During my lifetime, I watched the British railways being privatised by the British government. I believe it was John Major's government that sold it off.
I consider the decision to privatise the railways a mistake. The British railways are very bad. They are over priced slow and very poorly run and to this day much of the railways are still not electrified so there are still diesel powered trains. British trains are often late or delayed.
In London the trains are not privatised. The metro rail known as the tube are relatively low cost; you can go all the way across from one side of London to the other and pay less than £5. In the rest of the country you can't even go to to the next village with £5. And tube drivers are on doctors salaries. Trains make profit because people buy tickets and the ticket pays for the costs of the train and money is left over for investment.
Is there competition between the railway operators? No, of course not. You would need two sets of track side by side for that to happen. There is only one Western railway and one Midlands railway and one southern railway with no competition at all.
When something is proven not to work and you have you have considered all the reasons then what you are left with is the answer, even if the answer seems to be wrong.
Well. The only explanation that is left is that the government has taken bribes from companies that want to be railway operators. So it is corruption that has caused the privatisation. I will stress that that is my opinion. I'm not presenting it as a fact.
Does privatising railways make it faster? NO.
Does privatising railways make it cheaper? NO.
Does privatising railways make it more modern? NO.
Does privatising the railways make it safer? No
Does privatising the railways make it integrated? No
Does privatising the railways put a special envelope with money in it into corrupt politicians pockets? YES.
