RAIL bosses planning to use the botched privatisations of London buses and public utilities as a model to break up Network Rail will face the “hardest possible” resistance, unions warned last night.

Newly released minutes of a meeting of the Rail Delivery Group, in which privateer executives come together with the leaders of the state-owned infrastructure company, showed that Network Rail chief executive Mark Carne is pushing for a model where “routes must be run as businesses in their own right.”

But some train company bosses thought this devolution plan didn’t go far enough, asking “whether the plans would attract investors if the centre was still holding control.”