Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who? In most of Asia trains are privatized. In Europe, the passenger rail companies are in various stages of privatization. Rail in the UK is more or less privatised. Deutche Bahn, SNCF, Trenitalia, DSB, etc., are private companies. The government is involved in the sense they are the largest or sole shareholder, but they are run as for-profit corporations. For example, they compete in other countries. Many, such as…
Nearly all the privatized rail systems share the characteristic that the government (in some fashion) still owns the underlying trackage/right-of-way. This is not a bad model: the public retains the land and tracks, and provides them for private enterprises to run trains on, subject to some sort of coordination so you don't have wrecks. That's similar to how many airports work, how the Interstate Highway System works…
No it doesn’t. Amtrak owns the lines between Baltimore and DC. I used to commute it every day for two years and it was awful. Amtrak struggles to adequately maintain the northeast corridor, because as a result of government-imposed mandates, its operating profits from there go to subsidizing service on lines nobody uses. Similarly, Amtrak is just shitty at logistics and operations—planning around track work, giving updates about delays, keeping trains in working order, etc. Again, they have no mandate to turn a profit (unlike government owned rail lines in Europe) so they run like the DMV, rather than a rail carrier.