[fnordian_slip]

It's incredible that about 80% of people in this thread seem to be commenting without having looked at the website.

In defense of Deutsche Bahn, countries with comparable infrastructure but more reliable transport have put in about twice as much money per capita for the last 30 years at least.

Also, it went through a pseudo-privatisation back then, which hasn't helped (just private enough to focus on quarterly profits by letting bridges decay so that they have to be rebuilt or repaired in a few years, just public enough that they have to serve a lot of non-lucrative areas by law).

I have to admit I'm rather biased as I work there, but I would say most employees do the best they can with the hand they're dealt. It's just that politicians dealt them a really bad hand. And if Germany were to properly invest in infrastructure from now on, there's so much stuff that has to be repaired that reliability would go down even more in the next decade or so (seriously, this is not something you could fix in a year or two, even with hundreds of billions).

[CaptainZapp]

> In defense of Deutsche Bahn, countries with comparable infrastructure but more reliable transport have put in about twice as much money per capita for the last 30 years at least.

Why is that "in defense?"

When you let your infrastructure rot away since the 90s of the last century for something as complex as a train network by brutally underinvesting.

Then you seriously fucked up. There's nothing to defend here.

[sveme]

I think the defense is that it's the fault of the politicians (CDU/CSU, actually), as they are the ones allocating funds towards train infrastructure. The Deutsche Bahn is state-owned in all but name (which was one of the major fuckups of the last red-green government).

[okanat]

Well people keep electing CxU. The current structure of DB is formed by Helmut Kohl cabinet which is CxU.

[moresty]

> Why is that "in defense?"

Because DB does not decide its own budget. And we're literally living in times where their employees are getting attacked and verbally abused by the passengers for the state of the train system

[hermanzegerman]

Because stupid people that vote blame the company and not the politicians that underinvest for years

[rsynnott]

Investment isn't really down to DB, though; it's down to the government.

[yawniek]

Yes everyone does their best but in typical german fashion nobody does the right thing because it would mean to break some rules or habit. Its a general problem but it shows hard at DB.

[throw0101a]

> It's incredible that about 80% of people in this thread seem to be commenting without having looked at the website.

Are you new to the Internet? This has been a thing since (at least) Slashdot. :)

[Liquid_Fire]

> It's incredible that about 80% of people in this thread seem to be commenting without having looked at the website.

In defence of the 80%, there is no indication in any section other than the About page that it is not real money (with the possible exception of the suspiciously high sums of money), and most commercial services have fairly useless About pages. The HN headline presents it as if it's real.

A far cry from GP's implication that "inadvertently click[ing] on the website" is sufficient to see this.

[trueismywork]

As someone who is in a group who regularly trashes DB at will, no one blames the line employees, but definitely blame people in upper levels of management

[zelphirkalt]

> I have to admit I'm rather biased as I work there, but I would say most employees do the best they can with the hand they're dealt.

I think most people don't blame the normal employees. The blame is on the management layers, the "Wasserkopf", that gives themselves boni, even if things are done poorly and are going badly. A disconnect from the reality on the tracks.

I don't see improvements. I rather see worse and worse reliability, even though Deutsche Bahn asks for more and more money from the government. That money is disappearing somewhere, at least partially, instead of arriving in projects for improving the situation. In many places, if not most, there isn't even a single turnout track, so that any construction work halts the whole line. Disastrous. You cannot ask people to buy train tickets for 100 to 200 EUR, and then be hours late. I mean, you can, but then you are delusional. They are not surviving because of their great product or service, they are only surviving, because people don't have good alternatives. Basically, it is extortion. In other countries I pay 1/10 of the ticket price and I arrive on friggin' time, on a much longer ride.

[tomalbrc]

> It's incredible that about 80% of people in this thread seem to be commenting without having looked at the website.

It’s almost as if people are tired of having betting shoved down their throats.

[Schlagbohrer]

Privitisation is a huge curse, and a tremendous scam perpetuated by capitalist financiers. Where has it ever produced better results? No private entity can provide a service at cost like the government can.

[lava_pidgeon]

SpaceX or rockets Generally, Telecom in Germany, flights in Europe, train transport in Japan and Italy.

[moooo99]

> Telecom in Germany

Telekom is a profitable enterprise. Yet, telecom infrastructure in Germany is on a remarkably bad level and relatively expensive. Cell coverage is also still bad, especially when travelling via rail or car.

With the exception if the Japanese Rail, all the other examples are different in one crucial detail: they are not natural monopolies.

[flrlfmkhmem]

I don’t think you’re aware of how bad the national railway has been managed in japan, they even went broke in the 80s with trillions in debt and had to split up sell off all their infrastructure and vehicles. That’s the reason why there’s often many non-interconnected competing stations at the same site today.

[lava_pidgeon]

Compared to the state owned Deutsch bahn or pre competition trenitalia Japanese railways are quiet good.

(There is plenty of examples for good or bad private or state owned railways. It's just not black and white)

[moooo99]

Yeah, I have absolutely no clue about japanese rail whatsoever, so I chose to not comment about it.

For Germany though, the rail „privatization“ has been an absolute failure no matter how you try to spin it, unfortunately. But hey, at least we have nice rolling stock!

[zelphirkalt]

Yep, compared to other countries, Germany is almost third-world country, when it comes to reliable Internet service, and prices.

[moooo99]

Yeah, after all, we need to protect the financial interests of a formerly state-owned monopoly :)

[DocTomoe]

I would not call telecommunications privatization in Germany a success story.

Yes, we can use more devices now. Prices have stayed more or less the same (or have risen, corrected by inflation. Service quality has collapsed, though.

[lava_pidgeon]

Prices collapsed, too. Sorry, this is just bad nostalgia. It was really bad if you reqd the details.

[gzread]

Allowing private competition is generally good, but converting an existing state monopoly to a private corporation is generally bad.

[hulitu]

> Allowing private competition is generally good,

Except when they quickly build cartels. See internet in Germany.

[meetpaleltech]

> I work there

OMG. Employers to never work for:

- the Bund - the Oeffentlichen - Deutsche Bahn - Unions, especially ver.di - established / legacy parties