Rail system 'unaffected' by Connex sacking, says Bowker

Britain's most dynamic transport leader, SRA supremo Dickie Bowker, has hastened to calm worries that the removal of Connex's south of England franchise will not affect plans to make the UK home of the finest train system in the world.

It will not even affect the level of service currently provided to rail travellers, added the visionary manager.

The choice to get rid of Connex was given careful consideration and made only after it was discovered Connex was useless and had no commercial relationship at all with Richard Branson.

Speaking from his tilting Pendolino office on Necker Island (not yet fully operational) Bowker expounded expansively: "Some customers may think that the ending of the franchise may change things. Not so. With the extensive range of controls we have in place everything will stay exactly the same so that our customers — the UK's rail travellers — will continue to receive the service they are used to."

The new owner of the franchise of has yet to be decided by Bowker but, bookmakers have already put Virgin Trains as odds-on favourite.

Meanwhile, commuters interviewed at Victoria Station spoke of their relief at Bowker's words. "Thank God for that," exclaimed one man in a bowler hat and with a face distorted by facial jewellery, "I don't think we could handle any more improvements. Things always get so much worse after the SRA gets to work on them."