I know it used to be better, and compared to neighboring nations its bad, but I’ve never had access to a better transit system.
Plus I do feel like DB is not given enough credit for its volume of trains. No other country in Europe is running so many trains so frequently. You have several hourly train routes that would be a bus ride every 3 hours in other European nations
It’s more complicated than that. The DB as an umbrella organization (consisting of over 100 companies) is publicly owned, but:
The infrastructure is completely separated from operations, with a lot of regulations to make sure that the infrastructure company doesn’t cooperate with any operations company for fear they might discriminate against other companies, effectively throwing sand into the gears of railroad operations because many communication paths that are standard in other railroads are banned.
The companies that carry out operations are expected to be completely self-sufficient, with no direct support from the government, but only through contracts auctioned off to the lowest bidder for local services (definitely no connection with competing companies who bid really low regularly going bankrupt /s). Long distance services are expected to finance themselves but are expected to cross subsidize services to cities that aren’t quite as lucrative (because they are, after all, owned by the government) and at the same time compete with companies that aren’t government owned that just offer rides on the most lucrative routes.
The budget that is available for infrastructure is decided by the government every year, meaning absolutely no financial stability. This means that construction companies don’t end up growing because it could be too risky, and when suddenly there’s a lot of work to be done the few construction companies that are able to do the work demand insane prices and conditions, and the infrastructure company is essentially forced to swallow if they want anything done at all.
fuck DB man
As an American living in Germany ❤️ DB
I know it used to be better, and compared to neighboring nations its bad, but I’ve never had access to a better transit system.
Plus I do feel like DB is not given enough credit for its volume of trains. No other country in Europe is running so many trains so frequently. You have several hourly train routes that would be a bus ride every 3 hours in other European nations
The only neighbouring country with certainly better train travelling imo is Switzerland.
French tgv is fucking expensive and trains are a lot less comfortable.
Dutch has great trains but it’s basically all intercity/regional/local. It’s more like a very large S-Bahn Network, Not comparable to ice experience.
Belgian trains are just shit often and just as much delayed, also no real long distance trains.
Luxembourg is free but the trains are also very unreliable…
Is it really that great in Poland, Czechia, Austria? I don’t know.
It could be better, but DB Long Distance travel is really not that bad. It’s mainly the infrastructure that’s lagging behind
Austria is doing lretty well, spain is killing it with HSR, Italy also has great high speed services, but on a smaller network.
Overall, the big problem is reliability, the DB is basically never punctual, and almost all the others are better than them at that aspect.
Public services need to be publicly owned.
Politicians are corrupt, but business people are corruption embodied.
It is publicly owned, it was just defunded by conservatives
It’s more complicated than that. The DB as an umbrella organization (consisting of over 100 companies) is publicly owned, but:
The infrastructure is completely separated from operations, with a lot of regulations to make sure that the infrastructure company doesn’t cooperate with any operations company for fear they might discriminate against other companies, effectively throwing sand into the gears of railroad operations because many communication paths that are standard in other railroads are banned.
The companies that carry out operations are expected to be completely self-sufficient, with no direct support from the government, but only through contracts auctioned off to the lowest bidder for local services (definitely no connection with competing companies who bid really low regularly going bankrupt /s). Long distance services are expected to finance themselves but are expected to cross subsidize services to cities that aren’t quite as lucrative (because they are, after all, owned by the government) and at the same time compete with companies that aren’t government owned that just offer rides on the most lucrative routes.
The budget that is available for infrastructure is decided by the government every year, meaning absolutely no financial stability. This means that construction companies don’t end up growing because it could be too risky, and when suddenly there’s a lot of work to be done the few construction companies that are able to do the work demand insane prices and conditions, and the infrastructure company is essentially forced to swallow if they want anything done at all.
No, fuck corrupt politicians - our rail network used to be great before it got privatized.