@joe_bloggs* wrote:

I wonder if the privatised rail companies would survive without aid ?

"Britain’s privatised railways have been getting around £5 billion on average in government support over the last five years. In the last five years of the 1980s—the earliest period we have figures for before privatisation—it was an average of £1.6 billion in today’s money"

https://fullfact.org/economy/government-funding-rail-industry-bbcqt/

You’re right of course - subsidies in real terms have increased, as have rail journeys.  What that figure doesn’t show is what proportion of those subsidies went to the train operators and what went to Network Rail which is the nationalised part of the system.