The arrangement (now gradually coming to an end) in the UK is very silly, ToCs (which run trains) were district from the ultimate station owner (which was various notionally for-profit companies but of course always ultimately the government) and the track owners. Most of that nonsense is being gradually absorbed into a single government owned passenger rail entity.

A "one under" (likely suicide) plus signal problems (which can be basically anything) meant I was delayed by over an hour home from Yorkshire on Saturday, but that also means it was effectively free.

There was a post on hn by someone who built a model to predict which trains are going to be late to get ticket refunds and travel for free (albeit slower).