So we have gone from EMA to ERMA, which is the sound the transport secretary is making as he engages his brain and continues to hesitate to try and work out exactly what he is going to do with the railways (Robert Lea writes).
With the prospect of few passengers and next to no revenues, the government moved swiftly in the March lockdown to put what has long been erroneously referred to as the privatised railway in Emergency Measures Agreements.
These EMAs renationalised the railways for six months, the department for transport taking command and control and paying the franchise operators as contractors on 2 per cent-or-so management contracts.
With that six-month period up and the country lurching towards new lockdowns, Grant Shapps has come
