Where I think privatisation went wrong (the core concept of having private operators bid on franchises is ~right imo) is the state lost a lot of 'management' knowledge that was in British Rail. This has really killed us because we don't know how to build complex civil engineering projects anymore, and _the management_ of them gets outsourced to large contractors like Arup at eye watering costs.
They also have a terrible conflict of interest as if they manage it well, they often get paid much less than managing a slow moving disaster of a project.
I think this needs to be solved first, not getting the state to operate train fleets.
Where I think privatisation went wrong (the core concept of having private operators bid on franchises is ~right imo) is the state lost a lot of 'management' knowledge that was in British Rail. This has really killed us because we don't know how to build complex civil engineering projects anymore, and _the management_ of them gets outsourced to large contractors like Arup at eye watering costs.
They also have a terrible conflict of interest as if they manage it well, they often get paid much less than managing a slow moving disaster of a project.
I think this needs to be solved first, not getting the state to operate train fleets.