No, that still contains the main problem of separation, and the tricky shifting of externalities. I won't call the Swedish reform a big success (you mention tickets and freeriding), not to mention the similar British one.

That is a problem even if you have it all state owned.

I'm not sure. Present-day state unwillingness to finance line construction is linked to an intention to sell it all off with time; and also to a lack of real interest in public transport and moving freight onto the rails and sustainability, whatever the rhetoric -- but that's again linked to the privatisation drive, too. So a "fully state-owned railway that's meant to remain so" is a hypothetical -- one predicated upon some policy motivation on the part of politicians.

E.g. I think a 100 years ago, you would have gotten that rail link.

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

Looks kinda sad, doesn't it? They've had to reduce the speed from 70 to 40 km/h. The track is used by trains carrying wood to a paper mill, nine trains a day. The mine will ship 5000 tonnes of ore every day, on four trains a day. Investments are needed. Until they arrive we'll use hordes of heavy trucks which will not only be much more expensive for us, but also a nuissance to people living in the area, an environmental problem and will be bad for the local roads.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

Due to the necessities of scheduling, you can almost never have more than one operator on each bit of rail anyway, so once the decision has been made (typically for a period of several years and typically on the basis of nothing whatsoever but price), there is no competition.

So outsourcing government functions to private companies is more closely analogous to the granting of royal merchant charters than to the operation of supermarkets as far as competition is concerned.

Oh, and competition isn't magic. In fact, it introduces a number of costs that are not present for state-run entities - advertising, lawyers to do tax evasion and profit, to name some obvious wastes of money.

It also introduces redundancy into the system, because to operate two companies you need two entire structures that can perform essentially the same service. Now, redundancy isn't necessarily bad, but it's not magically good either. Having 20 % more staff than you need to cover all your bases on a normal day is A Good Idea. Having two CEOs, however, is just a waste of money. (Of course, having one CEO is very often a waste of money too... but I digress.)

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.