But the Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling, has said he can't justify pumping more taxpayers money into the rail network until he's satisfied that costs are brought under control.

The money would have gone towards urgently-needed maintenance and improvement work.

Network Rail, which manages the UK's track and stations, had asked for �24.5bn, after drastically cutting its original estimate of �35bn.

Would the extra funding be enough to ensure a punctual and reliable rail network? Should the taxpayer pick up the bill?

This debate is now closed. Read a selection of your comments below.

The comments published reflect the balance of views received:

Please stop them calling maintenance costs "investment"! It's that kind of distorted terminology that allows these people to get away with cutting back on what should be essential expenditure. "Investment" is only made when they expect financial return on what's spent.
Ray G, England

What is needed is public sector ownership but with private sector ethos Karl Peters, UK

What is needed is public sector ownership but with private sector ethos. That means keeping it ultimately answerable to the electorate but accepting that profit and efficiency aren't dirty words. BR was a model of waste - employing one person to sweep the platform while the flag waver stood idle, then the flag waver to wave the flag while the platform sweeper stood idle. Under BR there never seemed to be the same list of tired excuses "signal failure", "points failure", "failed train" that we hear now, because if a tree fell on a line the workers were on the site fast and cleared up quickly. Who knows - if a government transport body actually made an operating profit by means other than issuing speeding tickets to motorists the cash could be ploughed back into a better, cheaper service for everyone.
Karl Peters, UK

I don't think any taxpayers' money should go to the railways. They should survive on their own given the existing funds from travellers. This may mean we end up with a smaller network - but one that will be naturally sustainable. The government should instead invest much more in roads which have proved a much more efficient and economic way of travelling.
Christos, UK

Subcontracting railway maintenance is literally a recipe for disaste Andrew, UK

Two Tube derailments in two days! How many indicators does Alistair Darling need? Subcontracting railway maintenance is literally a recipe for disaster. The only solution is to go back to a centrally managed railway system employing tens of thousands of people to make sure it works properly. There isn't a single country with a railway worth beans that does it any other way.
Andrew, UK

The problem with the government and the companies running the privatised railways is that they are trying to increase passenger numbers at a time when they can't even manage the existing capacity. A lot of these extra journeys are probably wholly unnecessary, rather than simply taking commuter traffic off the roads and just as we are told to avoid unnecessary car journeys perhaps it is time to discourage unnecessary rail journeys. We may then be able to manage the service to the benefit of the existing customers. Seems the network is already at saturation and managing existing traffic should be the first priority. Transport, health and education were the three things this government was to be judged on. That judgement is going to be very soon.
Joe, UK

I'd prefer a turn-up-and-get-the-next-train-to-wherever-I'm-going-because-there-are-plenty-running-at-regular-intervals service to a "punctual" and "reliable" service, simply because having one train that leaves at precisely 8am and arrives at precisely 9am is not as useful as having a whole stack of trains about every 15 minutes that take about an hour. The latter can carry more people from A to B, and there isn't a rush as everyone goes for the same train at the same time.

As an example, look at the Heathrow Express - no-one has complaints about it. Yes, people pay a premium, but they get the service they want. Punctual and reliable might eventually mean that the train to Edinburgh runs only on a Thursday (on time and reliably), which would be less good than having one every few hours, all week.
JS, UK

The politicians and the public lack the will to bite the bullet Jon Brown, UK

In such a densely populated country you'd think that we could get a grip of public transport but it seems that both the politicians and the public lack the will to bite the bullet. All public transport needs to be brought under a centralised scheduling authority - private and public arguments don't even come into this, there has to be a body at the top to integrate the services otherwise everything after is potentially wasteful.
Jon Brown, UK

The money to invest in railways could be raised by taxing aviation fuel. That would redress the current imbalance in cost between air and rail travel.
Jane, Wales, UK

I am, as usual, disgusted by this government's reluctance to realise that it is the roads, not the railways, which need massive investment. It is no good trying to tax people out of their cars - its not working, we are simply paying an increased tax burden through the highest motoring charges in Europe which are impossible to avoid. This money was due to be spent on roads - used by far more people, and more importantly, more people prefer their cars to public transport.
Bill, UK

