Alex appears in the top part of this image
Yup, scare quotes. They’re there for a reason.
To privatise means to alter the ownership of an institution from the state to the private sector. To own means to control. In the economic sphere it means to be able to decide what you sell, to whom you sell it and at what price.
On privatisation, Railtrack was supposed to “own” the infrastructure - the tracks, the stations, the control centres. The main services it had to sell were what are known as track “paths”. Could it decide how many of these to sell? Not really, that was decided by the government in the form of the Rail Regulator. Could it decide to whom to sell them? No. That too, was decided by the Rail Regulator. Could it decide at what price to sell these paths? In almost all circumstances, no. That, again, was decided by the Rail Regulator.
We have a term for a system where the government decides everything. It is known as communism. And Alex Singleton (at least, when it comes to the railways) is in favour of it.
And, just like communism in every other sphere, it doesn’t work.