Gregory's Server@ncrav @researchfairy also speaking from experience, there are many countries, many ways to attempt this. trains run like this in Norway, for instance. is it a success? no. better than how Britain did it, but i wouldn't recommend. but the problem with it is not that a rich person is now in charge of trains, or even that they're extracting tax money and blaming regulations. mostly just that it's not a good way to run trains.
@bjoernstaerk @researchfairy in Portugal our passenger train company which is now a EPE (public but under the same law as private) and has only degraded service further. This started before the private management with profit seeking politicians. For instance most lines and stations in the interior are there, but have been closed or underserved starting since the early 1990s. Nowadays even main lines are underserved and we don't even have a high speed connection to the rest of Europe.