’s Cross will cost you £146.50. 

Britain’s nationalised railway became regarded as a national joke. Privatisation, and the franchising system whereby foreign-owned nationalised operators and billionaire balloonists took control of our railway and made huge fortunes out of British passengers, was supposed to deliver competition, value and reliability. Really? The East Coast trains change their look more often than Dr Who yet we continue to endure old, overcrowded, overpriced services. We are told that this is the best way to run one of the country’s most important national assets.

Too many debates nowadays descend into boring binary shouting matches where neither side listens to the other - Leave v Remain, privatisation v nationalisation... The railway was one of the great unifying forces of modern Britain. It is something we all still have a vested interest in and finding a system which doesn’t simply hand bucketloads of cash to fat cat investors and paint firms but delivers a reasonably priced, reliable service can’t be beyond the wit of the nation that invented the passenger railway.

Privatisation has failed the rail passenger. A greater degree of national control seems a sensible way forward.