Its much more pernicious than that.

Timetables, expansion any kind of change to rail running is approved centrally in DfT. The private operators are just that, they only run the trains to spec, on the track provided. In some cases they don't even run the stations they stop at.

What is criminal, and why the same mistakes that keep on being made, is that there little apatite or budget to retain expertise in house. This means that the DfT is reliant on consultants for most things.

THis would be fine if the people making the decisions were not people like chris grayling or grant schapps, who have no care for long term issues, only short term career success.

It costs a shit ton more, and there is less accountability. Its basically like asking claude to design the system for you. Sure it appears faster, but in the end it you'll have to redo all of it manually with no context.

The whole great british railway shit is basically just re-branding the regional franchises, and nothing more.