Comment by l5870uoo9y
3 days ago
It’s fascinating to read but I have a hard time imagining a public western railway provider could evolve into a train based mega corporation doing real estate and health services.
3 days ago
It’s fascinating to read but I have a hard time imagining a public western railway provider could evolve into a train based mega corporation doing real estate and health services.
The Swiss SBB also has a real estate division, which makes them a lot of money actually (I think a lot of that comes from leases from shops in train stations).
They also have an energy company which runs some hydroelectric power stations.
That's actually pretty common.
Deutsche Bahn does everything from real estate to infrastructure to truck companies (no longer in Europe, though, they had to sell that off) to car sharing to energy production to IT development to trading lumber, workforce rental and startup venture capital. The list changes every few days, so some they may no longer do, others they will now do. It's a megacorp.
Many of these have grown out of the original business model.
Transport for London (TfL) have a fledgling property development arm called Places for London which aims to try and replicate some of the successes of Japanese railway companies. They propose the mooted Bakerloo line extension is partially subsidised by over-station developments.
TfL can barely build some flats in Zone 2 without the locals rioting like they're destroying a Cotswolds village. Actually, it can barely fix the literal busiest station in the country without a bunch of minor celebrity detractors riling up everyone about how much of a travesty it is that we're doing it.
Without the public or central government support, the efforts you're talking about amount to very little.
> Actually, it can barely fix the literal busiest station in the country
Liverpool Street isn't managed by TfL, it's managed by Network Rail.
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I believe American rail companies used to built whole towns. I am kinda surprised why a hyper capitalistic country like the US never developed this concept further?
It's brilliant if you think about it. By building super convenient rail transport you essentially lock people into your territory and businesses. They go by foot so they can't get far. If they want to go somewhere else, they probably have to take your rail network and only end up at your other properties. With some aggressive horizontal integration, you can essentially built a small kingdom.
We had just that in the UK relatively recently! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro-landhttps://en.wikipedia...
Because most western train companies are nationalized or co owned by the state. They don't even have to turn a profit.