Off the rails

Governments thinking of making a fast buck by selling off their national rail
networks to the private sector should learn from the British experience.
Britain’s railways are in chaos—and you need go no further than the Web to
find out just how badly they’re faring in private hands. But at Britrail, the
site for Americans planning to visit Britain
(www.britrail.com/train_travel.htm),
you could be forgiven for thinking there’s
no problem. “All the places you want to visit are easily accessible by rail,” it
says. But that was before private track operator Railtrack owned up to hundreds
of broken rails.…