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Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

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Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#961

Post by stefanlindbohm »

mort96 wrote: post #952
stefanlindbohm wrote: post #882

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main issue is over-utilisation and under-investment of the rail network. Like in many other EU countries. There is no evidence that a state monopoly would perform any better given today’s state of infrastructure and increased traveler numbers.

The under-investment stems from the neoliberal idea that it should be run at a profit and that competition will make everything super efficient.

The under-investment is predominantly in infrastructure, which is owned by states or regions and not under any competition.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#962

Post by renewiltord »

koyote wrote: post #892
renewiltord wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s pretty strange about this competition thing. I’ve been repeatedly informed that the government is much better at running things like this.

The irony is that OPs train, the RE5, was actually not run by DB but by 'the competition': a private company called National Express. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Express_Germany

Classic. Capitalism ruins another perfect system.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#963

Post by stefanlindbohm »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #955
stefanlindbohm wrote: post #886

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DB does not decide how much to invest in infrastructure, that’s decided by politicians.

Politicians do not dictate operational decisions. If they allocate X for infrastructure, the company should scale up or scale down to match that budget, rather than overpromise.

”The company” is not one company. The infrastructure manager (DB InfraGo in Germany) is managing tracks on behalf of the state. Operators (a regional operator in the case of this article) run as many trains as they want/are allowed, which in practice is more than the system can handle reliably. There are laws regulating how track access is awarded, so even when a DB group operator runs on tracks managed by DB InfraGo there is no single ”company” that makes a certain promise. The remedy is political either way, either change how track access is awarded to limit the number of trains allowed or increase funding for added capacity and maintenance.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#965

Post by mort96 »

stefanlindbohm wrote: post #961
mort96 wrote: post #952

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The under-investment stems from the neoliberal idea that it should be run at a profit and that competition will make everything super efficient.

The under-investment is predominantly in infrastructure, which is owned by states or regions and not under any competition.

And this under-investment stems from the neoliberal idea that transport should run at a profit rather than be treated as a service that has a cost.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#966

Post by junon »

gordonhart wrote: post #285
junon wrote: post #15

Meh. I have lived here for 7 years, and get a bit tired of these sorts of complaints about DB coming from the US. Germans have exceedingly little, if any, patience for anything going wrong. DB is always painted as this evil, completely broken system when in fact it's been a joy compared to e.g. San Francisco. I've only encountered flexibility and slight discomfort in a few cases where something has happened. I'm not…

Nothing here suggests that the author is American beyond his blog post being shared on an American website.

I never claimed the author was American.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#967

Post by Bost »

addandsubtract wrote: post #411
bcye wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Splitting trains is a quite common thing in Germany (though more long distance) and communicated in the official app. If third party apps don't show that information that's on their part. Usually it's also said after departure inside the train by the conductor, though maybe just on long distance trains.

They still get it wrong quite often. Worst case is when the train arrives in reverse cart order, and the carts are labeled wrong. Bonus points if your reserved seat is in a cart that's missing.

Reserved seat in a missing cart is boring - 95% of the time you'll find an empty seat. Much more fun is a reserved bicycle rack in a cart that's missing. The number of bicycle racks is limited, and they're quite often sold out.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#968

Post by Bost »

silversmith wrote: post #611
bcye wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Splitting trains is a quite common thing in Germany (though more long distance) and communicated in the official app. If third party apps don't show that information that's on their part. Usually it's also said after departure inside the train by the conductor, though maybe just on long distance trains.

Are we really living in a world where you need to have the official app - any app! - to ride a train?

Side note: as of now, I have 14 various "travel" apps installed on my phone. Buses, trains, local buses, etc. In every EU country and city there's something else being used.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#969

Post by ffsm8 »

snowpid wrote: post #956
ffsm8 wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I said it's incredibly corrupt. It's an Aktiengesellschaft which is fully owned by the state, so profits would remain in the ownership of the company and their leadership to do with as they please, e.g. pay themselves whatever bonuses they want . (Or pay out to their shareholders? Lol, nope). losses get pushed to be picked up by the state/taxes. That's why it's privatize profits, socialize losses. But ther…

" It's an Aktiengesellschaft which is fully owned by the state, so profits would remain in the ownership of the company and their leadership to do with as they please, e.g. pay themselves whatever bonuses they want . " That's plain wrong. The owner decides which happens to the profits and how much the leadership got paied. Besides that, it is just rambling. Again calling the DB privatised is a sign of stupidity.

I guess you slept through the last 10 years if you think that. It literally happened, multiple times.

I guess that makes you the person that's...?

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#970

Post by embedding-shape »

low_tech_love wrote: post #907
embedding-shape wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’d say it’s mostly a North-European thing, I think it's a "busy tracks" problem in general, which yeah, is a problem in Europe in general. You can't just stop a train in the middle of some track, there are a bunch of other trains coming too, who can't just pass unless you get to a place where that is possible, which isn't everywhere. None the less, the rest of what you say is true of Sweden, but I don't think it's…

My point is that, in a country where people act like well, people (and not robots), someone would be bothered by this and might try to solve the problem in some creative and unexpected way. Someone might think "damn, we're ruining these peoples' christmas, let's do something" and then fix it somehow. Here it's more like "well bummer, deal with it" in both cases. I doubt that a bunch of adult, highly-skilled people co…

> Are you saying that there are so many trains in the same track at the same time that stopping for 5 minutes would cause an accident?

No, but these places generally prefer to take care of the collective, even if it means slightly worse conditions for some individuals. This is impregnated into our brains from early on, and somewhat humorously "codified" in the Law of Jante, among others. From the outside, for the last two decades, it seems to be slightly changing more and more into another direction, but that's how it was when I was born and raised there at least.

Once you understand the common perspective of "sacrificing the individual for the group", it becomes a lot easier to understand this sort of reasoning.

Personally, I don't agree with it, together with a bunch of other weird social rules, hence I don't live there anymore. But the other side of the fence, where every rule is constantly broken by everyone, "just in this case" but 100x times a week, isn't so much better after all. Just different. Some people seem to be wired for some things, others not so much.

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