The core principal here is open access, where the government owns and maintains the infrastructure, and anyone can make use of capacity on it provided they comply with regulations concerning safety and crew certification. They pay fees to the government agency responsible for the infrastructure to help cover its costs. This is how highways and air infrastructure works in the US, and state-owned rail infrastructure is required to be open access under EU law.

So far it seems to have been successful, state-owned rail operators have historically been the jack of all trades, but that doesn’t always help when people want to travel to odd destinations or at odd times. Open access improves that significant and has been instrumental in helping the EU begin to transition away from air travel.