It always sounds ok, but rarely seems to work though does it.

Then there is the wider discussion of how much of our life should be provided by the state, and how much left to private enterprise.

TBH, I was quite suprised to find trains in the north, and most of the south east run on diesel, rather than electric. Suprised, and then amazed that the gov put such a push on getting people away from petrol and diesel cars yet we still have so much of our rail service that isn't electrified.

We've even got them in Scotland now...

So, if you didn't own a car, there is always the option to walk or cycle your journey. Or you could buy a car, tax & insure it and then find somewhere to park in Central London and pay for that privilege. That really does sound like consumer choice to me

Its working for East Coast, thats all you need to say, whatever the business plan was for East Coast, is working when a privately owned shareholder funded corporation couldn't make a profit let alone satisfy its shareholders.

I don't want to live in a communist state (theres already too many Americans who think we do just that) but there are some things that need to be managed by public ownership, "Managed" is the operative word for managed is what many public services were not in the bad old days of public ownership that people point back to and criticise, if a service was poor, dirty, lacking in customer care, under funded, and did not provide an adequate level of what it was supposed to be providing, then that is bad management, nothign more.

If you had specically chosen not to own a car, then you are indeed limiting your options and opportunities.

Back to the wider scheme though, you could take a bus or a coach. Or you could "park and ride" or you could use some combination of services. If we're specifically talking about London, then many drive/walk/cycle/bus part way or to a particular point before taking a bus/train/tube into London. That sounds like consumer choice to me.

TBH, there's probably a right mid-way point. At one end you have complete private ownership and opportunity (so no franchises, operators just put trains on when they want) through franchises with specified operating conditions, a variety of levels of gov control, all the way over to state ran services at the other end.
I would say that the infrastructure (lines and stations) needs something different to the actual train service provider. Just in the same way that roads aren't controlled by the bus companies.

Rail infrastructure has, since privatisation, always been in the hands of a separate provider. Unfortunately the privately owned provider was so piss-poor at operating and managing that service (including being responsible for a number of deaths), that the state had to relieve them of their responsibilities and take it back into public ownership.

That's not consumer choice, that's being forced into multi-modal commuting. They could always stay at home and claim benefits I suppose

That is a pretty glib statement IMO. I don't think anyone in the 50's or 60's objected to nationalised industries based on some ideological stance of about how much of our life should be provided by the state. They may have objected on other grounds but talk of a "small state" was not something I can ever recall being a hot topic.

The big state v small state debate is a manufactured one IMO manufactured by those who want a small state. They make it sound as if there is something inherently wrong with the state running virtually anything at a philosophical or moral level ignoring the practicalities. I think people in the UK are far more pragmatic and a lot less dogmatic over this than our American cousins and I think it is a real shame such dogma has found its way into the debate in this country as it moves it away from the simple economics and practicalities of the situation and turns it into an ideological debate instead.