The train operating companies are a particularly bad failure because like e.g. the water companies they get to channel the revenue but unlike the water companies they don't own the capital intensive bits but bid on how much they'll return during the franchise period. As a result, the capital need to start a train operating company is tiny in proportion the revenue flow, and their returns look modest related to revenue, but the return on investment looks decidedly less than modest. And so their parent companies can afford to risk outright failure of the franchise because the risk reward were tilted heavily in their favour even before the covid bailouts. The incentives for them are really perverse.
And one of the worst ironies is that some of our franchises are run by the state rail companies of other countries. Meaning we are subsidising rail travel in foreign countries.
Indeed, we do have a lot of state owned rail in the UK, just not UK state owned. I believe at one point even a majority of the franchises were held either by companies either wholly or partially owned by foreign state owned rail companies. Fewer now, but still.
