Britain has gone through regular and repeated crises with their trains, and pretty much the entire system went bankrupt during COVID. The government paid what it took to keep it going, but it's not a smooth system by any means. Even during what people would consider the heyday of British Rail, it still required significant and ongoing government subsidies:
And the subsidies given the the rail which were needed because of the governemt laws about not travelling were far lower than US subsidies.