If this debate were about building vast amounts of new roads to get people moving through the usual gridlocked areas of the country, most people would be saying 'yes, throw money at it because we need to drive our cars'. Why not invest heavily in rail networks to get the country moving?
PG, Australia/ from UK

No - scrap the subsidies and raise the money through ticket increases. That way, the people who use the trains will pay for them.
Mike, UK

The railways are absolutely vital but before putting money into them, renationalise. We must buy back our own system even at incredible cost, then try to save it. The infinitely superior, nationalised European rail systems should be our model.
Peter F, England

Perhaps rail spending should only be funded where it represents a desiraable alternative to private transport e.g. commuting and inter-city services. Financing a poor and underused rural train network in addition to bus services seems to be wasteful and unfocused.
MB, UK

The problem is not the amount of funding but how it is used Matt, UK

The problem is not the amount of funding but how it is used. As long as the public sector is infected with private sector nihilism then the public will suffer at the hands of self-centred shareholders. The only incentive they have to improve services is if it happens to improve profits. What we need is all public services to be run by public spirited individuals.
Matt, UK

How can people in this day and age be so naive and idealistic as Matt. Without the drive for profit waste, inefficiency and complacency are everywhere. As for public spirited individuals running the show, I couldn't think of anything worse, lots of complete know it all busy bodies telling everyone what to do!
Asif, UK

Asif, UK - that's the theory, but look at the facts: 10 years ago I could take a train for very little and get where I wanted with very few delays - now I won't take them, one because they are so expensive and two because of continual delays.
Tom, England

The privatisation of the rail service has led to, delays, incompetent workmanship, fewer trains and higher prices with no accountability to the public it serves. I hope this is not what Mr. Blair has in mind for privatisation of the health service.
Jessica, UK

Jessica from the UK is in my view mistaken - there are far more trains and passengers now than under BR. I'm sick of all these left wing comments about rail privatisation being a disaster - there are far more trains on the route I use than under BR, the service is much better and most of the trains are new. Renationalise the railways to sort out the problems? The problems were caused by 40 years of state ownership!! I know - I worked for the railways and saw the gross inefficiency of BR.
Peter, UK

Peter. UK. Which line do you travel on? Your experience is unique. In the West of England, 3 things have increased; Fares, length of time trains are delayed and length of time it takes to get to London. You don't buy a fare any more, you buy a timeshare on seat because you can never guarantee the journey time.

I am pro-rail, but privatisation of the railways was the WORST thing thing this country did with the transport system. If we are putting so much tax payers money into the system, then it should be re-nationalised as an integrated transport system, or encourage French rail to buy the whole system and upgrade it to TGV standard.
Phil W, UK

No. Why should the vast majority of us taxpayers who never use railways continue to subsidise them? Same goes for buses. When on earth will people in cities realise that public transport is just not feasible for the huge numbers of people who still have to keep on subsidising it.
Les, England

They've increased rail prices, reduced train numbers and had government handouts in the past. What have they done with all this money? How rich are the shareholders and how poor are the passengers?
David Howe, UK

It is now time to take this question seriously and stop expecting the people to pay for something the Government is responsible for in the first place Dave, The Netherlands

NO! Absolutely not, it is a bottomless pit due to the inability of the amateurs running the railway system at the moment. It is now time to take this question seriously and stop expecting the people to pay for something the Government is responsible for in the first place. For heavens sake re-nationalise the railways in the UK so some form of order can be put back into a greedy mismanaged system we have now. The public does not deserve this chaos forced upon them by inadequate private management. Nothing has gone on the right track since Beeching killed off the branch lines. It's time to pull some fingers out and get this together. Get the professionals back to the railway before they are gone forever.
Dave, The Netherlands

In the light of this announcement, the argument that the government constantly puts forward that it would be simply too expensive to renationalise the railways, is less and less credible. If we're going to subsidize the improvement in the railways needed, why then can't we just do the decent thing and take it back into public control such that we end up having a railway that is genuinely accountable to the public and publicly owned with a public service ethos to boot.
William van Zwanenberg, England

