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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

#301

Post by bun_terminator »

carlmr wrote: post #70
bun_terminator wrote: post #55

There is no saving the Deutsche Bahn. Everyone who knows someone working there knows this. Just ban everyone currently working there from ever working there again and reshuffle the cards.

They're already severely understaffed, I doubt kicking out the current people working there would help. On a top management level, maybe, but I don't think train conductors can do much about a train schedule that is impossibly failure-prone, based on ageing and inadequate infrastructure and trains in disrepair.

I have two train conductors in my extended family. They have an ingrained anti-performance mindset and culture. There is no recovery from that.

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

#302

Post by samirillian »

_0ffh wrote: post #225
VBprogrammer wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best part of British food is that we're incredibly good at adopting all of the worlds cuisines' as our own. I remember being at the Belgian GP and literally you could have chips with various shaped sausage and one pizza place hiding at the back. At the British GP you could eat some variant (admittedly, probably not the best variant) of pretty much every cuisine you could imagine. Even in our supermarkets if you w…

I have many times visited friends in England, and I find their traditional home cooking to be quite nice. Maybe it's a teensy bit underspiced at times, but I am not averse to actually be able to taste the natural aromas of the bulk ingredients. I admit that it may not be on the level of some of the traditional Italian home cooking I have tasted, but that would be a very tall order indeed.

Yeah I can agree with you that perhaps many countries have cuisine we consider bad because countries just do their best and they can't all be Italy or the Szechuan Province.

I don't agree that because of the British Empire their food is good. They had the British Empire long enough to prove or disprove that claim.

I've visited England 5-ish times. I love it. But I've personally encountered some true Curry monstrosities over there. And Abominable fish and chips. I have fond memories of eating marzipan.

MOREOVER, Gordon Ramsay making dog-food egg mush and calling it scrambled has criminally misled a whole generation of youtube-addicted hipsters. I can't tell you how many times I've heard some random Millenial describe his exact, twisted method and inevitably I learn they've watched this exact video. Okay, twice.

But I don't blame the English, I blame the internet, which confuses our senses. > https://youtu.be/UXtrScuC30E?feature=shared&t=202

Now these are some eggs > https://youtu.be/a-GFimGcYJw?feature=shared&t=97

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

#303

Post by seethedeaduu »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #265
ivan_gammel wrote: post #264

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 are spreading misinfo about what happened in Greece.

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

#304

Post by katbyte »

vel0city wrote: post #170
systemtest wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bummer. I'm happy with European rail. For instance, it is 36 hours by FlixBus from Amsterdam to Porto, but if you use high-speed rail (Eurostar, TGV, Iryo) it is only 23 hours, faster than going by car.

Traveling 2,000km in the US would take me like 5 hours including an hour in the airport each way. Even if you made it two hours on departure that's six hours of total travel time. Compared to a 23 hour train trip. Distances like that, trains just don't make sense IMO.

Sure they do when you have proper high speed rain. That journey could be 10 relaxing hours at 300kph. No security, no awful plane noise and seats. Quiet comfy and relaxing (or overnight and you can sleep)

It’s also far better for the environment, and should be cheaper if you take plane subsidies and apply them to trains.

Also your math is wrong 5 hours with 1 hour each side (generous) is 7 hours. With 2 hours each side that’s 9 hours.

Either way I would much rather take a comfortable train for 10 hours then suffer in a plane for 5.

(The reason 2000km takes so long for op is its 7+ train changes, if you made 7+ plane changes it would be very long too)

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

#305

Post by tdiff »

Just to add one more voice to the choir of outraged DB customers: in Russia, for a long-distance train to get cancelled, it takes something like a new World War to begin, I don't remember a single case. And as you may imagine, Russian Railways are not hiring the brightest talent awailable.

In Germany they don't even express regret when they do it.

