Well, a well run mature company should return money to shareholders. That's why shareholders give money to companies in the first place.
> Privatization didn't increase capacity, did it? It certainly didn't build any new lines.
I don't think they privatised the rails themselves, only the trains.
They did. Then later on nationalised them again.
New Zealand sold the national network to Toll of Australia, who slowly ran it into the ground (I suspect one underlying problem is that it just wasn't at all profitable). Labour later bought it back from Toll (costing about $550 per working person). Passenger service is a very minor component of the national service (mostly the interisland ferry, which is a complete cockup).
Upthread comment: >[privatisation is] one of the UK's most hated things the government has ever done
In New Zealand, a lot of the political fallout from privatisation came from older people who love trains and talk a lot of crap about how good they are. They are uneconomic in New Zealand, regardless of how efficient people think they should be.
Voters don't like reality (few have any working knowledge of business), and most politics seems to be about finding alternative acceptable ways to present reality to voters.
> They are uneconomic in New Zealand
And why is that?
Mostly it's a consequence of population density. There's just not enough large cities close together.
I think it's probably also correct to say that New Zealand could sustain a larger passenger rail network if made the right investments. For example, Auckland <-> Hamilton <-> Tauranga could profitably support at least a few trains per day in each direction... _if_ it was electrified, with passing loops where needed, and with well-sited stations, and with the ability for trains to run into Britomart or at least Newmarket (both being stations close to central Auckland). However, there's a chicken and egg problem: unless you make investments like that, the service you can offer will be pretty crap and no one will want to ride your slow trains.
> Well, a well run mature company should return money to shareholders. That's why shareholders give money to companies in the first place.
Sure, but what does any of that have to do with TOCs? They're badly run, transient shells, which are given money by the government.
It should be illegal for any company to take public subsidy and pay dividends at the same time.
> I don't think they privatised the rails themselves, only the trains.
See the sad history of Railtrack Plc.