Back in the 70's I was a long distance commuter into London Liverpool St. Yes, we had delays including eccentric occurrences like "cows on the line at Harold Wood"! No, the trains were not always squeaky clean, and did occasionally run a few minutes late, but the staff were lovely and helpful and train travel was affordable. You could also buy your ticket at your local station (and get really good information about the cheapest and most practical travelling) regardless of where in the country you were going. If there was a serious delay, even if you held a cheap ticket, you were given a seat (including on one memorable occasion a pullman seat!) to compensate. They even held last connections to allow people to get home or complete long distance travel. The name of the Company was British Rail - much vilified, but infinitely better than what's offer now. That's why I use a car!
Jenny, UK

If memory serves, I seem to remember that Railtrack could have been saved (according to the same Tom Winsor) by injecting the sum of about �426.5 million before it was driven out of business by the government - Stephen Byers and John Prescott in particular, who refused to allow the Regulator to discuss a possible plan to prevent the collapse of Railtrack and the ensuing loss to many ordinary people who had shares in the Company. There is no way that the taxpayer should have to pick up the tab again.
J C Dunbar, Scotland

Re-nationalise the railways, make it a 'Public' service again, get rid of the fat cat directors, put people who have and do work on the railways back in charge, know how to run the system properly and give us back a system where people want to take the train, rather than have to.
Len, Hemel, UK

Whoever put the rail privatization plan together certainly made a mess of things. Bosses in private companies get big salaries while we, the taxpayers continue footing the bill. Surely he who pays the piper should call the tune?
Tony T, Surrey, UK

Any new investment is welcome, and is bound to make a difference Andrew Robson, UK

The unreliability of trains is a huge burden on British business. Companies simply cannot trust early morning trains to be on time, meaning people must often make journeys the night before, and stay in a hotel. They also take far too long to get anywhere. For example, Paris to Lyon, (a distance of approximately 590km), is a 1:50 hour journey. London to Edinburgh, (about 700km), is at best a 5:30 hour journey. Any new investment is welcome, and is bound to make a difference.
Andrew Robson, UK

At least Stephen Byers got one thing right - Network Rail is certainly a 'not for profit' company!
Colin, UK

It's time to call a halt to the rail gravy train. With the notable exception of GNER, who appear to try to run a decent service against the odds, the private companies running our railways would have been at home in the Wild West! Why should our money reward the fat cats ruining what used to be a tolerably good transport system. Take all the elements of the railway back into public ownership under a unified management. The justification for trivial compensation to shareholders would be that the companies only survive on government handouts anyway. We have suffered long enough for this stupid Tory experiment in privatisation.
Tom, UK

I cannot afford to use public transport. Maybe if the fares for the trains and buses where cheaper more people would use them. As it is, taking the car and parking is by far the cheaper and more effective option no matter the distance we have to travel.
Anji, UK

The extra money will serve to greatly improve the reliability, punctuality, safety, and overall quality of rail service. Definitely, the taxpayers should pay for the costs. Even if every citizen does not directly benefit, it still is much in the common national interest. It is an investment in infrastructure, which is one of the best ways to gain benefits in the future. The USA scrimps on maintaining and improving infrastructure, and is now paying the price. A quality rail service reflects well on the society that runs it. If Britain needs to commit to larger subsidies to support rail, so be it.
David, Milwaukee, WI, USA

Why should the public be asked to pay more for our rail network? Because it is a public service! Imagine what the country would be like with no railway at all. The shame of it is that too little has been spent on the rail network in the last 40 years.
Richard, UK

The fact is that 18 years of neglect under the Tories has left the rail network in such a bad way that it is virtually beyond redemption Kevin, UK

The fact is that 18 years of neglect under the Tories has left the rail network in such a bad way that it is virtually beyond redemption. When investment is made most of the benefit goes abroad (to Germany mostly) as most of the UK coach and engine builders closed down during those years of Tory neglect. Yes there has been underinvestment for fifty years but it is the government of Margaret Thatcher that tried to sign the railways' death warrant with its misguided belief that it could turn the UK into a downmarket version of Greater Los Angeles.
Kevin, UK

