Whilst what you are saying makes very good sense I would like to put a counter arguement in for some of your points...............
Passenger KM growth:
1. UK
This is very true however the growth of passenger numbers has been taken advantage of by the private companys who have increased fares by a huge margin and they have made the system very difficult to understand. Travelling by train on the day has become hugely expensive and unless your company is going to pay for it, it has become almost prohibitive which strangles the growth. Under BR Saver tickets were reasonably priced and if we returned to this kind of system with the same BR special priced advance tickets like APEX and Super Advance then I would put money on growth going up even further and at a higher rate. Whilst it is unlikely that returning to BR would make a difference now the damage has been done, you have to ask whether we would have got to this point had BR still been in existance.
The other factor of growth is people working further away and the cost of driving going up and up, particularly if you work in London. For instance if you live in St Albans and work in London then you left with two options. Take the train or drive. If you want to drive you are left with the prospect of a long and unpleasent journey littered with traffic, high parking charges, the congestion charge and the high costs associated with running a car. If you take the train then you get from point to point. However, again the private companys have taken note of this and have put prices of season tickets up by a huge margin compared to BR but it is still better value than the car. With just two options and with more people moving further out of London and more people commuting it leaves people with no choice other than to take the train, whether they like it or not. So whilst the passenger growth looks very impressive, many people just don't have any other choice.
BR achieved a simular level of growth in the 1980's only to fall back in the 1990's with problems with the economy. The current level of growth in the railway industry is on par with the levels from the 1950's which was of course under BR. As the economy is pretty stable and the last major growth was under BR you could argue that people would now be spending more money at the ticket office under BR because people have more money on the hip, only the fares would have far easier to understand and the cost of travelling on the day would be far less.
Freight growth Ton KM
1. UK
Once again, quite correct. However the Freight sector has have a simular story to the passenger sector. With roads becoming more and more congested, many companies have few other options than to use the rail network. Whilst this is a good thing, can you really say that the Freight sector has grown by such a margin because of privatisation or simply because its only real viable option for companies and that really the growth in this sector would have come under BR anyway?
Its customer service left a lot to be desired (remember the jokes about sandwiches?).
BR passengers service could be pretty woeful, however it is only in the past 5 years that passengers have expected more than just a train. I personally don't think there are many TOC's which offer a golden level of customer service, in some cases the service they provide is woeful. If we had been under BR the policy of customer service may have been reviewed as times changed and today we could have had a system that we could be proud of, trouble is we will now never know so its harsh to say that TOC's provide a better level of service compared to BR as expectations from the rail industry has changed so much. Also long distance rail now has a far bigger threat from the airline industry which has slashed its prices for domestic flights and rail has had to change its image to try and compete with the airlines which is why you see rail staff dressed like cabin crew, posh nosh instead of asbestos pie and modern shops instead of the traditional buffet.
Under privatisation the costs of track renewal were quadrupled and the companies involved were filling each others pockets with huge, unjustifiable sums of money which was coming out of tax payers money. Now of course its going back in house with Network Rail as it should be.
Would renationalising the railway be prohibitively expensive? Well no, not as much as you would believe. Network Rail are effectively in the public sector, if you took the contracts back in house then the savings would be enormous in the long term. Train operating companys operate franchises which could simply be awarded to British Rail, the SRA, Network Rail or whatever you want to call them. As for rolling stock, well the government would have enormous power if the system was one and the ROSCO's would have little business unless it lowered the leasing charges. If the ROSCO's had noone to stripe up then they would be quite eager to get rid of the stuff they already have so you simply buy back the stock, the banks roll around in the money they have already made and you would save billions in needless leasing costs.
Its unlikely that this country will ever turn back the hands of what, in my eyes at least, was a complete sham but I genuinely think that in the long term a return to nationalisation is a real and perhaps only right option for the future.