Rail franchise ‘fiasco’ analysis slates DfT and calls for rail nationalisation

The Government’s decision to re-start the West Coast rail franchising process led to harsh criticism of the DfT and widespread calls for at least some of the rail network to be taken back into public ownership.

12 October 2012

Evening Standard commentator Anthony Hilton was adamant that the blame for the rail franchising debacle lay with “the free-market purists on the Tory back benches”, while The Times’ leader writer blamed the fact that “second-tier civil servants” had apparently been left in charge of the process

The Government's decision to re-start the bidding process for the West Coast rail franchise provoked undisguised fury from many of the media’s leading political and transport commentators. “Not for the first time, the Department for Transport has been exposed as a complete and utter shambles,” Alistair Osborne, business editor at The Daily Telegraph, said on 3 October. “The transport department was duty-bound to price the risk [of the franchisee defaulting towards the...