Wasn't pRiVaTiZaTiOn supposed to fix every problem with the trains ever? You know, like the Beeching Axe was supposed to fix every problem with the trains ever before that?

And yet, the only time post-privatization when the trains have run effectively, safely, on time and profitably (in the sense that they were making more than they were spending, not in the sense that sHaReHoLdErS would have been satisfied with the profit-fellatio they were getting), was when one of the privatized companies performed so fucking poorly that the government was forced to invoke their claw-back-our-trains clause and assume direct control again.

Trains, like healthcare, like, frankly, most if not all forms of national infrastructure, are too necessary for the economy and society of a country as a whole, and too vulnerable to the slings and arrows of misfortune, to be left in the hands of an entity whose primary motivation is to make buck-u-boo-bux for the almighty shareholders.

It's long past time that the UK re-nationalized their rails. It's worth pointing out that not even Thatcher herself would not privatize the rail network.