UNBUNDLING THE TRACKS FROM THE TRAINS MIGHT INTRODUCE TOO MANY COMPLEXITIES.

In principle, there's no reason not to think of railroad tracks as a kind of highway network, and separate ownership (and maintenance) of the tracks from operation of the trains.  The idea is at least fifty years old (there's a suggestion in Trains in the second half of the 1960s, i.e. before the wreck of the Penn Central, of doing just that, and National Review's William F. Buckley once endorsed the idea, albeit before the advent of search engines) and that's sort of what they're doing on British metals (to a lesser extent, with some passenger and freight operators elsewhere on the continent as well.)

In practice, the introduction of Demsetz auctions by which train operating companies bid for the right to offer services on rail corridors runs afoul of excessive optimism and sunk costs.

The beat goes on.  Virgin Trains, for instance, recently had its East Coast franchise (London Kings Cross to Edinburgh, i.e. the Flying Scotsman line) terminated.

From [24 June], DOHL, a government-owned ‘operator of last resort’, would take over the franchise and begin preparations for the creation of an integrated East Coast Partnership business with a single team managing both operations and infrastructure. [Transport Secretary Chris] Grayling told [Parliament] that the business would be ‘publicly run for a short period’, mirroring the period between 2009 and 2014 when Directly Operated Railways managed ICEC services under the East Coast brand.

A single team managing operations and infrastructure.  We used to call such a thing a railway.  There was a Permanent Way department and an Operating department.  They're sort of moving in that direction with the government action.  "From June 24, VTEC is to be replaced by the London North Eastern Railway brand, evoking the name of the company which ran the East Coast Main Line prior to nationalisation in 1948."

But not completely.  "On May 15 Grand Central submitted an application to the Office of Rail & Road seeking to run a sixth daily Sunderland to London King’s Cross return service, an additional train between Bradford Interchange and London, an early morning service from Wakefield Kirkgate to London and a 10-car late evening service departing London before 22.00 and splitting at Doncaster to serve Wakefield and York."  All of those are historic routes of London and North Eastern, and later the North Eastern Region of British Railways.

When I'm over there, my rail pass is good on any train, run by any company.  I think individual tickets work that way, but wouldn't it be simpler, for instance, for all trains calling at Doncaster, whether enroute Wakefield or Leeds or Bradford or York or Newcastle or Edinburgh Waverly to be run by the same railway?