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More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

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

#81

Post by usrusr »

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…

Privatization has brought some truly crazy incentives into the spotlight. Like how bridge maintenance is paid by the company, but when a worn out bridge needs replacing it's suddenly a government investment.

I consider it safe to assume that the reason for this is that it had been just the same when it was still a government org, but a government org will see its responsibilities very different from a company eagerly cosplaying shareholder-value while the sole shareholder happens to be the government they can freely rip off because of an ongoing legacy approach to the principal-agent problem.

As for delays, I think one reason, besides lack of maintenance and the massive interdependence in that large network that allows neither a star nor a main axis simplification is the high speed Autobahn: if they weren't overambitious in terms of travel times they would perhaps put bigger time buffers in their schedule and that would certainly help a lot.

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

#82

Post by TMWNN »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #33
blueflow wrote: post #13

DB has the worst company culture that I'm aware of. Everything has to go by plan, and when it doesn't, someone has to be responsible. So everyone is just ass-covering all them time and not taking any risks. This has removed the potential for improvisation in dispatching (no one wants to be responsible for delaying that other train), making the train network unable to give any trains room to make up their delays. Ther…

>So everyone is just ass-covering all them time and not taking any risks. Heaving lived and worked in Germany for a few years, I realized that's the reason behind all the excessive bureaucracy and processes for everything: extensive ass covering. If something goes to shit under your watch then it's not your fault because you did everything by the book and you have the extensive paper trail to prove it. And nobody wan…

>Heaving lived and worked in Germany for a few years, I realized that's the reason behind all the excessive bureaucracy and processes for everything: extensive ass covering. If something goes to shit under your watch then it's not your fault because you did everything by the book and you have the extensive paper trail to prove it.

I've heard it said that the idea that Germans are efficient is a myth. (The new Berlin airport is one example.)

Germans are, rather, *rule followers*.

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

#83

Post by weissbier »

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…

I think it's worth adding the fact, that not only the Deutsche Bahn has been privatized, but also the Deutsche Bundespost (mail service/telecommunication) has been privatized and split into Deutsche Post and Deutsche Telekom coming from the same policy.

As far as I know this all boils down to the fact, that the European Union (or better it's predecessor) wanted to get rid of state monopolies. It did work out for the "Deutsche Post" (more or less) and very good for "Deutsche Telekom". But "Deutsche Bahn" was a failure coming from that policy.

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

#84

Post by Zak »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #33
blueflow wrote: post #13

DB has the worst company culture that I'm aware of. Everything has to go by plan, and when it doesn't, someone has to be responsible. So everyone is just ass-covering all them time and not taking any risks. This has removed the potential for improvisation in dispatching (no one wants to be responsible for delaying that other train), making the train network unable to give any trains room to make up their delays. Ther…

>So everyone is just ass-covering all them time and not taking any risks. Heaving lived and worked in Germany for a few years, I realized that's the reason behind all the excessive bureaucracy and processes for everything: extensive ass covering. If something goes to shit under your watch then it's not your fault because you did everything by the book and you have the extensive paper trail to prove it. And nobody wan…

It seems to me the underlying issue is that mistakes are punished and taking initiative to solve problems is not rewarded.

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

#85

Post by anal_reactor »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #33
blueflow wrote: post #13

DB has the worst company culture that I'm aware of. Everything has to go by plan, and when it doesn't, someone has to be responsible. So everyone is just ass-covering all them time and not taking any risks. This has removed the potential for improvisation in dispatching (no one wants to be responsible for delaying that other train), making the train network unable to give any trains room to make up their delays. Ther…

>So everyone is just ass-covering all them time and not taking any risks. Heaving lived and worked in Germany for a few years, I realized that's the reason behind all the excessive bureaucracy and processes for everything: extensive ass covering. If something goes to shit under your watch then it's not your fault because you did everything by the book and you have the extensive paper trail to prove it. And nobody wan…

How is that different from US corporations

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

#86

Post by iggldiggl »

hifromwork wrote: post #68
fullspectrumdev wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ticket splitting thing you refer in the UK to works in other countries also.

