So how come no one can make it work in that "efficient" way?
I agree: GB should be the perfect example of rail. It's (the non-Eire part anyway) a small country (even London->Glasgow is shorter than even Boston -> Washington DC; most interesting routes are shorter); much of the right of way has existed for hundreds of years; car ownership is low; it's part of the culture already.
But if it's the "worst in Europe" then what does that say for it in general?
And: I'm not sure what you mean by 'efficient' here: if it cannot be run profitably, how 'efficient' could it be?
Let's focus on cost; here's what I see:
-- The train goes from A to B no matter if it has passengers or not -- Adding trainsets is difficult -- Adding/removing cars from trainsets seems unheard of -- Changing the schedule (dropping empty trains, adding more capacity
during peak times) is expensive and tricky (pax/freight conflicts) -- Maintenance is constant and expensive
/jordan