>>1119955Nice digits, even then the difference in financial stability between various agencies could become too great when companies that have lots of cash cow routes / serving major centers becoming highly profitable while rural operators could be cash-strapped. Let's look at Japan for example:
Mainland JR companies that are now fully privatized
JR East: Hilariously profitable due to Tokyo region being its major cashcow
JR Central: Also extremely profitable since it operates Tokaido Shinkansen (one of the busiest HSR corridor in the world) and it has the least amount of track (in terms of absolute distance and rural tracks) to maintain for the mainland companies
West JR: Profitable enough, but much less so than its other mainland cousins due to lower economic parity in the west and it has many rural routes to serve
And then we have the "other companies" that are still technically owned by the Japanese government through third party agencies
JR Kyushu: Teeter between being profitable and losing money, recently beginning its step towards actual privatization with IPO
JR Shikoku: Loses money due to many rural lines, but its losses isn't too terrible due to small size of the island
JR Hokkaido: Loses a lot of money due to many rural lines with extremely low ridership, even urban center being unprofitable, and suffers from crumbling infrastructure and rolling stock due to age.
JR Freight: Barely profitable (if ever) since they technically don't own any track and have to pay other companies to use their tracks to haul freight across the country along with rail freight have really low market share in Japan.
