The east coast rail franchise is the latest acquisition by the government.

Passengers arriving at King's Cross station for Saturday's (14 November 2009) first East Coast service from London to York run by the new government controlled company Directly Operated Railways found everything as it was - same timetable, same prices, same routes, same staff and same food. The only difference was the new company logo (possibly not even noticed) and the scrapping of the unpopular £2.50 reservation fee to ensure a seat in Standard class.

Franchisee National Express simply couldn't afford to run the service from London to Scotland's east coast any longer after it's bid of £1.4bn over seven years proved to be too much in light of increasing fuel prices and a deep recession.

So last summer a new state run company, Directly Operated Railways, trading as East Coast, was set up to arrange the temporary handover of control from National Express, which came into effect on Saturday.

The government will benefit from ticket sales without having to pay a penny for the franchise and   this looks set to continue until the east coast franchise return to private control in two years.

The key question though is whether passengers will notice any improvement in services over the next 24 months.

"We've asked about 6,000 passengers who use the East Coast route at the moment what they'd like to see improved and we're getting back a very clear message," said Anthony Smith, chief executive of Passenger Focus.

"Number one is keeping pressing on performance - keep getting more trains to arrive on time.

"Number two is value for money - people are very conscious about some of the fares they have to pay and these have in some cases really rocketed over the last years.

"And thirdly more capacity - more seats so that passengers don't have to stand on shorter journeys and are more comfortable when the trains are getting a bit more crowded".

The government has to tread a difficult line in how this re-nationalised east coast line is to be run.
If it's too good, there could be pressure for the rest of the rail network to return to state ownership but  if it's too poor, the government and the Department for Transport in particular will be heavily criticised for the action it has taken.

The transport secretary Lord Adonis, who took a trip on a East Coast service, said "This is not the time to have massive institutional upheaval in the rail industry,"

Ultimately though it will be the passengers and not government who decide whether this state run service is any good or not.