Network Rail should be decentralised, allowing train operators to own the track they run on, a Conservative policy group has said.

It also suggested fitting rubber wheels to commuter trains, to improve braking and acceleration and allow 40 trains to run every hour, rather than the current 24. And there should be a serious look at the feasibility and costs of introducing high-speed, high-tech Maglev trains.

The Economic Competitiveness Policy Group was chaired by former Cabinet Minister John Redwood and Simon Wolfson, the chief executive of Next fashion group. Conservative leader David Cameron set it up in January 2006, but is not bound by any of the think-tank recommendations.

The report says that, because Network Rail was given Treasury guarantees for very substantial borrowings, and access to Consolidated Fund revenues, any real private sector financial discipline had been removed. Despite a surge in extra administrative, consultancy and renewal costs, there has been no noticeable shift upwards in either railway capacity or growth compared to the late 1990s.

It states: “We recommend that an incoming Conservative government should decentralise Network Rail to allow for greater benchmarking in the industry, and to open up the potential for track and train services to be run together.

“We also recommend that the provision and use of track should be contestable: if someone wishes to build new track, they should be able to do so, subject to planning permission.

“Clearly, they should also be able to interconnect this new track with the existing system and, if charging and timetable arrangements for such an interconnection cannot be agreed upon voluntarily, arbitration would be compulsory.

“Most of the money for track improvement and maintenance should come from the private sector.”

The report proposes expanding the freight railway, “primarily by allowing and encouraging a large number of short links from the existing railways into the industrial estates and ports”.

It suggests looking to best practice abroad to improve the commuter railway, such as the rubber wheels used on the Paris Metro to give trains extra grip, allowing them to accelerate more smoothly and brake more quickly.

“It has been suggested that, if we introduced these to British commuter trains, the railway could run a much more effective service of 40 trains per hour, an increase in capacity of about 65 per cent.

“Lengthening trains does not improve service frequency: running more trains does, which makes trains more attractive to busy people.”

The policy group report ends: “Finally, we have looked at high-speed train options for the UK, and have concluded that an incoming Conservative government should explore the feasibility of implementing the new Maglev technology, which offers the opportunity of far faster inter-city travel and hence a more effective challenge to the aeroplane.

“This should surely be preferred to spending further large sums of money on attempts to create a limited number of express facilities on our already congested and overburdened track, at the expense of other rail services.”