Trivia: Privately owned railways operating a public service

[PTR 444]

Generally, most heavy railways operating a passenger service will be owned or operated by the state in some way, but the setup varies by country. In the UK, privately operated trains* operate on publicly owned infrastructure. In the US, it’s the other way round with the state owned passenger operator (Amtrak) running on tracks owned by private freight railroads, while many countries in Europe have a state-owned and operated system with the odd open-access operator filling some gaps in the market.

But are there any railways in the world which are completely privately owned and operated? Now I know you’ll be thinking that there are hundreds of such examples, but most of those will either be light rail systems, or heritage/fairground railways operating for the purposes of leisure and tourism rather than providing a public service - Those examples don’t really count. What I am looking for is a railway that:

• Operates a service for the benefit of the travelling public from the early morning to the evening, all year round.
• Is a heavy rail railway as opposed to a tramway or light rail system
• Operates on a completely commercial basis - i.e. has no financial support from the state
• Operates entirely on privatised infrastructure, either their own or that of another private entity

The closest example I can think of is Brightline in Florida, as that is a privately owned company operating a public service for the purposes of getting passengers from A to B, all on a privately owned railroad.

I’ve put this in the international topic, but examples from the UK are welcome too. I would imagine there have been very few, if any, such railways here since BR was formed in 1948.

*before the DfT took on the revenue risk in March 2020

 

[stuu]

Various Japanese railways are entirely private, although they often make lots of money from property development over their land e.g. Seibu, Keikyu in Tokyo, Kintetsu in Osaka

 

[MarcVD]

NTV (Italo) in Italy - and also now on France ?
Thalys, Eurostar ? Although owned by public compagnies, they are not subsidized...
Regiojet, Westbahn ?

 

[PTR 444]

NTV (Italo) in Italy - and also now on France ?
Thalys, Eurostar ? Although owned by public compagnies, they are not subsidized...
Regiojet, Westbahn ?

Don’t they run on publicly owned tracks though?

 

[MarcVD]

Don’t they run on publicly owned tracks though?

Yes but they pay track access charges...

 

[Calthrop]

Operates a service for the benefit of the travelling public from the early morning to the evening, all year round.

• Is a heavy rail railway as opposed to a tramway or light rail system
• Operates on a completely commercial basis - i.e. has no financial support from the state

(I have griped about this elsewhere on the forum recently -- eliciting some fellow-feeling -- its "quoting" set-up seems designed to make things as difficult and problem-prone as possible, for the computorially less-sophisticated. Put a foot wrong, and you're "in a world of hurt", with no idea how to get out of it. So -- @PTR 444, apologies for botching above quoted material from you.)

I don't claim great learned scholarship here; and the info which I have, dates from ten years ago -- things might have changed hugely in the intervening decade. At all events -- I have long had the impression that where Europe is concerned, "private-railways heaven" in your context, has been since way back, and to some extent continues to be -- Denmark.

Said country has had from the beginning of the railway age, very numerous local railways, privately launched and operated; over and above the fairly country-encompassing state railways system. Fulfilling your criteria above, I think -- "real all-year-round" railways; maybe in some cases a bit lightly-engineered -- but "proper" railways as opposed to roadside tramways; and maybe, especially in "leaner times" as in the past hundred years or so, in receipt of some subsidies to make good operational losses: I take it (apologies, if wrongly) that that factor is not for you, an "absolute".

At the peak of this phenomenon, as at the early 1930s, the total kilometrage of private railways in Denmark exceeded the total length of the state-railways system, by nearly 300 km. (These private lines were nearly all -- like the state railways -- 1435mm gauge: Denmark did never [with a few exceptions; and unlike the other Scandinavian countries] basically "do" narrow gauge.) That situation did not last: significant private-lines closures began about 1950 -- the "great dying" of these lines, was in the 1960s; there survived after then, approximately a dozen different private systems, in various parts of the country -- which amazingly, had pretty well all (running for "real business traffic" -- not preservation stuff) lasted, still independent, until approx. ten years ago -- out of these, fair number of previously "self-sufficient" private lines, had as of then amalgamated with each other.

