Lessons of the past

It is galling to think that, while Paris took action decades ago to build its RER suburban rail network directly through the city, London intercity and suburban rail lines still terminate on the periphery of the city centre.

Were it not for the opening up of the Post Office's old Snow Hill mail train tunnel in the 1980s, it would still be impossible to reach Brighton from north of London without changing and navigating the Tube system to a south London terminus.

Expansion of our railways is the key to safer and environmentally sounder travel - a reality apparent to much of the rest of Europe long before it dawned on Britain's politicians.

It is not even a left-right political issue in other European states. French right-wing parties were able to see that improved public transport and subsidised Metro fares were as much a boon to employers in Paris as they were to workers.

Unfortunately, the left-right political consensus in Britain took its lead from the roads and private car lobbies from the 1950s onwards.

Lord Beeching's cost-cutting "surgery" to the rail network cut off many rural and suburban areas, with branch lines removed, making it impossible for many people to make essential journeys wholly by train.

The Beeching death by a thousand cuts for the railways dovetailed with huge government investment in motorways and a vast expansion of private ownership of cars.

Rail was portrayed as an outdated means of travel, while the freedom of the open road was touted as the ultimate liberty.

It is only since the reality of clogged cities, overcrowded motorways, exhaust emissions and air pollution that the railways have been seen once more as the safer, cleaner choice.

They should also be seen as the cheaper option, but, unfortunately, because of the train operating companies' barmy fares system, supported by government confusion and timidity, that is not always the case.

The government subsidises environmentally damaging short-haul flights by exempting aviation fuel from VAT and fuel duty and it also refuses to tax airlines for unfilled seats.

This brings about the farcical situation of many flights from Scotland to Wales or England being cheaper than the rail equivalent.

If this country brought in similar rail pricing as operates in Belgium, based on milage, and made the airlines pay the full cost of operation, the current skewed equation could be rectified.

However, in discussing transport, it is impossible to ignore the elephant sitting in the corner of the room, which is the fragmented nature of the rail industry and its ownership by profits-dictated private companies.

Three-quarters of the people are firmly in favour of taking the railways back into public ownership and only the hidebound political conservatism of the government holds it back from this eminently sensible action.

Crossrail and a high-speed, north-south rail service should mark the expansion of a publicly owned, modern, efficient, safe and clean network that exists to provide service, not dividends for City parasites.