Norman Baker says the privatisation of railways was handled badly (Picture: Getty)

Train lines should never have been privatised in the way they were, the rail minister has told Metro.

The railways would have been better off in state hands than under the regime introduced in the 1990s, Norman Baker said.

The surprising comment comes as several rail franchises are ending and the East Coast Main Line is due to be reprivatised after making £600million during four years in government control. But Mr Baker stressed nationalising railways now would be expensive and unnecessary.

The Lib Dem said: ‘I wouldn’t have privatised the railways in the way they were privatised in the 1990s and it took a long time to sort it out.




‘We had the creation of Railtrack, which I think was a basket case. It did quite a lot of damage to the railways but slowly over the past ten years, we have sorted it out and the railways are in a much better state organisationally than before.’

However, RMT union leader Bob Crow countered: ‘It would cost nothing if he renationalised piece-by-piece as contracts ended. We’d save 30 per cent by not paying out profits, dividends and subsidies.’ The

Association of Train Operating Companies said passenger journeys were at a record high.

It disputed Metro’s headline yesterday that rail profits were ‘soaring’, saying average margins had fallen from 4.1 per cent to 2.9 per cent since 2007-8. The department of transport also expects a net gain from train companies of £759million this year.