The basic problem with the way you are thinking about it with respect to the national railway is that you don't seem to include cost to the government (ie, the people) to run it. Much infrastructure might appear to be "well run" by the government until you see the massive hole in the their budget. Sometimes the service has to get worse. When the government decides some piece of infrastructure must "pay for itself", they often sell it or hand over management to a private entity as a way to shift blame.

There are many private companies/PE firms etc who are competitively bidding to own these assets. It's not some license to print money, they are low return low risk assets.

user____name 2 days ago | parent [-]

Erh... if a public service is publically deficit financed (no debts incurred) and not for profit (lower priced) those are two positives, not negatives as your generated answer seems to suggest.

	▲	danielmarkbruce a day ago \| parent [-]
		No, it's not positive. It's just a choice - do you want users of said infrastructure subsidized by non-users or not? Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes no.