SNCF is not really a good example as it is heavily subsidised by the French government, as an example, it ordered thousands of trains at a cost of billions that were too wide for its stations.
The U.K. used to have private rail companies, then Labour after the war consolidated them into four or five large grouping companies before nationalising the whole thing. It lost money in a big way. This carried on unto the 60’s when British Rail as it was then known was losing so much money that Beeching enacted a plan to eliminate stations and tracks that did not pay for themselves. A move from steam to diesel and electrification followed. Anyone of this era will tell you that BR was a basket case and it’s unions were a disgrace. You probably were not around at the time.
Then it went back to private ownership during the 90’s in order to stop the taxpayer subsidising a completely inefficient organisation. Even Blair did not reverse this.
So my question still stands...against your comment ”The railway could employ more people, cost less and be much more efficient, safer and convenient to use than it is now.”…how exactly, because no one else is doing it……
Well, I can't say I have missed this.
SNCF is a good example of a unified network (as BR used to be, and indeed all of the precursor firms were as well). The trains you mention somewhat bizarrely as evidence of subsidy are in service now (I was on one two months ago), with the offending platforms having been altered, at a cost of millions rather than billions. As it happens, SNCF is subsidized much less than our network (TOCs, NR and the other stuff like Crossrail) is and most of the subsidy they did get went on building something worthwhile (the TGV network).
As for the UK, the 1923 grouping (which established the Big Four - LMS, LNER, GWR and SR) was brought about by the Tory / Liberal Coalition government's (led by Lloyd George) Railways Act 1921, and went effective under a Tory government (led by Bonar Law). The Big Four were occasionally profitable but were screwed over pretty permanently by the war - the network wasnt maintained except to repair war damage and the firms didn't get the earnings from the network being intensively used that would have allowed them to maintain pre-war levels of service after the war ended.
It was British Rail that was established by Labour (the Attlee government) and unfortunately it was not managed properly - electrification / dieselization saw money wasted on buying huge varieties of different types of locomotives, often bought solely to cover one area of the country and they badly misunderstood how containerization would work. Beeching's cuts too were mistakes, as he often assumed that because a line didn't earn money by itself it wasn't worth saving - ignoring the contribution it made to the wider network then and proving really quite maddening given what happened in the next thirty years (with many towns losing rail access just before they started to build thousands of new homes).
Most bizarrely of all is how you describe BR as a basket case that was only saved by privatization - the reality is that by improving its management in the 80s (under Thatcher's government) they got key parts of BR (InterCity and NetworkSouthEast) to a state of profitability which went on to help the rest of BR. They even started to bring back services and regenerate lines which have demonstrated their viability ever since; most famously the Chiltern services out of Marylebone (which is itself a tribute to that time). This was only stopped by issues caused by the late 80s / early 90s recession (falling passenger numbers, basically).
Instead of continuing with that prudent management and waiting for it to come back to profitability, Major instead sold BR off and us taxpayers quite quickly (after Hatfield) found ourselves subsidizing the railway far more than we did under BR - which is where we've been ever since.
Perhaps you weren't there either, then?
