Amid the usual mass of tired commuters at Waterloo station, the lady in the red jacket stood out. As she boarded the 6.14am train to Shepperton in Surrey – which itself had been painted in a gleaming red, white and blue livery – she heralded ‘a new dawn for our railways’ and said she was travelling with ‘a sense of pride’.
It was the morning of May 25, 2025, and the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, had arrived to hail one of the first services of the recently renationalised South Western Railway.
‘I was so adamant I had to be here at Waterloo
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