Renationalise. Had BR received the funding that's being given to the railway these days, our railway would have been the envy of the world.
Neil Williams, UK

Did I miss something?
If the railways were privatised, how come the tax-payers are being asked to foot the bill to fix it? Again.
Don't be too surprised if Labour sells the rail network to a foreign conglomerate before long ... any excuse to drop the word "British" from another national institution.
Ian, Brit in USA

You can't have it both ways - either the railways are private or they are not. Essentially, the tax payer is handing money to shareholders.
David Hill, USA (ex UK)

I was always led to believe that privatisation meant that the company would have to stand on their own feet. Not so it seems, more and yet more public money is needed to keep the railway in business. It may have been cheaper and better to keep the railways in government hands. This public money the railways are asking for is to keep the shareholders happy, should they become unhappy then the show could collapse, so the government is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.
Gil Bolton, UK

Why is there a debate? You are and will continue to spend billions in Iraq on infrastructure. Why not in Britain?
Urs, Germany

We are always looking for the cheapest way of doing everything David Hazel, UK

The constant haggling over the price of everything in this country convinces me of one thing. Napoleon was wrong when he called us a nation of shop-keepers. We're a nation of bean-counters, always looking for the cheapest way of doing everything (and never even getting that right). No wonder everyone else in the developed world has better public services than us.
David Hazel, UK

Rail investment is not a price worth paying. The money can be used in ways that are of benefit to the whole population rather than a very small group of people who use the railways. We are already being taxed to the hilt.
Andrew Kirkham, England

Yes, if only because we've got so far to catch up after 50 years of under-investment. We need to follow the French example - build high-speed inter-city lines and put the latest fast trains and safety equipment on them; subsidise small local lines to preserve rural communities; and provide commuter services to justify their premium (ie. more trains, reliable systems, greater penalties for failure.)
Andy Millward, United Kingdom

One issue not mentioned here is that spending BIG money (which is what's needed) over a long period of time is not a vote winner as the results will take a while to show. Governments seem happiest investing in things that may come to fruition in the time span of a govt term in office.
Mike, UK

Do you think if my failing public company asks the government for some money that I might get it?
AD, England

We should now, urgently, re-plan our cityscapes Steven Rhodes, England

Rail or road, the problem is that we travel too much in this country. Average journey times/distances to work and for shopping far exceed those on the continent. We are then left with legacies of vast, residential only, housing estates with few transport links and no shops. Party politics to one side, we should now, urgently, re-plan our cityscapes.
Steven Rhodes, England

This country invented railroad back in the 1800's. The greatest problem is that we are still running on the same tracks now as were built back then. This is the fault of every Government this country has had since that time as no money has ever been spent on the system. We have gone from being world leaders, to the bottom of the ladder with the worst rail network anywhere in the world.
Keith, UK

The "reassuringly expensive" slogan will not work for rail as it did for that well-known lager, until stations are clean, trains are punctual, and seats are available. Yet railways ARE expensive. That's because their benefits are in social and environmental terms. Isn't this exactly the sort of expenditure that general taxation is meant to provide for? As for truncating the "unprofitable" parts of the network, that was tried in the 1960s. Please - NOT again!
Peter Barber, Scotland

The investment is definitely worth it - despite the very unfortunate distraction of privatisation, which has made everything much more difficult, the railways are now really getting their act together and tackling the backlog of maintenance and renewals, bringing in lots of new trains and launching improved services. If we want a better railway, we must back the rail bosses.
Richard, England

The more money pumped into the rail service, the worse the service has got Leam Murphy, Belgium

Surely we have learnt in the past that the more money pumped into the rail service, the worse the service has got. Since the rail service cannot get any worse, will the wallets of these rail regulators and directors be fatter? I have moved to the continent where the public transport is in a different league. Why can't Britain do the same? After all, this is where it all began.
Leam Murphy, Belgium

