Incidents of railwaycable theft have dropped from more than 2, 600 in 2011 to under 1, 300 so far this year amid a police campaign to tackle the problem.
Measures being used to combat cable theft, she told MPs, included increased use of surveillance, reinforcing railway sleepers and spraying tracks with traceable liquid to deter thieves.
Just as the railway mania carried on after the competitive landscape had changed for the worse, so these new cable companies kept on investing even as the supply ballooned.