Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

bluewin.ch

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 309 posts

Re: More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

#41

Post by daghamm »

dash2 wrote: post #20
AmericanChopper wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> privatizing critical infrastructure like this is doomed to fail It worked great for rail in Japan, so I’m not sure that’s the obvious lesson to learn.

It worked OK for the UK. Passenger numbers, which had been steadily falling, started to increase. On the other hand, there are complaints about high fares.

Are you sure about that?

I still remember "traingate", the smear campaign that followed Jeremy Corbyn (1) and how leaked CCTV video proved him right much later (2).

(1) https://www.politico.eu/article/jeremy-corbyn-walked-past-em...

(2) https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/virgin-release-traing...

Re: More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

#42

Post by senorrib »

a_bonobo wrote: post #34
AmericanChopper wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> privatizing critical infrastructure like this is doomed to fail It worked great for rail in Japan, so I’m not sure that’s the obvious lesson to learn.

It's actually a different system - Japan's network was privatised and split into competing companies with all shares publicly traded (bar some exceptions), the Deutsche Bahn was privatised into a single, state-owned company. As such it is beholden to slow, non-deciding German governments, including investments into the network.

How is that privatized, then? If it’s state-owned, the only thing that changed was the legal framework that applies to the entity, none of the incentives of privatization actually applying to it.

Re: More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

#43

Post by quitit »

_the_inflator wrote: post #22
quitit wrote: post #9

For context German trains over the last few years have become increasingly delayed. To the point that it is now the norm. Official Deutsche Bahn figures are likely underreporting the extent of the problem as the reported times and actual timetables are -aggressively- out of sync (to the frustration of many riders). It's hard to dissect the true source of the problem as there are various factors at play. However the c…

I agree except for your „central cause“ hypothesis. What happens if you throw tons of money on something as dysfunctional and lacking a business model? You get Die Bahn. Calling for “more money” as a central cause is part of the problem.

"The network is simply overloaded," said Böttger. In contrast to Luxembourg and Switzerland, which invested around €575 (about $625) per capita and €450 per capita in rail infrastructure respectively, the figure in Germany is just €114.

Source:

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-whats-wrong-with-the-deutsche-...

Re: More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

#44

Post by pantalaimon »

dash2 wrote: post #20
AmericanChopper wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> privatizing critical infrastructure like this is doomed to fail It worked great for rail in Japan, so I’m not sure that’s the obvious lesson to learn.

It worked OK for the UK. Passenger numbers, which had been steadily falling, started to increase. On the other hand, there are complaints about high fares.

This has been true for Germany too. Passenger numbers are at an all-time high, but that's part of the problem - the infrastructure is at it's limit, but building new infrastructure is met with strong resistance by locals. e.g. the planned relief for the notoriously overcrowded Hamburg - Hannover track got effectively canceled, and this is only about the get worse with increased traffic from the new tunnel to Denmark that is set to open by the end of the decade.

Re: More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

#45

Post by GordonS »

dash2 wrote: post #20
AmericanChopper wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> privatizing critical infrastructure like this is doomed to fail It worked great for rail in Japan, so I’m not sure that’s the obvious lesson to learn.

It worked OK for the UK. Passenger numbers, which had been steadily falling, started to increase. On the other hand, there are complaints about high fares.

I think very few Brits would agree that rail privatisation has "worked". Poor and old carriages, overcrowded, slow, late trains, and generally a lack of investment. Oh, and ridiculously high fares (often well over air fares!), which seem to increase above inflation every.single.year.

Re: More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

#46

Post by rob74 »

notTooFarGone wrote: post #6

Hard but entirely relatable. Deutsche bahn is horrible, privatizing it in the 90s was one of many failures of that movement and was leading to crumbling infrastructure, an insurmountable hardware and technical debt and now to the most complex train system probably in the world. Hopefully some people learn from it - privatizing critical infrastructure like this is doomed to fail. You get the bad from a public company…

"Privatizing" is not the correct word for it - DB was reformed and is now a company instead of a government agency, but it's still 100% owned by the state. Which however didn't stop it from acting like a profit-oriented private company, favoring short term savings over long term sustainability, which led to the sorry state in which German rail infrastructure is today. IMHO the major issue with the reform is that the trains and the infrastructure were left in the same company (with other train operators forced to use the tracks provided by the "incumbent"), which leads to all kinds of conflicts of interest.

