[birn559]

Budget for German train system has been cut and was too low for two decades. It was well known that would result in what we have today.

You have to invest in infrastructure to keep it at a high quality level. It's crowded because it has been lacking proper funding for years. It's a result of politics, nothing stops public transport from being popular and providing reasonable high quality service.

[qcnguy]

Inability to competently manage finances within the framework of populist democratic politics is one of the top reasons governments suck at running things and "public *" often ends in failure.

[birn559]

"private *" also ends in failure quite often. The German train system started to fail when it was partially privatized.

In general, governments tend to not be able to run a system efficiently, but reliably and robust while for companies it's the opposite.

[qcnguy]

The German train system isn't privatized in any meaningful way, I don't think any European rail system is. They all have harsh price controls imposed by the government and are unionized, which are classically problems affecting government run services to a much greater extent than normal private sector companies.