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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

#191

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

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…

Japan did it in 1987 and the shinkanzen is still well known for its on time percentage.

And they don't cheat either with an x minute grace period. On time means the minute on the timetable.

So it's certainly possible.

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

#192

Post by jasonjei »

robertlagrant wrote: post #178
mauvehaus wrote: post #112

In heaven the cooks are Italian, the lovers are French, the mechanics are German, the police are British, and it's all organized by the Swiss. (In hell the cooks are British, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, the police are German, and it's all organized by the Italians.)

Sounds like in hell you get your food cooked by Gordon Ramsey and Jamie Oliver, with dessert by Mary Berry. Could be worse.

“Hell’s Kitchen”

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

#193

Post by burkaman »

bobthepanda wrote: post #174
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

The correct comparison in this case is probably Amtrak, which has much lower on time rates.

In practice it does feel like basically every single Amtrak is delayed after just a few stops, so I would be shocked if the situation is worse in Germany. However to put some numbers on it, here are Amtrak's own stats: https://www.bts.gov/content/amtrak-time-performance-trends-a.... In the flagship northeast corridor (that's Boston - NYC - Philadelphia - DC) the "on-time" percentage is around 80%, where on-time is within 20 minutes.

In the rest of the country Amtrak blames freight companies for most delays (https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance), and frankly I am inclined to agree with them. Amtrak does not own those lines and does not have priority on them, and the freight companies don't give a shit about anyone. See for example https://www.propublica.org/article/trains-crossing-blocked-k... and the rest of ProPublica's excellent series on the industry.

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

#194

Post by samatman »

There's an old anecdote about this, almost certainly false, but worth sharing, goes something like this:

The Swiss trains arrive on time, more often than any other country. Second place is the Germans. What's the difference?

The Germans set the timetable, and carefully measure arrivals. Then the famed German engineering kicks in, and they move Heaven and Earth to identify and fix any problems which are keeping the trains off schedule.

The Swiss set the timetable, and carefully measure arrivals. They use these measurements to identify when trains aren't arriving on schedule and... adjust the timetable.

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

#195

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #176

Switzerland seems so practical. If this sort of thing was done in America there would be endless whining and it would be rolled back.

This pretty much is the case in the US. People complain all the time about amtrak being delayed by freight, but the law has been that amtrak gets priority for decades.

It's just that they only get priority if they're actually on time (the initial booking of the rail essentially). Since they're constantly late they always miss this time and therefore have to wait.

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

#196

Post by izacus »

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…

Isn't Deutche Telekom one of the main reasons why Germany's broadband and internet coverage is abysmal in comparison to even significantly poorer countries in Europe these days?

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

#197

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

idatum wrote: post #179
mauvehaus wrote: post #112

In heaven the cooks are Italian, the lovers are French, the mechanics are German, the police are British, and it's all organized by the Swiss. (In hell the cooks are British, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, the police are German, and it's all organized by the Italians.)

Quote from Harry Lime character in The Third Man: "...in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

I think Euler by himself competes pretty well with all that on behalf of the Swiss.

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

#198

Post by philshem »

idatum wrote: post #179
mauvehaus wrote: post #112

In heaven the cooks are Italian, the lovers are French, the mechanics are German, the police are British, and it's all organized by the Swiss. (In hell the cooks are British, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, the police are German, and it's all organized by the Italians.)

Quote from Harry Lime character in The Third Man: "...in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

FWIW, cuckoo clocks originated in the Black Forest, southern Germany.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckoo_clock

But it reminds me of the famous quote from Bertrand Russell

> My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race. I cannot, however, deny that it has made some contributions to civilization. It helped in early days to fix the calendar, and it caused Egyptian priests to chronicle eclipses with such care that in time they became able to predict them. These two services I am prepared to acknowledge, but I do not know of any others.

(Bertrand Russell / 1872-1970 / Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? / 1930)

http://atheisme.free.fr/Quotes/Russell.htm

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

#200

Post by izacus »

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…

This is one of the worst parts of European train travel these days - while airlines are forced to find you replacement connection, give you hotel and even pay you a fee if they're late, there's nothing like that for trains.

So you can end up with a blame game of "well, you bought a ticket from DB, but OBB fscked up, good luck being stuck in the middle of nowhere!" situation that makes you wish you took a plane.

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