Friends and relations in the UK love to complain, by the way, about how much the rail network has gone downhill since it was privatized. I think one of the consistent problems is multiple operating companies running on common track, possibly maintained by a third party. So you get Connex running commuter trains, Virgin running inter-city trains which don't touch London (or something like that), First Great Western running trains originating in London on the old GWR network, GNER and something else jockeying for platforms at King's Cross... What a mess.

To Branson's credit, I don't think you could get trains like "Bournemouth-Oxford-Birmingham" back in the British Rail days, and that particular train has proven jolly convenient. But I hear Virgin trains tend to get shafted because they own *none* of the track.