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Where there used to be rusting rolling stock and derelict sidings, there is now a swish shopping centre, smart restaurants and the oddly bulbous, 42-storey Belgrade Tower.

"We've got dirty old rolling stock. It's a sham, it really is."

The TGV trains swishing through the French countryside at 230 mph were in stark contrast to the UK’s creaking rolling stock.

It was a provocative juxtaposition, the hardware and rolling stock of a multi-billion dollar national security state parked in the same neighborhood where the homeless slept.

However, doing so would also mean taking on the railway operators debts, leases, and liabilities, such as their pension fund pots and the lease contracts for the rolling stock.