I'm guessing, though I could be wrong, that the rise in fares helped to cover much-needed improvements in the system. I've seen big improvements in station facilities, better rolling stock and new signalling equipment.
The big risk with nationalised industries is that there may be an unwillingness to spend money when the budget is tight. (Mind you, with subsidies that large, we're spending it anyway...)
On the other hand, that's nothing new. Think of the transition from semaphore to colour-light signalling, and from individual signalboxes to centralised boxes; the construction of the BR standard steam locomotives, and the diesel and electric designs that replaced them up to the Class 43s and Class 91s; the design and construction of Mk3 and Mk4 coaches, and various newer DMU/EMU types; the introduction of information displays at stations other than main-line terminuses. I don't think one can really say that there has been an unusual rate of improvement post-privatisation; indeed, in some parts of the country improvements BR planned have not happened (for example, when I left Bracknell in 2004, slam-door EMUs were still running on that route.)
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The big risk with nationalised industries is that there may be an unwillingness to spend money when the budget is tight. (Mind you, with subsidies that large, we're spending it anyway...)
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