You can't compare a first world country to a third world country.

I kept reading the article trying to find the reason why DB is so crappy now, only to realize that a 10 minute delay is catastrophic by German standards. I'd love to just have any kind of public transit near me.

i donno, amtrak is pretty great on the east coast. there’s absolutely nothing from the mississippi to the west coast so if you’re going that way youre going to have a bad time.

Oh no, that actually started way earlier!

The DB was supposed to be privatized in 1994, that failed. So now we have a stock based company (AG), lead like a profit oriented company, but owned 100% by the state.

Since 1994, the entire company was (due to incompentence and wrong incentives) driven on attrition. The best example: if a bridge needs repair, that's DB's expense, but if the bridge has to be rebuilt, the state pays. So what would any smart CEO do? Stop maintenance, wait for the bridge to fail and then have it repaired on the state's bill.

Don't forget turning off all their nuclear plants to become reliant on brown coal and russian (now american) gas.

It is straight from the neoliberal privatisation playbook. Defund public infrastructure until the public complains, then "fix it" by privatising it

I'm German and have been in France quite often in recent years. It's fascinating to hear their opinions on Germany. Outside our country is still imaged as having great engineering, efficiency - that Trains run on time. It's quite puzzling to me.

I came to the conclusion that the only real innovation in the last 30 years has been accounting. largely driven by neoliberalism. So every neo liberal country has kind of become more similar. Germany is not special, but has the advantage of having a lot of old successful companies that only slowly get sold of to international conglomerates. (Like Kuka etc). We behave as shitty as the rest, but our downward trajectory started higher up.

Modern computers and software made it possible to account for basically every item in a company with little cost. Before you'd have needed so many people and hours of work to judge profitability of small things that it wouldn't have been sensible to do so. CAD-Software also enables a special kind of accounting - simulating hardware components enables engineers to judge which parts are necessary and how much thickness is really needed. This is a huge and complicated process of optimization.

Accounting made it possible to turn a mostly opaque company structure that ran inefficient (but mostly on par with the competition) and judge every employee, every item. That's why supermarkets have outsourced the job of restuffing the shelves to a different company (that has to somehow make it work with the shitty pay that get). But it's also the reason why appliances seem to hold just slightly over the warranty period. CAD-simulations made it possible for the accountants to change the products (make them shittier) so that people would need to buy new ones often.

The Deutsche Bahn is the same. Has made it possible to invest the smallest amount possible, because they realized they can just work with the deterioration infrastructure as well - most people don't have a choice and have to take the late train anyways.

It's the same with telecommunications here btw. With only few companys owning most Internet services they realized they don't have to invest a lot into fiber. People need Internet and will have to pay anyways. It's more profit to just raise prices.

Omg, I never noticed. Thanks 😂

"Bad Day"

Right? When did we start becoming concerned with a public service being "profitable"? I've heard this applied to the US Postal Service a lot recently.

Sänk yoo for joking wizz Deutsche Bahn.

Cab industry is the scum of the world.

Cars can do one.

There is a bus, but yeah, it's a joke.

Yes. But travel to other countries and hear their thoughts about Germany and you'll discover this image is very much alive still. It's important to spread the word outside of Germany, too.

Slowly and with lots of unplanned breaks in between.

I've never understood why people think that anyways - if you've ever had the pleasure of interacting with German bureaucracy, you would have lost that view instantly.

So what myths are your people fighting with?

In my experience and that of most of my friends both French and German, that is wrong. The French rail system may have its flaws (it does), but the German one is so much worse

Lol?

I'm German and travel regularily in France as well. Travelling in France by train is a JOY compared to Germany. Please ask around as many French living in Germany as you can find. Hear their opinions.