Great care must be taken with the word ‘efficiencies’ and exactly what that means. The rail industry was privatised in the name of ‘efficiency’. And yet while we have what appear to be notable improvements in technology - the train carriages in the Cumbria crash held together remarkably well considering their size and weight and the speed they were travelling at - the ‘efficiencies’ of privatisation have caused another crash.

Good technology, bad organisation and ownership. Track maintainance has been at fault before with train crashes - and this is all preventable.

The sad fact about these type of crashes is that the costs to the tax payer of doing the job badly (but in the name of efficiency), is actually higher than doing the job properly. The human cost, of course cannot be measured.