Public v private: what next for the ownership of Britain's railways?

Nicola Shaw’s review, published next week, looks set to shake up the structure of railway ownership and bring back the privatisation v nationalisation debateThe man charged with being the voice of rail passengers is peering over a locked gate to an empty platform at Alton station in Hampshire, now the end of the branch line.In the 1970s, the track onwards to Winchester was deemed surplus to requirements and closed by British Rail; today, when the industry is clamouring for more capacity, t