The death throes of franchising are not a pretty sight. That the present model is dead was effectively confirmed by Keith Williams, who is undertaking the rail review, in his Bradshaw address when he said: ‘Put bluntly franchising cannot continue in the way that it is today. It is no longer delivering clear benefits for either taxpayers or farepayers’. The main problem is what to do with those coming...

Of all the stupid decisions that successive governments have made about the railways over the past quarter of a century, few will have as long an impact as the decision to rein back on the electrification programme. This is daft in so many respects. Electric trains are cheaper to run, use less energy, have better acceleration, are popular with passengers, can be run on a zero carbon basis provided...

It seemed such a simple job. The Barking – Gospel Oak line was becoming so heavily used both by passengers and freight that upgrading and electrification was clearly needed. After much prevarication and pressure from the local user group, the need for major improvement was finally recognised in 2013 but now, six years later, the passengers are still waiting for their shiny new electric trains, hundreds of millions of...