End of the line: Abellio is replacing all its trains

Dutch politicians have raised the alarm over a bidding spree for UK rail franchises by the country’s state-owned transport giant — amid fears that Holland’s taxpayers face huge potential losses.

Abellio won the Greater Anglia franchise in 2016 with a promise to pay the British government £3.7bn in premiums for the right to run the line between London and Norwich for nine years.

Other state-owned transport giants including Germany’s Deutsche Bahn and France’s Keolis have bid aggressively for UK rail routes in recent years.

Abellio’s bid for Greater Anglia is thought to have been based on passenger revenues growing by between 7% and 10% every year, but accounts just published at Companies House show revenues grew by just 3.6% in the route’s first six months