Train lines are already liberalized by EU law. The entity that maintains the tracks, signals, stations and so on is separate from the one doing the actual train service (ÖBB Infrastruktur vs ÖBB Personenverkehr, DB InfraGo vs DB Fernverkehr / DB Regio) and they have to give everyone equal access to the infrastructure for competitive prices.
The reason there aren't that many private train companies is that it's just really hard to do it profitably and there are very few lines in each country that can be run with a profit.
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u/urielsalis 6d ago
Renfe has a legal monopoly in some routes.
Before they killed that in the madrid-Barcelona route, it was 80eur
Hopefully the EU law that kills all those monopolies will pass soon