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Germany is offering a summer of cheap trains

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Re: Germany is offering a summer of cheap trains

#81

Post by PixelOfDeath »

nixass wrote: post #66
dang wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the submission but can you please pick a different username? Celebrity names are a variant of trollish usernames [1], and we don't allow those on HN [2] because they subtly troll every thread they post to. Inevitably this leads to low-value off-topic stuff. We've learned from experience to just deal with the problem early, so I've temporarily banned this account. If you'd like to pick a neutral, non-trol…

What if someone has same name as some "celebrity"?

"We are sorry to inform you, but a big multi billion dollar company has selected a snipped of your video/music/name and registered it within our copyright/trademark system. Therefor we will automatically delete all of your content and sue you for one hundred million dollars in damages on their behalf!"

Dang sounds like a copyright/trademark troll to me! Really disappointed that they allow something like that here.

Edit: I only know graham crackers?! But I guess that's not it?

Re: Germany is offering a summer of cheap trains

#83

Post by josefx »

tpmx wrote: post #80
josefx wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is probably more the EU directive that caused the privatization, because it requires that all European rail services compete commercially. Which means they are all required to make a profit even if it is a net negative to society. I can't wait for an EU directive that requires our firefighters to compete commercially, following the example of Marcus Licinius Crassus this would seem quite doable.

Wait, what problem? Do you also believe that Deutsche Bahn was privatized, as in the ownership being transferred from the government to private citizens? If not, can you please clarify for the benefit of other readers of the thread?

The problem that it __acts__ like a for profit privately owned company.

Re: Germany is offering a summer of cheap trains

#84

Post by tpmx »

josefx wrote: post #83
tpmx wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what problem? Do you also believe that Deutsche Bahn was privatized, as in the ownership being transferred from the government to private citizens? If not, can you please clarify for the benefit of other readers of the thread?

The problem that it __acts__ like a for profit privately owned company.

Ah. I guess that involves bourgeoisie things such as attempting to balance their budget.

Re: Germany is offering a summer of cheap trains

#85

Post by geff82 »

_Microft wrote: post #57
geff82 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you beed to be on time, national flights with Lufthansa for me are close to 100% reliable whereas Deutsche Bahn turned out to be a catastrophe in about 50% of the cases. I still don’t get it: they own the complete network, they control every train on it and arriving on time at a place is like playing roulette. Neither air travel nor traveling by car gives those headaches (especially when you listen to your dynamic…

Lufthansa rarely gets "Personenschaden" ("injury to persons", an euphemism for "suicide") on their flight paths while Deutsche Bahn has frequently to deal with that. A delayed intercity express train definitely delays departure of other trains that are considered Anschluss(züge) ("connecting trains"). It then ripples through the network.

Then how do other countries get to a reliable service? Japan, Switzerland, France…

Re: Germany is offering a summer of cheap trains

#86

Post by Tainnor »

winkelwagen wrote: post #5

As someone using the German railway for a large distance destination couple a weeks ago it was a total disaster, we got stranded in a unfamiliar German city. Deutsche bahn told us they didn’t have any of their (partner) hotel rooms left. Just arrange something yourself. That was very nice because all the hotels were full anyway. It took us another 2 hours of calling to find something. I was exhausted when I finally c…

I've definitely had my "I hate DB" moments in my life and experiences similar to the one you describe, but for me, most of the time, I don't experience major issues (I don't count "train is half an hour late" to be a major issue, although I agree that it's kind of laughable that this happens so often - but I got used to it). It's definitely easier if you don't have to change trains or you don't take a super late train or anything.

Then there's also things that are consistently bad, like regional trains in NRW. They're never on time.

Re: Germany is offering a summer of cheap trains

#87

Post by yakak »

tpmx wrote: post #84
josefx wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem that it __acts__ like a for profit privately owned company.

Ah. I guess that involves bourgeoisie things such as attempting to balance their budget.

Yes, the rail system needs to grow up and be like the wonderful privatized road system that charges tolls on all levels of streets to make sure it is not stealing from tax coffers to encourage pollution.

Re: Germany is offering a summer of cheap trains

#88

Post by MandieD »

belter wrote: post #82

Discussed recently. "9-Euro-Ticket (bahn.com)": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31445822 Consensus is that is not really that interesting as it might sound.

Especially if your interest is long-distance travel and you haven’t discovered the difference between ICE (Munich to Nuremberg in 1:10, perhaps a stop in Ingolstadt - Airbus + Audi) and RB (Munich to Nuremberg in 2:30…ish, stop in all the little towns)

Re: Germany is offering a summer of cheap trains

#89

Post by MandieD »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #74

I must confess that I've used the train system in Berlin many, many times and never paid because I didn't realize (at first) and later forgot.. Have things changed so that you need to go through a turnstile or similar ticket entry system, or is this just for the RE trains?

Can’t speak to Berlin within the past 3 years, but I’ve never seen any sort of gate/turnstile entry to German train or subway. There are little punch machines in the stations most places, or just use that city’s transit app - Nuremberg’s is well-integrated with Apple Pay.

Enforcement is anywhere from routine and uniformed (IC/ICE), semi-routine (RE/RB/S-Bahns), to random and plainclothes (most subway systems).

Re: Germany is offering a summer of cheap trains

#90

Post by MandieD »

brazzy wrote: post #59
JuettnerDistrib wrote: post #49

If passenger rail increases, then goods rail must decrease and go onto trucks. Or, one could let goods rail go at night, but Germany is noise -sensitive, so that's unlikely to happen. In the long run building more tracks are probably the only real solution.

Uh... Goods rail is running at night in Germany, and lots of it. So much in fact, that some connections are utilized at full capacity pretty much 24/7 and causing huge problems when they're blocked.

When we were house-hunting several years ago, my husband bought a 70 EUR noise meter and would take measurements around a candidate house during the day… and between 2-3am.

We rejected at least two that seemed peaceful enough during the day with commuter train noise that was acceptable for the convenience, but with multiple loud freight trains overnight.

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