In what struck me as one of the least persuasively argued letters ever to have appeared in The Times, Lord Jones of Birmingham — a title masking the identity of former CBI head honcho Digby Jones — last week praised privatisation for a new spirit of competition he claimed it had brought to the railways. He cited an example of this (he would be very hard pushed to find others) in his newcomer ‘local’ line linking Birmingham with London. Open mouthed in admiration, it seemed, he wrote of Chiltern Railways ’ having provided “a cheaper, more reliable alternative to the West Coast Main Line service from Birmingham to London”. He went on: “It uses a route which had to be reconstructed after the ravages of Beeching, it had to fight for passengers from a standing start and it has gone up against ‘BransonRail’ every day of its existence.”

All this, he argued, would not have happened “without privatisation, without private sector vision, investment and the assessment of risk”.

To which I can only say, with suitably contemptuous tone, “Oh yeah . . .”

Jones, I feel pretty confident, knows the facts about the Chiltern line that are missing from his letter. But if he does not, let me direct him to Wikipedia’s entry on Network SouthEast, a business division of — yes, good old British Rail — which used to operate along the route into the 1990s. This points out that in those days of public ownership — that’s you and me, folks — the line underwent a “total route modernisation”, an ambitious plan to bring it into a new era of rail travel. (You’ll note how Jones implied that the reconstruction after Beeching had been the work of the private sector.) Class 115 trains were replaced by new state-of-the-art Class 165s. Semaphore signals were replaced by standard colour light signals and Automatic Train Protection was fitted on the line and trains.

Stations were refurbished and even reconstructed (£10m was spent on stations alone), and signal boxes and the freight depots/sidings were demolished.

“This was a massive undertaking,” says Wikipedia. “Work began in 1988 and by 1992, the route had been completely modernised, demand for the service had grown considerably and the route had become profitable [my italics].”

And then in 1996 all this was taken from us at privatisation.

This is an act, incidentally, for which Margaret Thatcher is often blamed — indeed, was again in a lead letter that went uncorrected in the Daily Telegraph last week. In fact, she considered rail to be a privatisation too far: her weaker successor John Major was prevailed upon to do it. This ought not to be forgotten at a time when he is being praised for policies said to have laid the groundwork for Britain’s Olympic success.

As it is a fact so widely known, it scarcely needs pointing out that the post-privatised railways cost shedloads more than they did before. Lots of the loot goes into the pockets of Jones’s fellow business types, who can cash in even on failure, or to lawyers picking their way through the thickets of contractual bureaucracy created by the nonsense. I note that Jones was a lawyer for the first 20 years of his career.

That Chiltern Railways makes money is not surprising, given the earlier investment. Its success in providing a prompt and regular service is easy to understand, too, since its trains shuttle backwards and forwards along what can almost be considered dedicated tracks, with little risk of delay caused by other traffic movements.

Their trains are certainly comfortable, as I discovered last week on my first use of Chiltern Railways as it operates into Stratford-upon-Avon.

I was there to review a play at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and, in the knowledge that the show was short, I decided to round off the evening (it was my birthday) with dinner in the town. With wine, of course — which led to the decision over transport. Though I have travelled to Stratford a number of times by train, on steam specials principally, this was my first trip on a scheduled service. There was a Cross Country train to Banbury on the way, with a change to Chiltern for the rest of the journey.

After a first-class dinner at the One Elm (sister operation to, among other pubs, The Fishes at North Hinskey), we caught the 11.15pm train home, Chiltern Railways all the way. From Leamington Spa, we found ourselves completely alone in a four-car train. Quite a contrast, I thought, to the sardine-can-like trips I have endured with First Great Western from London. But hardly buoyant business for Chiltern Railways. . .