[daviddumenil]

After privatisation people flocked back to UK rail. Volumes that had been largely static for more than fifty years have doubled since privatisation.

A Virgin Pendolino is a far more pleasant experience than the old British Rail equivalent.

I agree on the fare rises but rail remains subsidised while road and air travel are taxed.

[willyt]

But virgin rents that train from a company that was directed by the state to buy it and given a grant to do so. They had some influence over the design styling, but the decision to run 10 coaches at 140mph between London and Glasgow at specific times was not made by them anyway because they have to fit in with all the other services which have to connect to allow efficient transfers. Also, if BR hadn’t been privatised those trains might have been in service 15 years earlier because the technology was developed by their R&D department which was privatised and asset stripped in the 1980s. The tilting technology was sold to the Italian company that makes Pendolino trains.