I did work experience for the HSE and was shocked to find that the Potters Bar crash happened because of poor maintenance, subcontracted to unqualified people.

Sara Dona, Leeds

Bring it back please.

Jane Baghori, Bristol

Why subsidise parasitic bosses when you can subsidise what are supposed to be the public services they sit on?

Thomas West

I’m with you.

Edwin Robinson, Doncaster

My anxiety is through the roof because of constant delays. I’ve missed important work meetings, weddings and holidays and pay through the nose for it.

Emma Jackson, Brighton

The railways should serve the people, not Network Rail directors.

Ray Watson, Westerham

A nationalised railway is run for people. All profit should be ploughed back into improving the service.

Joan George, Beaconsfield

Rail privatisation has been a gravy train for incompetent private companies. The chaos of it is staggering. Other national railways are walking off with profits from us.

Bernard Freudenthal, London

I can hear my two great grandfathers, grandfather and great uncle (all dedicated railway men) turning in their graves – they took such pride in their work.

Peggy Clatworthy, Gloucester

All utilities needed by the nation should be owned by the nation and run for the nation, not for profit.

Steve Beesley, Leeds

It costs almost £150 to get from Manchester to see family in Devon. It’s cheaper to fly to Paris. What a joke.

Sam Wahnon, Manchester

The Secretary of State signed off the NRCoC, which means train companies are exempt from general consumer protection because of the ministerial involvement.

Jocelyn Peacock, London

Prices go up, service goes down. Welcome to the private sector!

Barry Woolgar, Bristol

Travellers from abroad criticise our rail system far too regularly for us to tolerate the current structure.

Charles Lockwood, Newark

Privatisation is an utter shambles.

Ian Walker, Milton Keynes

I am so angered by the blatant profiteering of the train operating companies and the obvious inefficiencies created by privatisation.

Henry Saville, Wallasey

Actually, I have lived in Norway for 37 years and the railways here are still (almost entirely) publicly owned and are very good.

Charles Andrew Rose, London

Privatisation has been a total mess, providing a second class service and extortionate fares.

Lewys Hall, Nottingham

I am a poet and satirist who wants to bite into the hotch-potch of money-grabbing rail companies.

Ian Allan, Margate

Privatisation is a modern disgrace.

Graham Kingdon, Truro

Good public transport is a right not a privilege. Get rid of the fat cat shareholders who take no risks but get all the profits. Privatisation has failed.

Peter Kolodziej, London

Train services are too complex and overpriced and the service is certainly no better than BR was.

A Meredith, London

We have the most expensive railway system in the world. Why? Because of the massively poorly thought-through privatisation by the Tory government and greed.

Piet Biesheuvel, Bristol

Service or business, profit or loss, transport/communication is wonderful but at present only the elite can enjoy the benefits.

Paul Tunney, Birmingham

Railways in countries many times the size of Britain, considered to be ‘developing’, are unified and run primarily to serve the public, People before profit, please.

Wilson Smeaton, Wooler

Public transport should be a service, not a cash cow.

Douglas Raith, Edinburgh

Privatisation of the railways was ideology triumphing over common sense.

Anthony Frewin, St Albans

Let’s make our rail networks as good as those in Europe and not charge the earth for them. Nationalise.

Karn Purvis, Bishop’s Stortford

All utilities, mail etc. education, services, transport should be apolitical and not run for private profit.

Antony Hearmon, London