Railway nationalisation
While ideology has played a role, so too has the need for systematic reconstruction of vital infrastructure devastated by war, often following a period of state control over private companies initiated during the conflict.
After a series of high-profile accidents and serious deterioration of services under privatisation, most rail lines have returned to state control by 2015, in effect re-nationalising them.
[1] After World War I, the German Reich took over control of the state railways of Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Württemberg, Baden, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Hesse and Oldenburg.
In the lead up to, and during, World War II the DR assimilated a great number of railway companies in the German-occupied territories as well as several smaller, previously privately owned lines in Germany.
Whilst DB AG is a public limited company, all its shares are presently owned by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany.
DB AG is now facing stiff competition in the freight and short-distance passenger sector (the latter of which is subject to franchising), although they still hold a quasi-monopoly in the long-distance passenger sector (which does not receive subsidies), which was starting to crack until the opening of the long-distance bus market destroyed the business case of any open access competition.
Piyush Goyal assured that Railway will never be privatised however private investment will be encouraged for efficient functioning of National Transporter.
Italy has an open access high-speed rail operator competing against the national railway; Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori which is part owned by SNCF and private investors.
[4] In the 1980s the process of privatising Japanese National Railways begun that is not entirely finished as of 2016 with both entirely state and private members of the JR Group.
The former LMS lines managed by the Northern Counties Committee, nationalised by the Westminster government, were sold to the UTA by the British Transport Commission in 1949.
British Rail was privatised between 1994 and 1997, involving the transfer to a series of private-sector operators of responsibility for the provision of services under contract.
In 2001 the track operator Railtrack went bankrupt; it was reconstituted and renamed as Network Rail, a private company with no legal owner but effectively government-controlled via its constitution and financing.
[12] This was initially supposed to be a temporary measure to keep trains running during the pandemic, but in September 2020, the Minister for Transport, Grant Shapps published a press release entitled "Rail franchising reaches its terminus as a new railway takes shape".
The government also confirmed that train operating companies would gradually be brought back into public ownership upon the expiration of their contracts and then folded into the new publicly-owned body.
On 26 December 1917, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson nationalised most American railways under the Federal Possession and Control Act, creating the United States Railroad Administration (USRA).
Freight operations and most of the track have remained private enterprises, even as changing markets forced railroad companies to restructure in the post-World War II years.
[17] Due to changes in transportation after the construction of the interstate highway system in the postwar years and a shift to trucking, railroads in the late 20th century went through widespread restructuring and reduction.
