I don't think you're tuned in to this one. I'm a season ticket holder on London Midland, and I too found the recent "volunteer shortage" Sunday closure to be utterly ridiculous. It's not the idea that they depend on volunteers that's ridiculous though - make no mistake this was an unofficial strike in all but name. Concerted efforts by workers exploiting a loop hole in their contracts. There'd always be plenty of volunteers if they were happier in their work.

I'm not sure what the staff are unhappy about - from a passenger's point of view things have improved dramatically in the last 12 months recovering from a significant dip following the change of the franchise from Silverlink. On a day to day basis most trains are bang on time, there are more trains, more direct and 'semi-fast' trains, and more carriages - meaning fewer standing passengers (I haven't stood for several months).

However talking to other commuters, I'd say most would think that privatisation has been very patchy - some good developments, but lots of really poor service. It's one of the few areas where I think there'd be very definite wide scale public support for nationalisation, and for heavy subsidies to keep fares down. The communal benefit would be enormous.

I think it's absolutely true that the lumbering behemoth that was British Rail had to change to give us a service fit for the modern age - I don't think that's yet been achieved though, and the splintering of the network has harmed not helped that process.