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

#306

Post by sandmn »

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)

There is a network but in my experience it's not the most reliable and with no accountability. I tried to use it twice so far but experience was not too good. First time bus was just cancelled with no explanation (my guess is not enough passengers) so I had to take pretty expensive last-minute 1h flight. They refunded the ticket but kept credit card processing fee. Second time it bus was late for 1h and it didn't even stop where it was supposed to. I had to pay for an Uber and since bus company refused to refund my ticket I had to charge back.

Maybe I was just unlucky but I don't plan to try them again.

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

#307

Post by robertlagrant »

samirillian wrote: post #302
_0ffh wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have many times visited friends in England, and I find their traditional home cooking to be quite nice. Maybe it's a teensy bit underspiced at times, but I am not averse to actually be able to taste the natural aromas of the bulk ingredients. I admit that it may not be on the level of some of the traditional Italian home cooking I have tasted, but that would be a very tall order indeed.

Yeah I can agree with you that perhaps many countries have cuisine we consider bad because countries just do their best and they can't all be Italy or the Szechuan Province. I don't agree that because of the British Empire their food is good. They had the British Empire long enough to prove or disprove that claim. I've visited England 5-ish times. I love it. But I've personally encountered some true Curry monstrositi…

> I don't agree that because of the British Empire their food is good.

No one's saying that. We have decent pizza and Chinese food (sometimes), but that's nothing to do with the British Empire.

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

#308

Post by samirillian »

robertlagrant wrote: post #307
samirillian wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I can agree with you that perhaps many countries have cuisine we consider bad because countries just do their best and they can't all be Italy or the Szechuan Province. I don't agree that because of the British Empire their food is good. They had the British Empire long enough to prove or disprove that claim. I've visited England 5-ish times. I love it. But I've personally encountered some true Curry monstrositi…

> I don't agree that because of the British Empire their food is good. No one's saying that. We have decent pizza and Chinese food (sometimes), but that's nothing to do with the British Empire.

well i'm from chicago so to me pizza is a tureen of tomato sauce

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

#309

Post by vel0city »

katbyte wrote: post #304
vel0city wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traveling 2,000km in the US would take me like 5 hours including an hour in the airport each way. Even if you made it two hours on departure that's six hours of total travel time. Compared to a 23 hour train trip. Distances like that, trains just don't make sense IMO.

Sure they do when you have proper high speed rain. That journey could be 10 relaxing hours at 300kph. No security, no awful plane noise and seats. Quiet comfy and relaxing (or overnight and you can sleep) It’s also far better for the environment, and should be cheaper if you take plane subsidies and apply them to trains. Also your math is wrong 5 hours with 1 hour each side (generous) is 7 hours. With 2 hours each si…

> Also your math is wrong 5 hours with 1 hour each side (generous) is 7 hours. With 2 hours each side that’s 9 hours.

Its a three-hour flight not a five hour flight. Five hours is including the one hour on each side. And you wouldn't have two hours on the arrival side, you're not having to wait through security. Chances are on the arrival side its less than an hour. Sure, maybe customs slows you down, but I've never had customs take as long as security and the consequences of being a little slow are much less. But there are no customs flying domestically, and I'm not sure what customs are like flying within the eurozone anyways.

> Either way I would much rather take a comfortable train for 10 hours then suffer in a plane for 5.

It's not 10 hours on the train, its 23 hours on the train. And it's not 5 hours on a plane, its three hours. The person said they were taking HSR. Its a 23 hour ride taking HSR.

> The reason 2000km takes so long for op is its 7+ train changes, if you made 7+ plane changes it would be very long too

Sure, but generally speaking you don't have to when flying You often don't even need to change planes once. That's the whole point. Rail is great for certain distances, but past that there grows a lot of complexities. You're not going to take a single shot HSR trip 2,000km practically anywhere. You're going to have times where the train stops. You're probably going to have to change trains, potentially even change to a non-HSR for a leg of the trip. Meanwhile planes don't need to change 7 times to go 2,000km.

> should be cheaper

Sure, if you value two days of your vacation at nearly $0. Or two days of seeing your family while gone on a business trip at $0. Personally, two days of travel would have to be radically cheaper for me to think it worth it.

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