>>1261703So the JR model, basically? Funny enough, the Japanese rail industry's really interested in what you guys did. Not in a good way, but in a "okay, how did they screw this up" way. An author who wrote about how the BR privatization fucked up everything sold more copies of his book in Japan than in the UK.
On a side note, Dubya Bush tried to do the same thing with Amtrak's NEC that you guys did. The Amtrak CEO then, David Gunn, got fired because he was too successful at getting money from Congress and was also very vocal about how stupid of an idea vertical separation of railroads is.
When asked on their thoughts, all the Japanese industry figures agreed with him, stating that coordination among track, rolling stock, maintenance, and upgrades is essential, and basically saying that even if the operational nightmare caused by splitting them could be made to work, it would drastically increase administration costs and bureaucracy.
They were completely right.
>>1261708Yeah, it's not gonna happen. The Tories tried it once, and it backfired so hard on them that it basically single-handedly put nationalization back into the public consciousness.
They fucking HATE the fact that LNER is nationalized, but they're smart enough to realize that if the franchise fell through AGAIN there'd be hell to pay.