 

[DanielB]

In Germany there's the Niederbarnimer Eisenbahn who also partially own the infrastructure they run on (with services also extending onto DB Netz infrastructure.
Also there's the Norddeutsche Eisenbahngesellschaft Niebüll, where besides there own trains on own infrastructure also have services operated by Arriva Denmark on their tracks. And in summer through carriages from DB intercity services being coupled behind the regional NEG trains.

 

[Gag Halfrunt]

JR East, JR Central, JR West and JR Kyushu were privatised. JR Hokkaido, JR Shikoku and JR Freight are still state-owned.

In 1987, the government of Japan took steps to divide and privatize JNR. While division of operations began in April of that year, privatization was not immediate: initially, the government retained ownership of the companies. Privatization of some of the companies began in the early 1990s. By October 2016, all of the shares of JR East, JR Central, JR West and JR Kyushu had been offered to the market and they are now publicly traded. On the other hand, all of the shares of JR Hokkaido, JR Shikoku and JR Freight are still owned by Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency, an independent administrative institution of the state.

Japan Railways Group - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[U-Bahnfreund]

In Germany there's the Niederbarnimer Eisenbahn who also partially own the infrastructure they run on (with services also extending onto DB Netz infrastructure.
Also there's the Norddeutsche Eisenbahngesellschaft Niebüll, where besides there own trains on own infrastructure also have services operated by Arriva Denmark on their tracks. And in summer through carriages from DB intercity services being coupled behind the regional NEG trains.

NEB and neg are both partly owned by public institutions though (NEB by states of Berlin and Brandenburg and local authorities, and neg by the Luxembourgish State Railways). More importantly though, just as basically any regional service in Germany, their operations are PSO and tendered by the states of Berlin and Brandenburg (for NEB) and by the state of Schleswig-Holstein and the relevent authority in Denmark (for neg). Thus they do receive public money and wouldn't operate otherwise.

For Germany I can't think of any railway that fits the criteria.

 

[Gloster]

The Danish private lines are not privately owned, but owned by local and regional councils. A few years ago one or two still had a minority private shareholding, but that may not be the case nowadays. They are called private because they were once private companies, although often with a local government holding, and it differentiates them from DSB which is directly owned by the state.

I think the situation is broadly similar in Germany with those companies that operate on their own tracks.

 

[pdeaves]

Does the set-up in Switzerland fit here? I know little about it, other than oft-quoted statements that at least one of the companies was private but working closely with the national company/ies, so someone feel free to knock this on the head if I'm wrong/mistaken/out-of-date.

 

[QJ]

Does the Whitepass and Yukon pass the private railway criteria? It does have a daily service to Carcross connecting with a bus to Whitehorse and vice versa plus one to Fraser that also connects with the bus to Whitehorse. Admittedly not many locals are likely to use it on a regular basis.

 

[U-Bahnfreund]

Does the set-up in Switzerland fit here? I know little about it, other than oft-quoted statements that at least one of the companies was private but working closely with the national company/ies, so someone feel free to knock this on the head if I'm wrong/mistaken/out-of-date.

Not a Swiss expert either, but I believe these "private" railways are still always partly or wholly owned by state, cantons or local municipalities and even if they wouldn't, the money for operating public transport still comes from these institutions too (although I'm not 100% sure how exactly it works in Switzerland with tendering and so on)

 

[Calthrop]

The Danish private lines are not privately owned, but owned by local and regional councils. A few years ago one or two still had a minority private shareholding, but that may not be the case nowadays. They are called private because they were once private companies, although often with a local government holding, and it differentiates them from DSB which is directly owned by the state.

I think the situation is broadly similar in Germany with those companies that operate on their own tracks.

Thanks ! I tend to simplistically think -- "Non-State" = "Private": in fact, not that cut-and-dried ! I tend to blame Bryan Morgan, my hero -- who like me was a dreamy character, not too bothered with technical, or administrative / proprietorial, minutiae .

 

[Romsey]

Does the Whitepass and Yukon pass the private railway criteria? It does have a daily service to Carcross connecting with a bus to Whitehorse and vice versa plus one to Fraser that also connects with the bus to Whitehorse. Admittedly not many locals are likely to use it on a regular basis.

According to friends in North America, it's wholly a tourist railway nowadays. Just to reinforce that, the WP&Y is now partly owned by Carnival Cruises to provide some thing for their passengers to do in their day in Skagway.