How does it work? In my country (at least non-regional trains) the ticket price is calculated as ax+b where b is a constant price and x is the distance in kilometers. So splitting the ticket is always more expensive than buying two separate ones (but there are other reasons to do it, for example it's a trick to use when there's not enough seats to ride a->c directly - but that's an edge case)

The UK is also relatively unique in extending full passenger rights even to split tickets as long as you adhere to the usual minimum connection times. (Apparently not out of the goodness of the train operating companies, though, but rather some interpretation of UK contract and customer protection laws which seem to demand equal treatment even for separately bought tickets.)

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

#87

Post by t8sr »

unglaublich wrote: post #11

The long-distance network in Germany has routes that take more than 8 hours. Delays of 15 minutes are because of network complexity not uncommon. SBB - Swiss rail - doesn't want its schedule to be affected by the long-distance DB - German - services. So it doesn't allow the DB service to enter the country after a given cut-off delay. This means that travellers need to transfer to an SBB service for the final 1-2 hour…

I don’t buy the idea that it’s mainly because of network complexity and line length. Local lines, even ones that don’t share tracks with any other trains, are routinely cancelled or delayed, as well. Other large countries manage to run trains on time (Japan, Spain…).

DB is uniquely bad and I don’t think we should be making excuses for them.

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

#88

Post by codegeek »

Freak_NL wrote: post #71
codegeek wrote: post #35

As a foreigner, I am currently travelling for work in Europe and had a DB train from Munich all the way to Ljubljana (Slovenia) through multiple connections. Interestingly, the trains were on time until we were in Germany but when I reached the last connection in Villach (Austria), suddenly they cancelled the train from Villach->Ljubljuana without any notice at last minute. As a foreigner without any understanding, I…

Villach to Ljubljana is a joined ÖBB and SŽ line, not Deutsch Bahn. Your ticket was with DB, but the train getting cancelled had absolutely nothing to do with them. If you had asked at the Reisezentrum at Villach station you would have been presented with options to continue your journey, or get a refund.

Understood but from my perspective, the cause doesn't matter. I booked through DB and it was not a good experience. Was my very first Time and I had a few minutes to decide what to do as I had people waiting in Ljubljuana. Didnt even have time for a refund for that portion of the journey.

I have decided to not take the train next time for sure if I can. Will try bus first.

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

#89

Post by t8sr »

tkubacki wrote: post #40

Apart from the root issue here someone need to remind that Switzerland is the parasite of EU. Basically they have all EU rights and no obligations. EU should tax them heavily so that they contribute to solve e.g. EU transportation issues.

What are you talking about, my marginal tax rate in Switzerland is 50%. When I last went to Prague, I changed trains at a station that prominently said it was financed by “friendship funds” from Switzerland. My taxes already are paying for Germany’s transport infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Swiss students couldn’t go on Erasmus for a year, because someone in Brussels threw a hissy fit.

I’m a fan of the EU, but let’s not pretend it’s not throwing its weight around, just like any other huge federal government.

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

#90

Post by soco »

TMWNN wrote: post #82
Rinzler89 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So everyone is just ass-covering all them time and not taking any risks. Heaving lived and worked in Germany for a few years, I realized that's the reason behind all the excessive bureaucracy and processes for everything: extensive ass covering. If something goes to shit under your watch then it's not your fault because you did everything by the book and you have the extensive paper trail to prove it. And nobody wan…

>Heaving lived and worked in Germany for a few years, I realized that's the reason behind all the excessive bureaucracy and processes for everything: extensive ass covering. If something goes to shit under your watch then it's not your fault because you did everything by the book and you have the extensive paper trail to prove it. I've heard it said that the idea that Germans are efficient is a myth. (The new Berlin…

How about we merge the two definitions: efficient rule followers. Which is great when the rules are okayish (see older German cars, highways, handicraft...) and abysmal when they're random (bureaucracy, forced optimizations solely for the yearly bonus...).
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