Once upon a time, there was a loss-making state railway company, but also a public opinion not friendly to the idea of its privatisation, and no prospective buyers on the horizon.

What do governments advised by neoliberals/adhering to neoliberalism do?

Until they don't dare a direct attack, the company is subject to

1. denial of investment funds (except for projects co-funded by the EU, and those are done with lack of system awareness), while rival transport modes get major funding (highways, airports);
   
2. further centralisation of decisionmaking especially on money issues, ostensibly to control what's spent but in practice stiffling autonomous actions and putting sand in the gears;
   
3. constant alibi reorganisations, ostensibly towards a 'more rational' or a 'market-oriented' constellation, but in practice achieving a situation where people don't know who is responsible for what (sometimes not even what organisational unit they belong to), and  workers are demoralised (you can live better even in a bad system if you can at least get to learn it);
   
4. reductions of the workforce, ostensibly to raise productivity, in practice achieving the loss of the best people (who retire or go into a different business), operational problems where key people were spared, and of course mid-level bosses protecting their favourites and firing able men.

They best leave a further few years between the cutting up and the sell-off, because cutting up brings further de-coordination and broken-up dependencies.

This is the macro view, now for the micro view.

Despite all prior difficulties and one re-organisation a year, my small unit within the state railway company managed to mostly stay together, makes a profit by also taking industry orders, and is highly productive.

But we learnt today that (1) we have been transplanted from one big branch to another, (2) our new owners are eyeing us for their quota for further workforce reduction ordered by the government. That we make profit doesn't count, in fact it appears that they will take away our right to take on orders. And even so, we already reached the minimum practicable level of workforce, taking away more will mean that we simply won't be able to do our job.

If we can't find connections who can change something, here is my 95% certain prediction: (1) we will turn unprofitable, (2) most of the unit will be dissolved, (3) as different branches of the cut-up company are privatised, they will discover that other branches aren't functional without parts of ours, so our branch will be cut up between them and a rump will remain, (4) the rump will be dissolved.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}