There must be investment in both road and rail: you can't take the train to the supermarket. But rail investment must go where it benefits the most people, instead of into a few grandiose schemes like the West Coast Main Line upgrade and the high speed Chunnel link.
Brian W, UK

The problem isn't railways it's roads! Hopefully we can shoot down for ever the myth that taxes are taken from motorists to pay for public transport. Cars and vans just about cover their direct and indirect costs, HGVs cover about half their direct costs; the balance comes from general taxation. The cost of running a car has declined in real terms over the last twenty years while public transport fares have increased over the same period. The only answer to the problem is to stop spending money on roads and divert the resources to public transport improvements. When you are in a hole stop digging.
John Allen, Scotland

My father still recalls the halcyon days of commuter travel back in the sixties on what was then BR's Southern Region. He still tells fables and legends of fellow passengers who could actually reserve each other's seats on clean trains that turned up on time. "Is he joking?" You ask, "What planet is he describing?" I made the same journey last week and I considered myself privileged to even find a seat after removing a torn magazine, a soggy half-eaten sandwich and a dripping juice carton. I stared out from a window through which I couldn't see, I tried in vain to interpret a garbled tannoy message and, as if this wasn't enough, the train failed, without apology, to complete its tortuous journey on to Waterloo!
Patrick V. Staton, Guildford, UK

I think someone should stand up and admit that privatising rail was a bad idea Carl, UK

I think someone should stand up and admit that privatising rail was a bad idea. I find it disgraceful for years Railtrack and its shareholders abused the infrastructure for profit at the expense of the public, and now the public has to pay again to bail the failing rail system out.
Carl, UK

Road transport has been subsidised for decades; railways have always been expected to 'pay their way' in the UK. The Tory wish to get rid of them as a public asset was merely a cheap ploy to avoid having to catch up with decades of under-investment by both political parties. As rail is a far more efficient and environmentally-friendly people carrier (rail freight is only economic for bulk loads over long distances, say over about 200 miles) I think it must be protected. I do not want to own a car - there are enough selfish people polluting the environment and choking up roads so that long-distance bus travel is not a commuting option for me. I do not want to see the UK become a huge motorway and am prepared to pay through taxes and if need be rail fare increases to pay for a decent rail network. But those selfish people who use cars should also pay for the privilege of using such a wasteful and polluting form of transport.
Charles, UK

It is not worth investing in the railways as they are currently structured Robert, England

No! It is not worth investing in the railways as they are currently structured. With their weak/lazy management, militant unions and greedy contractors all think that they have a stranglehold over the travelling public to ransom. So I'm sticking with rental cars and internal flights for my regular long distance journeys to avoid unreliable, slow and dirty trains. It is often cheaper and almost always quicker!
Robert, England

Funny how the correspondents here can accept the 3500+ deaths per year cost of road transport, but they can't palate financial investment in the rail system. We should enforce dangerous driving laws - one mistake and you have to take a retest - and carry on making the tests harder until the roads are as safe as the railways. Only then we'll be able to see which system really works best.
Neil, UK

I still can't understand how a privatised industry is still getting public money. Is it public or private, or is it another example of the Private Finance Initiative, whereby the public pay the money and take the risks and the private companies take all the profits ?
J F M, UK

Yes, scrap the railways. Think of al the extra police and hospitals. Oh, wait a minute - if we scrapped the railways more people would travel by car, which is far more dangerous, and we would need all those extra police and hospitals to pick up the pieces. I do get rather tired of the idea that the private motorist is somehow subsidising public transport - or indeed anything at all. Every time the revenue from motoring related duties approaches the lower limit of the actual costs of motoring to the economy (remember the 3,000 plus killed and tens of thousands seriously injured every year), the motor lobby extract a few more billions from the Government to build more congestion magnets.
Guy Chapman, UK

Road transport has many hidden costs. Vastly increased pollution and faster depletion of fossil fuels. 10+deaths a day on the roads, NHS, Police etc. The real costs of motoring are decreasing, whilst public transport fares are increasing. Do we want more gridlock, destruction of the countryside. Wake up and smell the coffee, petrolheads. Maybe we should demolish all rail lines into London, everyone could drive in to work. We would need to demolish the City, of course, and convert it into a 10 square mile multi-storey carpark. At least there would be no more tourists.
Gerry, UK

