They are both ridiculous propositions. There cannot be any meaningful competition where 99% of the involved activity is effectively fixed (water pipes and plants, rail tracks, rolling stock, even the ticketing system now). It's all an ideological play supported by big money.
Indeed, but the water privatisation is as things currently stands (but only because Railtrack crashed and burned so we're already rid of that abomination) worse in the sense that there's no automatic exit mechanism because the water companies own the infrastructure. The rail franchises at least expire so the "cheap" out is to just let them run their course.
But when the best you can say about one over the other is that it's cheaper to get out of it, not getting into it in the first place would've been preferable.
