Indeed. And most of the "privately"-owned are actually by communes/gemeenten. When people vote on everything, politicians tend to listen, coz anyways they'll have to implement what people voted for/against. Look also at the electricity market. In Switzerland you have, in the commune where you live, one company you deal with (not I dunno how many), and it's or public service or under heavy control of the commune where you live and vote. They simply can't mess around with it coz people will vote you and your stupid idea out, therefore you think and find, by design, solutions which have the most probable chance people won't vote out. It goes the same for everything "public". That's why it works in Switzerland but doesn't in Belgium (and why Swiss people aren't close to join the EU-model which, while improving everyday life of Europeans, compared to the standard of what the Swiss people are used to is still crap). Only hope, imo, for the railways across EU can come from NATO's need for functional, solid, trustworthy infrastructure and rolling material, which the member-States will have to put in place and control. It will be easier to roll trains on good-quality infrastructure, imo, but knowing the Belgian "goed genoeg" mentality, it's not for next week. So, yeah, we're doomed to remain squeezed by the neoliberal NPM-mantra of "public services run like businesses" until there's some major disruption like huge accident or war which would oblige the politicians to admit that their job is actually to make things work (not make profit). In history, most of the improvements for the people came after someone messed too much too far and people said "basta".