> Who knows if it was better in the nationalised days

I do. I was there. It wasn't.

Also if you look at the usage numbers they dropped off in the nationalised days and picked back up after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rail_transport_in_G...

I was around but not a heavy rail user in the nationalised days though the stories back then were quite reminiscent of the current DB stories.