SO an Italian firm will be buying c2c.

The line is destined to be taken over by Trenitalia once the deal, worth in the region of £70million, gets the nod from the Government.

And the change of hands is expected to happen soon, by the spring.

Trenitalia and c2c have yet to announce any changes and bosses are adamant the sale won’t bring any.

c2c would be the first to admit there’s been some unpleasant, and rather significant, teething problems with the changing timetable of late, and many commuters haven’t been happy for a while.

But, on the whole, I think the service is a decent one.

I often use it at weekends and it’s generally good. But one thing that needs to improve is the level of communication.

It’s not always easy, for example, to find out when trains are running directly into Stratford at the weekends. Either online or by phone.

And it is a shame the service will no longer be run by a British firm. In fact, rail union RMT revealed 28 private rail contracts in the UK, that’s 70 per cent, are now partially or wholly owned by foreign states or their railways.

So, it now remains to be seen whether the service stays the same and hopefully improves.

The one thing the new firm must address is communication with the paying public. This needs to be better than ever.