CW is an expert on railways and when he speaks you can usually assume it's far closer to the truth than the govt would like to admit.

The biggest pretence, though, is that Network Rail is viable. There's a very simple way to refute that. Network Rail's debt has risen from the £9bn it inherited at its creation in 2002 to over £20bn now and that is set to rise to a staggering £31.5bn by the end of the next control period in 2014. While we are all used to talking about billions these days, that is a staggering sum. In other words, before a single train moves, by the middle of the next decade, Network Rail will require, on the entirely predictable assumption that interest rates rise again, around £1.7bn to service its debt each year. And that is likely to keep on growing.

 These figures show that the entire income from franchising will soon go towards servicing Network Rail's debt. In other words, all Network Rail's other costs - operations, maintenance, renewal and expansion - will have to come from government subsidies, apart from a few bits and pieces like property income and freight payments.

 That is completely unsustainable. First, there is the risk that the debt will eventually get onto government books, and frankly, given his golden rules have been thrown out of the window, who would give a damn. Secondly, the government has made clear that it wants the railway to be more self-financing. Will this include a requirement to start paying back this debt? If so, then passengers are in for a real hammering as fares will be forced up dramatically. And it that is not the case, what is the long term expectation of what will happen to this debt?