Railway nationalization

Railway nationalization is the act of taking rail transport assets into public ownership. Several countries have at different times nationalized part or all of their railway system.

More recently, the international trend has been towards privatization. In some areas, notably Great Britain, resultant problems with track maintenance have led back to a more mixed solution, with a nationalised infrastructure operator but privately run train operating companies.

National characteristics influenced the structures under which countries' rail networks developed. Some national railways were always under direct State management, some were State-planned but privately operated (as in France), others were wholly private enterprises lightly regulated (as in Great Britain, Ireland and Spain). Nationalization was therefore a bolder step to take in some countries than in others. While ideology has played a role, so too has the need for systematic reconstruction of vital infrastructure devastated by war, often following a period of State control over private companies initiated during the conflict.

The Argentine railways developed with private British, Argentine and French capital and were nationalised by the state in 1948 during President Juan Perón's first term of office and merged into the existing state-owned railways. In the 1990s, following Carlos Menem's neoliberal reforms, services were privatised through concession with infrastructure still belonging to the state. After a series of high-profile accidents and serious deterioration of services under privatisation, most rail lines have returned to state control by 2015, in effect re-nationalising them.

In Canada, the government took control of several railways that fell into bankruptcy following World War I, including the Canadian Northern Railway, the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, and the Grand Trunk Railway. On December 20, 1918, the federal government created the Canadian National Railways (CNR), and placed the companies that it took control of under the CNR. Canadian National Railway was privatized in 1995.

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