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Comment by CameronNemo | Hacker News Reader

Rail networks have massive network effects. Might be best to let the market not have that one. What with the huge risk of regulatory capture and all.

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Looking at e.g. the UK, having some mixed public-private rail system doesn't seem to work that well.

The most efficient freight railways in the world are probably in the USA, and passengers in Japan. Both private vertically integrated things, with the one company owning both rails and trains. But yeah, massive potential for problems as well.

I don't really have a good solution. I'd guess the best industry structure is just "it depends", nothing that is superior to other ways of doing it in all circumstances..

I sort of wonder if private train companies in the US would achieve the sort of interconnection we have in Tokyo. The train station nearest to my house is owned by one company, but after going East two stops the stations and rails are all owned by another company. The station that's part of both of these companies' lines is also a major transfer station to a major line owned by a third company.

As a user of transit I mostly don't have to care about this, but I ended up calling three companies when I lost something on the way home.

This was sort of figured out during the massive railroad booms in the US throughout the 1800s. You can let the market have parts of it but you need guardrails so you don't have some asshole that owns a bridge holding everything up for a city: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livingston_Avenue_Bridge#Histo...

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