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by lmm
2 hours ago
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> Not sure if this is better or worse than the UK's Network Rail story, but at the end of the day the only thing that will solve this is if they re-nationalize the tracks & infrastructure. What kind of an idiot thought including that in the privatization is a good idea is beyond me. It's not like you can build a 2nd railway network in order to get free market & competition. (For comparison, imagine privatizing the entire road network, village street to Autobahn.) If you privatize the infrastructure and trains together you can at least compare one region against another, even if they're not directly competing. Trying to operate the trains separately from the tracks was a disaster in the UK and lead pretty directly to two mass casualty incidents. |
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That being said, I get the sense it's a German cultural problem. I used to travel to Germany quite frequently and was always surprised at the poor quality of much of the infrastructure, including private. The cell phone networks and internet speeds were all awful. As recently as 6 years ago my phone dropped to edge as soon as I left the city and within the major cities I had terrible performance. I'm not kidding when I say that I often had near dialup speeds, despite having full LTE bars. Maybe this has improved since.
As for rail, for Europe, the rail lines should probably be run as a cooperative with the rail companies paying dues.