I’ve been arguing for some years that (re)nationalisation should be put back on the policy agenda. The starting point is in reversing obviously failed privatisations, such as that of British Rail. Following the replacement of the private Railtrack company (which owned the network) by the quasi-public Network Rail The Guardian reports the partial renationalisation of track maintenance. More precisely, Network Rail has sacked the private contractors who were doing this job on one of the most accident-prone stretches of track and taken it back in-house.

Network Rail’s announcement was the latest in a series of moves to increase central control over the railways, prompting suggestions of “creeping renationalisation”. In November the strategic rail authority announced that train operators would be moved on to shorter, stricter franchises.

The privatisation of maintenance was at the centre of Ken Loach’s great film The Navigators, which I reviewed for the Canberra Times (my only venture into film reviewing so far). In the review, which is available at Australian Policy Online, I observed

The tendency to shave safety margins an ever-present feature of the privatisation process. It reflects a shift of power from engineers to accountants, and more generally from a production objective to a profit objective.

APO has lots more good stuff and a very nice-looking site.