East Coast line bailout puts rail privatisation back in spotlight

For the third time in a decade, an East Coast rail franchise operator has shown little of the financial prudence once associated with the great cities linked by its trains from London to Yorkshire and Scotland.Following the failures of GNER in 2007 and National Express in 2009, Virgin Trains East Coast has run out of steam, with the government declaring a financial covenant breached and the contract set to fail in months.In 2013, when bidding started, East Coast was nationalised, run by Directly