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

131–140 of 309 posts

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

#131

Post by s1artibartfast »

anal_reactor wrote: post #85
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…

How is that different from US corporations

My company goes as far as awarding teams that have epic failures. Corporate goals often include more risk taking, and leaders communicate that.

One thing that helps is I am an industry where failure is common and where project failure often has a clear root cause outside the control of the team.

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

#132

Post by systemtest »

hungie wrote: post #111
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so foreign to my American perspective - our public transport is more like, "maybe it'll be on time, probably not, you'll have no way of knowing, also screw you" New York’s Metro-North and LIRR have 95%+ on-time rates [1]. (EDIT: On time is defined as less than 6 minutes late [2].) [1] https://www.metro-magazine.com/10217862/metro-north-lirr-exp... [2] https://www.osc.ny.gov/files/reports/pdf/report-9-2025.pdf

That seems... poor? A one in twenty trains late stat will basically mean every person will have to deal with a late train roughly every week? I bet, however, it's not uniformly distributed and some lines are late more than others. Hopefully that 95% is them being honest about the current state, while they push higher.

That is a lot better than the 62% on-time statistic for Deutsche Bahn inter-city travel.

I deal with late trains around two-thirds of my trips. Sometimes up to two hours of delay.

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

#133

Post by snowpid »

weissbier wrote: post #83
rob74 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Except Deutsche Bahn is not private but 100% owned by the German government.

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

#134

Post by bradley13 »

The German train system isn't awful, when talking about long distance trains. It's not good, but it's not awful.

Look at the regional feeder lines, though. Unmaintained tracks, ancient trains, diesel instead of electric. Many towns have no connection at all - where I used to work, there was an old train station, but the tracks had been ripped up years earlier.

I used to (have to) rely on the German train system. Thankfully, I am now in Switzerland. It is a huge difference.

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

#135

Post by systemtest »

_zoltan_ wrote: post #122
DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is by no means true across the country but I’m sure it plays well to the “American public transport sucks” sentiment some folks like to cling to.

Across the whole country it's absolutely true. There are car only distances for a lot of stuff.

Does the US not have an extensive network of Greyhound busses, similar to our FlixBus system? Or is that just something I saw in the movies? (I'm not American)

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

#136

Post by xenospn »

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…

Last time I was in Germany (a few months ago) I almost missed my flight because my train was delayed by over half an hour. I was shocked.

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

#137

Post by systemtest »

marcyb5st wrote: post #80
ben_w wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> now to the most complex train system probably in the world. Having seen the US attempt and lived with the UK railway, the German one is definitely a huge improvement. Yes, it does go wrong sometimes, but my experience at university in the UK was the end of term had two carriages with twice as many passengers as seats, that regularly terminated 20 minutes before the official destination, and my experience visiting t…

Honestly it's a very low bar and Germans should aspire for better and not for a meager "we are not the worst there is". I would say you need to compare DB to other Western European railway operator/networks. In my personal experience, DB comes dead last and it's not even close to the 2nd to last. Renfe (Spain), Trenitalia/Italo (Italy), SNCF (France) have much better services, at least on the long-distance routes (>…

Long distance with Deutsch Bahn is an embarrassment. I don't know if they have any line where a car isn't faster.

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

#138

Post by meroes »

systemtest wrote: post #135
_zoltan_ wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Across the whole country it's absolutely true. There are car only distances for a lot of stuff.

Does the US not have an extensive network of Greyhound busses, similar to our FlixBus system? Or is that just something I saw in the movies? (I'm not American)

extensive geographic distance wise yes, but convenient or on time, no.

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

#139

Post by vel0city »

JohnMakin wrote: post #97

This is so foreign to my American perspective - our public transport is more like, "maybe it'll be on time, probably not, you'll have no way of knowing, also screw you"

The Dallas Area Raipd Transit on-time rate is about the same as this Swiss train system at 93%. The Trinity Railway Express is 97%, so higher on-time rate than the Swiss system.

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

#140

Post by i_am_proteus »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #103
JohnMakin wrote: post #97

This is so foreign to my American perspective - our public transport is more like, "maybe it'll be on time, probably not, you'll have no way of knowing, also screw you"

> so foreign to my American perspective - our public transport is more like, "maybe it'll be on time, probably not, you'll have no way of knowing, also screw you" New York’s Metro-North and LIRR have 95%+ on-time rates [1]. (EDIT: On time is defined as less than 6 minutes late [2].) [1] https://www.metro-magazine.com/10217862/metro-north-lirr-exp... [2] https://www.osc.ny.gov/files/reports/pdf/report-9-2025.pdf

My memory from a few months of commuting on LIRR is that on-time is within ten minutes of schedule.

CURRENT TIME: 9:45

NEXT TRAIN: 9:42

STATUS: ON TIME

Post reply on HN