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More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

bluewin.ch

271–280 of 309 posts

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

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan is also heavily consolidated compared to other countries. The largest shareholders for all the privatized rails in Japan are a mixture of Mitsubishi Group, Mitsui Group and Mizuhou Group. Western anti-trust doesn't allow that level of consolidation - everything is basically owned by a handful of Keiretsu. I highly recommend reading "Corporate Financing and Governance in Japan" by Takeo Hoshi and Anil Kashyap to…

It’s hardly consolidated compared to Germany??

The Japanese economy is significantly more consolidated than Germany's.

Vertical and Horizontal Integration (like what the 3 groups above do) is heavily regulated and litigated against in the EU [0][1], especially under Vestager.

Japan on the other hand doesn't actually regulate against either forms of market dominance. All three of those groups (called zaibatsu/keiretsu) have had market dominance in Japan since the 16th century.

That's why I recommended reading that book above - Antitrust in the Western sense doesn't actually exist in Asian countries, all of whom modeled their economies on Japan and with Japanese advice (METI) and aid (eg. ADB).

[0] - https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/antitrust-and-cartel...

[1] - https://www.cliffordchance.com/content/dam/cliffordchance/br...

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

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are non-solutions if they cannot pass voter approval. But what are you talking about exactly?

>They are non-solutions if they cannot pass voter approval. Then why don't voters just vote themselves higher salaries and better pension plans and higher retirement ages? D'uh! Who cares about economics when you have votes? Worked well for Greece. >But what are you talking about exactly? Reducing public welfare according to realistic economic capacity and sustainability of the national budget, and encourage citizens…

You're aware that the Swiss railway is nationalized? Since 1901...

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

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

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are non-solutions if they cannot pass voter approval. But what are you talking about exactly?

>They are non-solutions if they cannot pass voter approval. Then why don't voters just vote themselves higher salaries and better pension plans and higher retirement ages? D'uh! Who cares about economics when you have votes? Worked well for Greece. >But what are you talking about exactly? Reducing public welfare according to realistic economic capacity and sustainability of the national budget, and encourage citizens…

So, non-solutions, as I said. You refer to a state that is 10 times smaller, has the same demographic problems and over 40% of population with immigration background as a model for Germany, why? Do you seriously believe it can scale to German size? What has it to do with the budget?

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

#274
post #47

> 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 tr…

Fyi, it's actually easier for trains to be on time the longer the journey is - that's because sane travel times aren't calculated at max speeds. So if there is any delay, you can go at a higher speed than what was used in the calculation to catch up. On shorter journeys there are simply fewer opportunities to catch up.

Now, I wouldn't be exactly shocked if DB using too high speed assumptions in their stated travel times was part of their problem with delays.

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

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

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

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate goal and public transport is also more of a joke than scientifically sound. For example, the gear for the participating teams at the latest EM in Germany was transported in parallel by the empty buses the teams usually use. The whole VIP travel caused a lot of additional cars on the street. Don’t confuse means for an end. There is a lot of marketing and money involved - especially in green energy.

If you question something like public transportation being climate friendly as being scietific sound, maybe you should bring up some evidence or data to back this up. Also some anecdote about how buses where used at some major event does not allow any conclusions to be drawn about public transportation in general. Also "there is a lot of marketing and money involved - especially in green energy" is a rather general p…

These commenters exist (usually as bots) simply to sow a false narrative for political reasons - the views they extoll are not based on measurement or research. When active as bots, they present a idea of discord and doubt - this is a common tactic to give the appearance of the matter not being long-settled. It's also not uncommon for them to cite an unsourced anecdote which other than being irrelevant, most likely never even existed.

Rather telling is that the same user had also commented twice nearly simultaneously. These types of replies are typical for comments that mention climate or government spending.

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

#277
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 ince…

I didn't do a deep dive into the issues as there are many - but a contributor to the tardiness is the decommissioning of track switches/overtaking lanes. While this allowed for a short term economy, it harmed the reliability of the network and causes flow-on traffic.

I include this detail as the source of the largest problems are not necessarily about creation of new infrastructure (although that of course would be the solution), but the deletion of existing infrastructure.

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

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They are non-solutions if they cannot pass voter approval. Then why don't voters just vote themselves higher salaries and better pension plans and higher retirement ages? D'uh! Who cares about economics when you have votes? Worked well for Greece. >But what are you talking about exactly? Reducing public welfare according to realistic economic capacity and sustainability of the national budget, and encourage citizens…

So, non-solutions, as I said. You refer to a state that is 10 times smaller, has the same demographic problems and over 40% of population with immigration background as a model for Germany, why? Do you seriously believe it can scale to German size? What has it to do with the budget?

I proposed the Swiss system as the solution and welfare reductions according to the budget and you're calling it non-solutions. Why are you being dismissive in Bad faith without any arguments?

The German welfare state will slowly collapse by itself on the long term anyway at this rate since the expenses are growing faster than the income and the only way to save it is to reduce it. Why isn't that a solution? Are you saying math is wrong and can be altered by votes?

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

#279
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They are non-solutions if they cannot pass voter approval. Then why don't voters just vote themselves higher salaries and better pension plans and higher retirement ages? D'uh! Who cares about economics when you have votes? Worked well for Greece. >But what are you talking about exactly? Reducing public welfare according to realistic economic capacity and sustainability of the national budget, and encourage citizens…

You're aware that the Swiss railway is nationalized? Since 1901... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Federal_Railways

What does that have to do with the welfare state I was talking about?

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

#280

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…

Its not a transport company after all. Main buisness is speculation and building on inherited areas in inner cities and tax evasion on revenue gained from that. Incentives are aligned wrong.
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