It is not difficult while travelling on South West Trains (my local train operator) to find fault. And I am sure I am not the only passenger to imagine how I would do things differently. So here goes: this is how CrozierRail would do things in a free world - a world free of fragmentation legislation, safety regulation, fare control, subsidy and other forms of state interference and where guns are legal.

I have to say I do this with some trepidation. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, although we libertarians claim that a libertarian world would be a better place we do not claim to know exactly how it would be better. Because we are prepared to allow people to make their own decisions we cannot be sure just quite where those decisions will take them. It is perfectly possible that railways (or roads) would completely disappear - we simply don't know. The chances are that they won't but if they do it will probably because we have come up with something better.

Secondly, railways look easy. They are not. In fact they are extremely complicated - something I have increasingly begun to appreciate. In this respect I am quite prepared to be shot down in flames. In fact I invite it. I would dearly like to know what is possible and what not and why not.

A few principles. I am a great believer in getting the system right. Railways are systems on the grand scale. If you can get your system right with the existing technology then, when you move to the new technology you are far more likely to get that right as well. At least that's my belief. So, I will confine my comments, initially at least, to what I would do with the existing technology and infrastructure.

Vertical integration - at least the main bits - is essential. Don't ask me why but fragmentation just doesn't seem to work. So CrozierRail will buy the track and the stations as well as running the trains. It will almost certainly bring infrastructure maintenance in house and more than likely buy the trains.

So, tickets and stations. Al Gore said "Every vote must be counted." I say "Every ticket must be checked." At the start and end of every journey. It is not simply a matter of preventing fare evasion. Manned stations show that you care about your property and passengers. They also have a role to play in curbing crime and other forms of anti-social behaviour. If I cannot staff a station (even temporarily) then I will not stop at it. If it means asking passengers to get off at a nearby station and putting them in taxis, so be it. If there is a station that proves persistently difficult to staff then I will close it down.

Fares. On commuter lines fares should be set so that in second class all passengers can, at least, stand in comfort and in first class can be guaranteed a seat. This would almost certainly mean that fares would go up - probably by between 50 and 100%. I would probably restrict it to no more than 20% a year so that the pain only came on slowly. Also, so that I don't price all my customers off the network. After all, if they desert me (by moving or changing jobs) it's going to be a hell of a job getting them back.

Incidentally, pricing fares in this way should make loading and unloading the train a lot more predictable so helping punctuality.

Although it would be nice to be able to offer refunds if there were no seats available I don't see how it would be possible other than by stationing a member of staff in each First Class carriage. Come to think of it, maybe that isn't such a bad idea.

I would re-introduce workman's fares - lower rate tickets for early morning travel. I have never quite seen why we ever got rid of them. I would also probably stick with the name - I'm a stickler for tradition - even if there were precious few workmen using the service.

On longer distance services, I would ultimately like to move to an EasyJet system of price reflecting predicted demand. But that's new technology, so in the meantime I would probably stick with the existing system uprating some of the controlled-price fares to more like the market rate. As tickets would be checked and stamped at both ends I would probably be able to dispense with on-train checks. So, a few trainspotters would be able to see the whole network on a platform ticket. I think we could live with that.