My May Day booking works for me but not the industry

'Open access' across the network is a boon for travellers but byzantine rules strangle the competition

-  Simon Calder

Tomorrow, I will board a morning train from London King's Cross to County Durham. I bought the ticket from LNER, the state-run train operator on the East Coast Main Line. The train, though, is actually Grand Central - the "open access" division of Arriva, ultimately owned by German Railways.

However complex the hierarchy, the traveller is the winner.

Open access operators are blossoming across Europe. They are commercial enterprises that run long-distance services, often alongside state railways, and get no taxpayer support.

Intercity competition always benefits passengers, as on the Madrid-Barcelona link where fares have fallen while quality rises (except when power cuts bring all the high-speed trains to a halt). Here in the UK, open access firms also run trains to destinations that state-run train operators choose not to serve direct – such as Hartlepool, just three hours from London by Grand Central.

The main achievement of open access firms, though, is to lure new customers to the railways. The best example is Lumo, which runs from London via Newcastle and Morpeth to Edinburgh. The First Group-owned company is in competition not just with LNER but also British Airways, easyJet and Ryanair – as well as people who might drive, or just stay at home.

Yet the fact that I could book that May Day trip through a rival train operator, and use my railcard, is baffling. It takes me back to the 1980s – before proper competition began on the airlines.