This lot have been in power for 6 years, the Germans rebuilt their entire transport system in less time Steve, UK

What I do find odd, is the endless anti-Tory near-hysteria on almost all these things. This lot have been in power for 6 years, the Germans rebuilt their entire transport system in less than that time at the end of the 1940s.
It's simple, we are no longer capable of having and running a railway system; it's simply too difficult for us. We have neither the engineering or management skills necessary. Tarmac over the rails and have bus-only roads.
Steve, UK

So Steve (UK) thinks that because the Germans rebuilt their entire transport system in less than 6 years after the war, this government should have sorted out the railways by now. Well, Mr Blair has indeed been in power for 6 years, but for the first 2 of those he stuck to Mr Major's spending plans didn't he, so in fact only 4 of those 6 years count from a public money point of view. Also, has he never heard of the Marshall plan, which was a massive project funded by the Americans to re-build war-torn Europe? No wonder the Germans did it so fast, but of course we couldn't because the Americans also withdrew lend/lease to the UK which supported us during the war, and would only loan money on exacting conditions to us instead. Oh, and there is also the small matter of the Tories holding power for 18 continuous years, and the only achievement in their stewardship of the railways was a botched privatision of the network towards the end of their reign!
Steve, UK

While investment in the existing rail infrastructure is certainly welcomed, things will not noticeably improve until money is spent expanding the rail network. We need more rolling stock on more lines. There are many commuters familiar with the bottleneck at London Bridge - it's time to expand.
Matt, UK

The most cost effective way to improve the rail network would be to reduce train speeds. This would improve safety, cut maintenance costs and allow more trains to run, thereby increasing capacity. A less highly stressed network should also allow punctuality to be improved. All this at almost zero cost.
Ian, UK

Wouldn't it be easier and a lot cheaper to completely scrap the UK railway system. Think of the extra police and hospitals
Shad, UK

As usual it seems that people are reacting to this in the wrong way, yes the rail network takes lots of money, yes some of it is "financially" unsound, but think what would happen if you take that network away. Students taking cars to uni, people taking the car long distances becasue the train won't, the loss of tourism, more cars on the road = more congestion = more tax collected by the government
Mathew Gard, Uk

Why is it that money spent on railways is considered to be subsidies, yet money spent on roads is seen as an investment?.
Whilst a car user, I at least recognise that this country needs investment in Public Transport and perhaps if in the past more money had been spent on railways instead of roads maybe the current level of congestion would be less.
David Brown, England

Firstly, in France they have double decker trains, these should be put on every line which currently suffers from overcrowding and where trains cannot be made longer. Secondly, why do commuter services have first class, it simply wastes space on busy trains. The logic of wide seats and extra legroom makes sense on intercity services, but on 1 hour commuter services everyone having a seat is far more important, not least from a safety perspective.
Craig, UK

We were told that privatisation would make the rail network more cost effective and efficient. Yet more pubic money is paid in subsidies now than during the days of British Rail - for a less reliable service!
And some people want the Tories back?
Dan, UK

If more of the �40 billion in motorist tax was spent on public transport, we wouldn't be in this mess George, England

Tax on petrol has gone up again, so I find that there is no excuse for this government to put more money into our rail network. If more of the �40 billion in motorist tax was spent on public transport, we wouldn't be in this mess.
Some one has to be brave - we can't keep waiting - spend this money now.
George, England

So the rail network wants more money for maintenance than the road network, yet it carries substantially less than 10% of the number of passenger mile than the roads. Seems like time to scrap the large part of the railway network that makes no financial sense, and invest what money is available in those areas that make financial sense.
Keith Walker, UK

Given the enormous subsidies which go into public transport already (mainly taken from the private motorist), how can it be fair to demand more? The roads around here are a disgrace, and the only thing the local council are willing to spend money on is 'traffic calming', which causes more congestion than ever! Crazy or what?
Andrew H, England