The not-for-profit company created by the Government to run Britain’s tracks submitted proposals to the Office of Rail Regulation last month suggesting that it could use its state-backed debt to finance new trains more cheaply than banks.

The Rail Regulator called in the Competition Commission to investigate claims that three banks that own Britain’s trains – HSBC, Abbey and the Royal Bank of Scotland – were overcharging train operators by up to £177 million a year.

The Department for Transport claimed that the excessive profit being earned by the banks is “the equivalent of an annual 8 per cent increase on all season tickets”.

A spokesman for Network Rail said: “We can raise debt cheaper than other private enterprises and so can make cost savings in raising money and pass that on to operating companies or leasing companies, who can pass that on to the passenger.”

Network Rail’s proposals also suggest that the government-backed firm should manage big stations, beyond the 15 that it operates at present, and take over maintenance of the rest of the network’s 2,500 other stations.

Network Rail said that the company could use its “economies of scale” to reduce the cost of running stations.

George Muir, the director-general of the Association of Train Operating Companies, which is to meet on Wednesday to discuss Network Rail’s proposals for running stations, said: “Train stations are the shop front for the passenger and must be run by train operating companies. Network Rail’s proposals make no sense.”

Train operating companies believe that the proposals are “creeping nationalism”. Last month it emerged that Network Rail had held talks with Scottish Labour politicians about taking control of trains in Scotland. The move was seen as a trial of a renationalised train service, which would reverse the break-up British Rail in the mid1990s.

Network Rail said that any change to its existing remit would have to be approved by the Rail Regulator as part of its review of the running of railways between 2009 and 2014.

Train robbery

£1bn The amount paid yearly by train operators in leasing charges to the banks

£1,000 The amount charged each week by the banks for carriages that were built more than 20 years ago by British Rail and have long since repaid their construction costs

Source: Times research