THE latest detour in the bizarre world of rail privatisation suggests that our rail network is no longer primarily concerned with shuttling passengers safely from A to B, but is more interested in shuttling vast sums of money from the taxpayer directly to a private company.
After the fiasco of Railtrack's slide into administration, it was thought that the railways' image could get no worse. But the sight of Virgin being compensated for delivering poor services, when coupled to last week's announcement that rail fares may go up to stop people travelling when they want to, will only make the image worse.
The £100m compensation should not be going to Virgin, but should be invested in the rail network to improve the services Virgin offers to its fare-paying passengers.
But it would be wrong to see Virgin solely as the greedy villain of this particular piece. Virgin has invested in bringing modern, faster trains to the network - which all passengers want - but those trains won't be running at 125mph until October 2003. They may never be able to reach their full potential of 140mph. This is because of the state of the rail infrastructure.
It looks like Virgin has gone to the expense of buying a 100 watt bulb to increase brightness, but will have to make do with just 60 watts shining out of it because that is all the electricity company can provide. Virgin has been let down.
And all of this in the country which gave the concept of passenger railways to the world.
It is only possible to lament our railways' failings and hope that the Government shows more vision than it has in the past when Railtrack's successor, Network Rail, starts operating.
And a final point. If the Tories really want to win back the nation's confidence, they should take a vow of silence on this issue. Yesterday shadow transport spokesman Theresa May was complaining that Network Rail wouldn't have shareholders and so the taxpayer will have to fund future compensation issues.
While the Government might not have impressed in its handling of the railways, it is still trying to clear up the botched brainchild of the previous administration.
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