 Relations with the Department for Transport, the Treasury and the Rail Regulator - which collectively did have the powers which Morton wanted - deteriorated quite quickly.Towards the end of his time at the SRA, Morton was making public statements which were more and more critical of his political masters and what he saw as their intransigence in allowing him both the power and the freedom he believed he should have had.In relation to powers to hold Railtrack - the national railway infrastructure company - to account, Morton's jurisdictional skirmishes with the Rail Regulator became public after the Ladbroke Grove rail crash and Morton would never accept that the Rail Regulator and not the SRA had the right to determine what Railtrack's financial framework and settlement should be.