If the trains ran with the metronomic predictability with which the fare for using them rises every year, there would no doubt be more satisfaction among commuters.

The truth, however, is rail services often fail to meet expectations.

Delays, industrial action, disappearing ticket offices, overcrowded carriages and rising fares are instead the realities of the daily commute.

Passengers using Southeastern services out of Canterbury and other stations in east Kent were greeted this week with a 1.8% increase on ticket prices.

And on Tuesday campaign group Action For Rail organised protests at a string of stations – including Whitstable’s – as it demanded an end to the private ownership of railways.

Spokesman Kathryn Mackridge said: “While fares keep rising, cuts to services and staffing are taking place across the network – with more ticket offices closing, removal of guards from trains, extension of driver-only operations and fewer staff at stations to provide help when we need it.”

Action For Rail estimates that £1.5 billion could be diverted from the pockets of shareholding companies and reinvested in the service.

Cllr Alan Baldock, Canterbury’s Labour group leader, thinks the figure could be even higher.

“Instead of extending the franchises to the private rail companies, the government should simply take them back into public ownership when they run out,” Cllr Baldock said.

“Doing this would minimise the cost to the taxpayer. Then money which does not go to shareholders can be ploughed back into the infrastructure.”

The Department for Transport on Wednesday announced Southeastern would see its franchise extended a further six months, taking it to the end of 2018.

While ticket prices have gone up by 25% since the 1990s, there are those who believe the rail network should remain in private ownership.

Cllr Steve Williams, who represents Barton ward, commutes daily to the City of London from Canterbury West.

The Conservative said: “Calls to renationalise the railways are misguided at best.

“Since privatisation passenger journeys have more than doubled, improvements are being made in train stock, punctuality is broadly improving and most importantly the UK now has one of the safest railways in Europe.

“What a nationalised system would mean is an increase in tax subsidy. This isn’t the direction we want to be travelling.

“Instead we should be looking at ways to improve the existing system such as making ticket machines much easier to find the cheapest option.

“At an operational level, there should be the removal of the separation between track ownership and train operation.”