Today rail fares are going up (by much more than inflation) as they always do at this time of year. Rail travel in the UK is some 30% more expensive than in neighbouring continental Europe, a legacy of decades of under investment by both Labour and Tory governments. We still travel to London on slam door trains which you have to open from the outside after lowering the door window. Our railway infrastructure is shabby as well as expensive. You try finding a seat on a train from Reading to Paddington between 7:00 and 9:00 on a weekday morning.

In 1997 the new Labour government had the choice of halting privatisation (one of the last acts of the previous Tory administration) or letting it run. It chose the latter and allowed a botched process to carve up the old British Rail empire and make millions for private investors at the expense of the travelling public.

Fifteen years on and with subsidies reducing every year, the train operators are still charging the highest fares in Europe and raising them every year. Yes we can finally see signs of improvement beginning to take shape at Reading station and in three or four years time we may actually see more trains, newer trains and a system that can cope with the numbers of passengers that use it. The sad fact is that it is passengers who will be paying for it all through increased fares.

I have been a regular commuter to London from Reading for many years and yes the timekeeping has improved over those years but we still travelling on trains that were old when I started commuting, most are more than 30 years old today, and rush hour travel is anything but comfortable when you are standing in the aisle for 30 minutes.

I look forward the new Reading station and electric trains on the First Great Western and I also realise that the country’s economic situation precludes any major increase in fare subsidy just now but if we are ever to travel at reasonable costs to get to and from work and get more people out of their cars, then future governments will have to produce more subsidies if trains are going to take the strain.