NO ONE was too surprised by the news, announced on September 17th, that train delays over the past 12 months had been the worst for 12 years. Most people could forgive the havoc wrought by the “Beast from the East”, a storm that blitzed the country in February and March. Less forgivable was the virtual collapse of hundreds of services after the botched introduction of a new timetable in May. On September 20th the Office of Rail and Road, the industry’s regulator, issued a damning report on the causes of the chaos, blaming a lack of “responsibility and accountability” throughout the system. It followed other recent fiascos, such as the renationalisation in May of the East Coast Mainline, after its operator, Virgin East Coast, ran out of money.

So this week the embattled transport secretary, Chris Grayling, ordered a big review of the rail industry. It is expected to last a year, under the chairmanship of Keith Williams, a former boss of British Airways and deputy chairman of John Lewis, a department store. The government billed it as the most significant rail review in decades.

It will be closely watched, for the railways have become one of the most politically charged public services. Privatised by the Tories in the mid-1990s, they are now the prime target in the Labour Party’s campaign to roll forward the frontiers of the state again. Labour has seized upon recent failures to argue for the wholesale renationalisation of the railways. Such is the despair with the service that some 60% of people agree with the idea.

Privatisation has yielded plenty of successes. Passenger numbers have more than doubled since it got under way, despite a recent dip. Private investment in the railways over the past decade has come to £5.6bn ($7.4bn). Safety is a lot better than in the past, and compares well with other countries. Five years ago a study by the EU found British passengers to be the second-most satisfied in Europe.

But even defenders of railway privatisation concede that the model chosen in the 1990s has not worked well. The industry was split into two distinct parts. Private companies, such as Virgin, bid for franchises to operate passenger services, for about seven years at a time. The ageing track, however, was vested in a separate body, initially privately held under the name Railtrack, now publicly owned and known as Network Rail.

The problem, as one former boss of a rail franchise attests, is that the objectives and interests of the train operators and Network Rail are “mutually exclusive”. The operators’ priority is to increase passenger numbers and revenue. Network Rail, however, is the custodian of a largely Victorian bit of infrastructure, and its priority is to keep it running. If that means closing tracks for days to repair them, so be it.

Mr Williams’s review is therefore expected to focus on ways to bring the management of track and trains closer together. One way to do this might be to devolve power from Whitehall to regional partnerships of train and track operators. His report might also look at how to stimulate more competition. Big operators enjoy virtual monopolies on their lines. Having more “open access” operators—smaller, more nimble companies—would keep the big franchises on their toes. Whatever the review’s conclusions, however, the public will probably continue to favour the one option that it is unlikely to recommend.