Indian railways is one of the third largest employers in the world (the Chinese Army and the UK National Health Service are the other two) and yet they are well known for being bloody awful.

EDIT: Forgot to add:

The engineering might be good, but the middle management was often really poor and the build quality of mass-produced items was usually sub-optimal.

Combined with post-war poverty here and post-war subsidies there (Japan) the UK had a weird combination of factors.