Bristol <-> Bath is GWR, which is owned and operated by the British company FirstGroup; they're mostly known for First Bus but they do trains too.

> to subsidise their national networks

Do you have a source? That's an extraordinary claim, the sort of thing I'd expect to find in Nigel Farage's bag of lies

"to subsidise their national networks" is a framing, but "for profit" is the simple truth of train operators in a privatized system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arriva_UK_Trains : subsidiary of DB

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C2c : subsidiary of Trenitalia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avanti_West_Coast : part owned by Trenitalia

And so on.

(Don't forget that the real profit ends up with the "train landlords", the ROSCOs: https://www.leasinglife.com/features/who-owns-the-trains-ros... ; all of them are parented in Luxembourg for tax reasons)

It is effectively true. Many European firms own chunks of the rail franchises in the UK and charge a shed load more than their local rail services are able to. Similar to the power franchises with the likes of EDF owning a large stake and charging a lot more here than they can get away with in France.

It isn't an EU thing, though it has at times been something Farage and his ilk have banged on about as if it is an EU thing, it is the way the Tories setup the privatisation of the railways (running them into the ground first as part of making the case for taking them away from the public purse (which it isn't as there are still significant subsidies involved)).

> it is the way the Tories setup the privatisation of the railways

which they did to implement... EU Directive 91/440 ("First Railway Package")

yes, the UK tended to gold plate EU regs, but the spark was the EU

It's not an EU-bash, it's true. We sold off the railways to private companies, most of which are actually the nationalised rail operators of other countries.

Here's one article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2019/08/15/almost-a...

I believe it's a little out of date now, as some of the lines have been renationalised due to failures of the private sector.