A fairly emphatic statement in The Guardian:

The best railway in Europe is publicly owned, in Switzerland.

This all being part of a proof that public ownership is best. The thing is it’s possible to mumble something or other about the definition of “best”. For example, a quick look at the finances of SBB shows that 40 to 45% of the gross revenue of the system is taxpayer support. This is not a function of covid lockdowns, this is a permanent feature. CHF 4 billion to CHF 4.4 billion on CHF 9 billion and change turnover. Which is quite a lot of money from everyone flowing to those who buy train tickets.

By contrast (without the influence of covid) 99% of the operating costs of the British rail system are paid from ticket revenue.

Which leads to a fairly basic question. Who should be paying for the train system? Our insistence is that those who get to ride on the choo choos should pay for there being choo choos to ride upon. For that just seems eminently fair to us. Everyone using an alternative form of transport has to pay their own way, whether that be shoe leather, bicycle tyres or petrol for the car (and yes, to head that one off at the pass, fuel duty is vastly larger than the road building programme*).

Something like that Swiss level of subsidy would cost every man, woman and child in the UK around £150 a year. No, people can pay for their own transport, can’t they? After all, it is them getting transported….

*This is still true considering externalities of fossil fuel use. The IMF calculations are here. Chart on page 18.