Re: More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

#47

Post by lqet »

remolueoend wrote: post #10

> Another figure illustrates why the practice is necessary from a Swiss perspective: in 2023, 92.5 percent of all trains in Switzerland reached their destination on time, compared to only 64 percent for long-distance trains in Germany. To add a bit more detail: SBB (Swiss federal railways) consider a train on time if it reaches its destination with less than three minutes’ delay [1]. DB (Deutsche Bahn) puts the thres…

To put this a bit into perspective: long-distance trains in Germany typically travel for at least half a day. "Long-distance" trains in Switzerland can be compared to regional lines in Germany (the country simply isn't that large, and the majority of rail travel in Switzerland happens between Zurich/Olten/Berne/Basel, which are all within 100 km of each other). The likelihood of anything going wrong during a 1:30h train journey from Zurich to Basel is simply much lower than during a 10 hour train journey from Kiel to Freiburg. 3 minutes delay on a 1:30h train journey is a delay of 3.3%, 15 mins delay on a 10 hour train journey is a delay of 2.5%.

The reason regional trains are also delayed is that regional lines, local lines, long distance lines and freight trains are typically using the same tracks in Germany, and delayed long distance trains always get higher priority. A typical situation is that your regional train is perfectly on time, but suddenly stops, and waits for 5-10 minutes for a delayed long-distance train to overtake it. Switzerland has a similar mixed system, but as noted above, does not really have long-distance rail lines, apart from the trains that enter from Italy, Austria, France and Germany, which is the main reason why these trains are not allowed to enter if delayed. This is in contrast to the system in France, where TGV lines typically have dedicated high-speed tracks, where all trains on it travel more or less at the same speed.

Shouldn't you then add redundancy to the system by having time buffers at large stops every 2-3 hours? Or even let replacement trains start at intermediate stops as soon as the delay of the regular train is greater than X to avoid propagation of the delay into to rest of the network? Absolutely, but most stations and rail lines in Germany are either at their operational limit, or above. Having a train wait for 15 minutes in a large station just in case it is delayed would block that track for 15 minutes in the majority of cases, when the train is punctual. Also, DB simply has not enough rolling material to start replacement trains, and the rail infrastructure to even park such trains has largely been dismantled in the years after the privatization (they are doing it sometimes, but not very often).

Re: More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

#48

Post by snowpid »

notTooFarGone wrote: post #6

Hard but entirely relatable. Deutsche bahn is horrible, privatizing it in the 90s was one of many failures of that movement and was leading to crumbling infrastructure, an insurmountable hardware and technical debt and now to the most complex train system probably in the world. Hopefully some people learn from it - privatizing critical infrastructure like this is doomed to fail. You get the bad from a public company…

Besides the point that Deutsche Bahn is goverment owned, it is worth pointing out that Western and Eastern German had " to crumbling infrastructure, an insurmountable hardware and technical debt and now to the most complex train system probably in the world. " + much much debts.

Calling the Deutsche Bahn private is a very good indicator that the person isn't able to look up Wikipedia Article and think critically.

Re: More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

#49

Post by snowpid »

rob74 wrote: post #46
notTooFarGone wrote: post #6

Hard but entirely relatable. Deutsche bahn is horrible, privatizing it in the 90s was one of many failures of that movement and was leading to crumbling infrastructure, an insurmountable hardware and technical debt and now to the most complex train system probably in the world. Hopefully some people learn from it - privatizing critical infrastructure like this is doomed to fail. You get the bad from a public company…

"Privatizing" is not the correct word for it - DB was reformed and is now a company instead of a government agency, but it's still 100% owned by the state. Which however didn't stop it from acting like a profit-oriented private company, favoring short term savings over long term sustainability, which led to the sorry state in which German rail infrastructure is today. IMHO the major issue with the reform is that the…

" Which however didn't stop it from acting like a profit-oriented private company, " Except it does not make any profit. It is tightly controlled by the government. They could change any management behaviour. But they don't.

So its just a goverment agency.

Re: More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

#50

Post by fabianholzer »

quitit wrote: post #9

For context German trains over the last few years have become increasingly delayed. To the point that it is now the norm. Official Deutsche Bahn figures are likely underreporting the extent of the problem as the reported times and actual timetables are -aggressively- out of sync (to the frustration of many riders). It's hard to dissect the true source of the problem as there are various factors at play. However the c…

The problem with the legislature about funding is that regular maintainance of the railroad network would has to be paid by Deutsche Bahn itself, whereas creation of new infrastructure or complete rebuilding of completely degraded railway infrastructure is to be paid out of the federal budget. Taking preventative/regular maintainance also is at the discretion of the Deutsche Bahn as a corporation. Of course this incentives the executives of the Bahn to let the railroads rot.

I have a hard time imagining that the perverse incentives in the system have not been obvious to those in power at its inception.

Post reply on HN