If nothing else, roads are publicly-owned property; private railways are not.
I would favour, as in the case in several countries, the state owning the track, and operators (private or public, owning their rolling stock, maintenance facilities, and being responsible for marketing/administration etc. )
This is comparable to highways/trucking companies. The government owns what is driven on; but not the vehicles doing the driving, nor does it pay the drivers.
Without researching, I would think providing grants, which are funded by taxpayers and/or other levels of government, to a for-profit company might be problematic as well.
I would agree it can be problematic, and probably shouldn't be done; but then add its done all the time, both by senior governments and by the City.
The provincial press releases are endless...........
news.ontario.ca
Lets look at what this one presser entails;
I would be perfectly happy to nix all of the above and ask why a for-profit business is asking for a hand-out...........but I'm simply pointing out that such is far from rare.
****
Its also a thing at the municipal level in several ways.
The most notable would be the IMIT grants in Toronto to developers of office space ( a typical subsidy being worth tens of millions of dollars).....
But there are also 'Tower Renewal' programs,broadly seen as a social good; but which do serve to subsidize private, for-profit landlords.
***
For all of that, I agree with you that having government pick winners and subsidize for profit businesses is generally a poor idea.
