That's a fair (no pun intended) point and a reasonable hypothesis, but is there any evidence for it?
I remember when Orange first set up in the UK and the investment required from Hutchison to get it going, ran into the billions. But they did it, since they saw the business opportunity. They weren't offered a monopoly. Easyjet have invested billions and they don't have a monopoly. There's plenty of examples of businesses having to invest heavily in order to gain market share, increase efficiencies, increase revenues and increase profits. I just don't see the train companies doing it.
But let's say I accept what you say. If that is indeed the case, then the government should subsidise the running of trains. If running trains to the standard and at a cost that we as a nation deem appropriate, is unprofitable, then this does not mean we ought to nationalise it. If nationalising things makes them run better, then OK perhaps, but the very opposite is empirically demonstrated to be true. Remove the financial imperative and service levels decline, costs spiral. It's what the public sector does.
60% of our railway is owned by state owned companies in any case, just not our state. Having travelled throughout Europe on trains they are a lot cheaper than ours, run on time, the trains are cleaner and their stations are better equipped.
Because they fund it from taxation at a far higher level. So those who dont use trains subsidise those who do. It's not a magic cure.
Its a cure we should adopt.
And that means taking money from elsewhere. It's always about choices. The trains are vastly better than they were 20 years ago.
If you can afford to get on them. Most technology has improved over the past 20 years. Ours has just improved less than our neighbours in France. Germany, Netherlands ext.
I think you're coming at it from the wrong angle. Why should the public sector run any services, unless there's a public interest in doing so? If there is a public interest, like the police or army for example, then sure. But if there is not, then why should the state run it? Why would you care?Gotta go to work shortly but if you could show me where privatisation of essential services has been beneficial for millions of uk citizens it would help me answer your question.
So the solution is to get others to pay for it? Yes is necessary. The UK needs to have a cheap, reliable, clean public transport system in order to improve the mobility of the general public, to expand the economy. At least we will be able to spend the extra hundreds of millions the private companies pay in dividends to shareholders.