Privatisation, while mishandled, saved the industry from terminal decline and was, on balance, a success: while rail travel stagnated between 1952 and 1995, it surged as soon as John Major broke up and sold off British Rail. Passenger traffic is now back at levels not seen since the Twenties, having increased by 98.2 per cent since privatisation, even though today’s network is far smaller. But it is also clear that privatisation was badly botched. Subsidies were baked into the system: while voters didn’t object when the railways were in public ownership, they were furious to see private firms cashing in, and soon came to blame them, wrongly, for problems inherited from the past. The handouts made it harder to justify profits, dividends and executives’ pay; those who provide capital need to be rewarded, of course, but the public was in no mood to listen.