IN RESPONSE to Richard J Szypulski’s letter (The Argus, December 9), in the past 60 years, various governments have not been friendly towards the British rail network, each using it as a political football.

The reason why nationalisation of the railways was not a success is because of gov-ernment interference with finance and operations.

But even this is 100% better than the mess privatisation has left the railways in today.

Under Labour governments of the 1960s and 1970s, lack of investment was the order of the day. We then had Mr Beecham who decimated the network by nearly 50%.

Then Maggie Thatcher was so anti-railway she considered turning all railway lines into roads. She also stopped the wholesale electrification of the railways.

John Major’s government, with its botched privatisation plans, stopped the development of the high-speed rail network going further north than London.

But turning the clock back and privatising railways into regional networks would again stop any future development of the rail network.

The French have proved a public rail network supported by central government is the only way to run a successful service and have now taken over from the British – who invented and built the first railway lines – as the innovators of the future of railways.

James Greed, Wheatfield Way, Moulsecoomb