So there we have it. The Williams-Shapps has finally arrived and tells us in black and white what many of us knew was wrong with the railways – the style of privatisation adopted in the 1990s was flawed, and the fare-paying passenger was never at the heart of anyone’s thinking.
The solution is the creation of Great British Railways, which from 2023 will oversee the infrastructure, award contracts for train operations, set fares and collect most of the revenue. Pity it took so long to realise past mistakes, but now is not the time for the blame game.