It’s more complicated than that. The DB as an umbrella organization (consisting of over 100 companies) is publicly owned, but:
The infrastructure is completely separated from operations, with a lot of regulations to make sure that the infrastructure company doesn’t cooperate with any operations company for fear they might discriminate against other companies, effectively throwing sand into the gears of railroad operations because many communication paths that are standard in other railroads are banned.
The companies that carry out operations are expected to be completely self-sufficient, with no direct support from the government, but only through contracts auctioned off to the lowest bidder for local services (definitely no connection with competing companies who bid really low regularly going bankrupt /s). Long distance services are expected to finance themselves but are expected to cross subsidize services to cities that aren’t quite as lucrative (because they are, after all, owned by the government) and at the same time compete with companies that aren’t government owned that just offer rides on the most lucrative routes.
The budget that is available for infrastructure is decided by the government every year, meaning absolutely no financial stability. This means that construction companies don’t end up growing because it could be too risky, and when suddenly there’s a lot of work to be done the few construction companies that are able to do the work demand insane prices and conditions, and the infrastructure company is essentially forced to swallow if they want anything done at all.
DB is publically owned. Just in a very stupid way. They made it a stock company cause they planed to privatise it, and then didn’t cause of the 2008 financial crisis. So it’s a stock company with a board and a CEO, that is supposed to make a profit, but all the stock is owned by the state.
In my eyes, they should reform it into something more sensible that is still publically owned, but the current government is more likely to go through with privatisation than do that.
I know it used to be better, and compared to neighboring nations its bad, but I’ve never had access to a better transit system.
Plus I do feel like DB is not given enough credit for its volume of trains. No other country in Europe is running so many trains so frequently. You have several hourly train routes that would be a bus ride every 3 hours in other European nations
It depends how you define “better”, but in terms of punctuality Germany consistently ranks near the bottom. Bottom 3 of the EU for high speed or international trains, bottom 6 for local trains.
So yes all neighbouring countries may have their own issues with trains, but regarding punctuality they’re consistently better.
clearly never been in a German train
fuck DB man
Public services need to be publicly owned.
Politicians are corrupt, but business people are corruption embodied.
It is publicly owned, it was just defunded by conservatives
It’s more complicated than that. The DB as an umbrella organization (consisting of over 100 companies) is publicly owned, but:
The infrastructure is completely separated from operations, with a lot of regulations to make sure that the infrastructure company doesn’t cooperate with any operations company for fear they might discriminate against other companies, effectively throwing sand into the gears of railroad operations because many communication paths that are standard in other railroads are banned.
The companies that carry out operations are expected to be completely self-sufficient, with no direct support from the government, but only through contracts auctioned off to the lowest bidder for local services (definitely no connection with competing companies who bid really low regularly going bankrupt /s). Long distance services are expected to finance themselves but are expected to cross subsidize services to cities that aren’t quite as lucrative (because they are, after all, owned by the government) and at the same time compete with companies that aren’t government owned that just offer rides on the most lucrative routes.
The budget that is available for infrastructure is decided by the government every year, meaning absolutely no financial stability. This means that construction companies don’t end up growing because it could be too risky, and when suddenly there’s a lot of work to be done the few construction companies that are able to do the work demand insane prices and conditions, and the infrastructure company is essentially forced to swallow if they want anything done at all.
DB is publically owned. Just in a very stupid way. They made it a stock company cause they planed to privatise it, and then didn’t cause of the 2008 financial crisis. So it’s a stock company with a board and a CEO, that is supposed to make a profit, but all the stock is owned by the state.
In my eyes, they should reform it into something more sensible that is still publically owned, but the current government is more likely to go through with privatisation than do that.
As an American living in Germany ❤️ DB
I know it used to be better, and compared to neighboring nations its bad, but I’ve never had access to a better transit system.
Plus I do feel like DB is not given enough credit for its volume of trains. No other country in Europe is running so many trains so frequently. You have several hourly train routes that would be a bus ride every 3 hours in other European nations
The only neighbouring country with certainly better train travelling imo is Switzerland.
French tgv is fucking expensive and trains are a lot less comfortable.
Dutch has great trains but it’s basically all intercity/regional/local. It’s more like a very large S-Bahn Network, Not comparable to ice experience.
Belgian trains are just shit often and just as much delayed, also no real long distance trains.
Luxembourg is free but the trains are also very unreliable…
Is it really that great in Poland, Czechia, Austria? I don’t know.
It could be better, but DB Long Distance travel is really not that bad. It’s mainly the infrastructure that’s lagging behind
It depends how you define “better”, but in terms of punctuality Germany consistently ranks near the bottom. Bottom 3 of the EU for high speed or international trains, bottom 6 for local trains.
So yes all neighbouring countries may have their own issues with trains, but regarding punctuality they’re consistently better.
Austria is doing lretty well, spain is killing it with HSR, Italy also has great high speed services, but on a smaller network.
Overall, the big problem is reliability, the DB is basically never punctual, and almost all the others are better than them at that aspect.
No, fuck corrupt politicians - our rail network used to be great before it got privatized.
Poland here. We hear You. Not so long ago we used to have delays measured in hours.
Yeah… Japan might get you used to that kind of precision, but I can’t think of a European country with that punctual trains 😅
I’ve been in a German train. Was a while ago, though.
It seemed like the people running both the machines and system actually knew what they were doing and cared about doing it well.
As a latin american this was unfathomable to me and it broke my brain.
the workers may care, the people who decide about the infrastructure however dont.
I know a few people working there. Biggest train nerds I’ve ever met.