The UK government will, at least for the next few months, take back public control of the railroads from the private operators who have operated the system since privatization in 1995.
The goal is to keep essential services for essential workers going while the companies suffer from very low traffic, but it is likely the system may never return to the same point, as both government and public have been sharply critical of service, and the Department for Transport had already said it would move to reform the existing franchise system.
When British Rail was privatized in 1995, the physical infrastructure was assigned to RailTrack, now Network Rail, the rolling stock was sold off to a trio of companies that lease equipment to train operating companies, and the right to operate specific routes was handed over to a number of franchised companies who periodically compete to keep or gain franchises.
Many of the operating franchises belong to multi-national, mainly European companies; the train-leasing companies have been accused of keeping costs high by setting high lease rates, and nearly everyone points fingers at Network Rail.
Elsewhere, Italy has gone ahead with the planned crisis renationalization of Alitalia, after the corona virus crisis proved the last blow to attempts to find as viable private operator for the airline.
