[oersted]

I have observed that it is a recurring pattern. I am most aware of the behind the scenes in public education, but I believe it is across the board.

Massive efforts are done to implement reforms to conform to EU standards, believing that that’s how the “superior” EU members do it (Germany, NL, Nordics…). But then I go there and I see that their system has nothing to do with the standards and they are not doing much to conform.

It’s fine, these reforms are often beneficial for Spain, and I do believe that generally being in the EU is a big win-win. Although sometimes it’s just a lot of unnecessary reshuffling at great cost.

A certain segment of the Spanish population really looks up to northern EU countries, or rather they feel a sense of inferiority. In practice there is not all that much to look up to and I believe Spain should be feel more confident. Many great things are prevented by the widespread belief that we are in a shitty country and that everyone is useless, but it is just not true.

[jeroenhd]

> Massive efforts are done to implement reforms to conform to EU standards, believing that that’s how the “superior” EU members do it (Germany, NL, Nordics…).

I can't speak for Germany or the Nordics, but here in the Netherlands the government is doing just about anything in their power to keep foreign competition from our rail network. The only lines serviced by foreign operators are the ones that would cost the national operator more than they would bring in and (some of) the international train services.

Our "high speed" rail is a joke. The trains themselves are fine, but the bridges over them are too brittle for the train to actually achieve high speeds, so it's operating at less than half the speed Spanish high speed rail is operating at. If anything, the success of the Spanish rail operators is an argument in favour of actually bringing competition to Dutch rail operators.

That said, the Dutch railway network is very different from the Spanish railway network. We're a small, densely populated country with many stops along just about any track, barely giving most trains time to accelerate even between larger city centers. The network is complex, the rails are extremely busy all hours of the day, our trains run on an idiotically low voltage and two trains with a dozen minutes in delays can back up the national train grid in no time if they slow down in the wrong spot. There are only a few long-distance high-speed rail options that make sense, some of which already sort of exist (Eurostar to the south), some of which our neighbours plainly don't want (any Dutch rail project crossing into the German border), and some of which are hardly financially viable (trains from the big cities to remote parts of the country) in a country that doesn't want to spend money on public transport.

[LargoLasskhyfv]

> any Dutch rail project crossing into the German border

Like this?

https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/51.901456/6.137620

https://www.bing.com/maps?cp=51.901346%7E6.137722&lvl=19.8&s...

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.9016843,6.1374348,210m/data=...

[ReptileMan]

>Our "high speed" rail is a joke

Do you need high speed rail at all? There are not many points in the country that are more than 1 hour away with regular speed trains.

[yurishimo]

It would be nice to have a couple of routes between a few major cities with nonstop service, but there are are no bypasses around the interstitial cities so those would need to be built first.

Groningen -> Amsterdam

Maastricht -> Amsterdam

Eindhoven -> Amsterdam

Nijmegen -> Amsterdam

I can only speak for myself, but a trip from Maastricht to Amsterdam is almost 2.5 hours by train for a distance of a smidge over 200km. This is mainly due to all of the stops along the way to pick up riders in every major city between the two.

Currently, our trains never go faster than 160km/h if the onboard screens are to be trusted.

[jeroenhd]

There are a few tracks that can go faster than 160km/h (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Baanvaks...) but also slower ones. The 80km/h tracks especially have a tendency to make a relatively short journey feel like it takes forever, especially if your train journey includes a trip over the 200km/h segment.

[LargoLasskhyfv]

"Gut Ding will Weile haben." / "Haste makes waste."

I've got good memories waiting on the platform in Arnhem for my train back into Germany in the early morning, after a night in the coffeeshops there in the nineties.

Observing all the commuters holding on to their coffee to go, and balancing it in their hands, anticipating the jerky start of these things https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Mat_%2764 :-)

Looked hilarious. All in sync. Like orchestrated.

Regarding the percieved slowness, and differences on both sides of the border(at the times?).

When doing the same route by car, your motorways felt supersmooth, even with all the strange markings and traffic signs :-)

Crossing back into Germany toward Oberhausen-> Ruhrpott came the Autobahn made of concrete slabs, and gaps between them. Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump!.

Very annoying when still 'under the influence' of that grassy green stuff :-)

[jeroenhd]

Taking a train to the nearest (usable) airport within the Netherlands takes between 2 and 2.5 hours depending on the available trains, amount of transfers, and "high-speed" (not actually) rail surcharge. Actually, because of a train hitting someone, I currently can't reach any airport by train because my city is right at the edge of the train network. Groningen-Schiphol is similar, and Maastricht-Schiphol is 2,5 hours at the very minimum. Meanwhile, Amsterdam-Brussels takes about 2 hours.

Our regular train speeds are 80kmh to 140kmh, with maybe a little bit of 160kmh on specific stretches.

I realize my country is incredibly well-connected by public transit and those 2 hours are already a massive luxury compared to probably most of the world's population, but I wouldn't mind a few high-speed lines from the center of the country (probably Utrecht) to major cities. With trains currently being more expensive than taking a car if you travel with two people or more, it'd make the high cost worth it.

[ReptileMan]

and your country is 320 kilometers high and 250 wide. There may be a lot of problems with your rail network but insufficient train speed ain't one of them. With the current rail speeds you can cross it comfortably in two hours in any direction. Probably you need to optimize it, lay new train tracks, but there is no need to go for the expensive high speed.

[tremon]

The station density in NL simply doesn't allow for the same kind of high-speed rail that you see in Spain, France or Germany. The segments Groningen-Zwolle and Maastricht-Eindhoven are basically the only parts where train speeds over 200km/h make any difference. On all other trajectories, the limiting factor is not the maximum train speed but the interference from other rail traffic.

The major cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Den Haag) typically have 4 trains/hour going between them. Higher-speed trains won't make any difference there, unless you first build out dedicated infrastructure (like the IC Direct line between Schiphol and Rotterdam, which cuts a whopping 20 mins from the regular IC travel time).

[wongarsu]

It's a common pattern far beyond the EU. One big driving force is that if you have an existing solution that achieves 80% you have much less incentive to change than if your current state only achieves 50%. So the "inferior" country modernizes to the new 100% solution while the "superior" one might stay on the 80% solution for far longer

[pestatije]

exactly...39 dead and we should feel more confident, that's how shitty we are

[wongarsu]

Compared to road deaths that's practically nothing. Obviously 39 dead are 39 too many, and in terms of railway disasters it's a lot, but in the bigger picture it's a blip

[tpm]

Tragedies like this do happen elsewhere. It's just important to make sure they don't happen twice for the same reason.

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