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.... Would you say that the railroad industry was more or less regulated by the government in the early 1900s than it is today?
Honestly, I know little abut the railroad, but what I do know is that in a country this size, it may be a rather dated service. It's a good local service to have, though. And, for the most part, they are government entities.
As someone who DOES know a bit about the railroad industry...
The industry went through stages of regulation based on proven need for regulation. The first 50 years of it's existence was free of accident fatalities and there was no reason to regulate it for safety. Then the Ashtabula and Angola Horrors happened. There was a public outcry for regulation for the safety of the passengers who now saw the railroads dangers as the threat they were to safety. The industry was indecisive on how to deal with the situation, and so the government stepped in for a uniform safety code for their operation because there WAS a real threat.
Then came the expansion regulations because conflicts of interests between riverboat operators, farmers, cities and the railroads came about. Again, regulations were needed to define who's rights to do what were supreme. Much of this legislation was due in large part to the work of Abraham Lincoln who while a railroad lawyer in the 1840's ironed out agreements between the states, riverboat operators and the railroads for crossing rivers and regulations there in.
But the robber barons was not a railroad issue, it was a financial industry issue and defining issue of the Guilded age and industrial revolution. Abuses of workers and consumers by everyone from J.P. Morgan to Commodore Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, Credit Mobilier's defrauding of the US govt during the building of the trans-continental railroad and J.J. Hill's geographic monopolization had it's roots in plutocracy that thankfully were broken starting in the 1880's through the 1910's. It wasn't just the railroads though. EVERY industry was doing these things because there were no laws. The panic of 1893 was caused by lack of regulations in trading on the market allowing what today would be called nothing short of financial terrorism.
All these regulations had to be done to provide guardrails for safer and more equitable as well as ethical capitalism. They used to be very broad and loose but provided protections from abuses from the populace as well as the industrialists. You got product safety, fair labor laws, unionization rights, better rules on trading for financial institutions.
This is the way regulations come about. The problem comes in when you demand a 100% 'safe' society that ossifies behavior and action into one universal code and template that nobody can consistently live up to, and viciously punishes anyone who falls short even a single iota at any step.
As for the functionality of the railroads they are strictly a freight or intermediate high speed passenger hauler. No other way is more efficient to haul freight overland than trains. Passenger trains could... COULD carve out an intercity market again if they were able to maintain such high quality rail that they could compete more cheaply than smaller airlines. The problem is, that deck is stacked against them because of the nature of the travel business and risks of high speed ground travel.
The only example of government entities doing the job they set out to do and then ending is the USRA. They were organized to help with heavy traffic during WW1 and for a brief period of WW2. They are best known for creating basic platforms for steam motive power that served the railroads VERY well for the last half of steam's existence by limiting the 'standard' models to 6 different plans. They didn't do well at managing motive power distribution as well during the war because they often shifted engines and trains to where they weren't needed as much as some believed necessary.
The upshot of all this is that there always MUST be a SMALL AMOUNT of regulation to protect the public consumer from fraud and abuse. You must protect the worker from both unfair labor practices and hazards in the workplace that can instantly or chronically harm or kill them. There must also be protections to competators from unfair business practices being done to protect monopolies or powerful businesses from stifling new competition. But there are so many regulations that are completely unnecessary and intrusive they do more harm than good, hampering business from being bigger better faster cheaper as the standard SHOULD be.
Every crisis that occurs exposes needs for regulations. Over time, the regulations should be reconsidered and subjected to cost analysis. Those who do not help an economy or nation must be cut back. To demand a 100% safe society should be considered a sign of insanity, not altruism or noble goals. The world will never be 100% safe from risk, and those who demand it need to be refused power.
