Yes, it turns out the state can also run a railway successfully so long as they focus on profitability and efficiency https://twitter.com/MattBruenig/status/943892848142929921 …
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Basically, EU govts are not allowed to subsidize businesses they own in certain ways, and if they do offer subsidies, they have to …
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be made available to private intra-EU competitors on nondiscriminatory terms. Hence all EU member states separating ownership of …
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immovable railway assets (RoW and stations) from the train operation business.
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States allowed to subsidize rail transport in general, by building infrastructure, but transport _services_ must not lose money.
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In Finland, historically VR ("state railways") had a total monopoly. For EU, RoW moved to Liikennevirasto (Transport Dept) and
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VR converted into a state-owned corporation to run trains (still as a monopoly but that's changing).
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It's this last bit that's being privatized. Commuter rail in Helsinki is run by a partnership btw VR and HSL because of the monopoly
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but that could potentially be unwound and those assets (trains, mostly) and employees transferred to a different operator in future.
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