Mastodawn

On my way to Munich this morning — Deutsche Bahn ICE train canceled without replacement. Couldn’t board the next train bound to Munich (run by another operator - Westbahn), so I stood in the cold for 45mins until the next DB train.
That’s where liberalisation hurts customers: multiple operators, but no cross-honoring when things go wrong. Wouldn’t it make sense to have mutual backup agreements for delays and cancellations? 🤔 @jon anything in discussions policy wise on this?

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𝓒𝓱𝓻𝓲𝓼𝓽𝓸𝓯 𝓓𝓸𝓷𝓪𝓽 Jan 21

@julienmarchal @jon

So it's not the notoriously unreliable 100% state owned DB, that fucked up yet again. It's the relatively tiny private rail company Westbahn. It's impossible for them to buffer all the DB fuckups for free without going bankrupt.

DB also owns the tracks BTW, and therefore controls the costs for the competition. There is no free market, just a bad excuse to enshittify public transport, and have the shortthinkers blame the privatization, that never actually happened.

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Jon Worth Jan 21

@cdonat Sorry but that's off. Westbahn did not have to expand to Stuttgart, but did. And can because you can actually get paths on DB InfraGo infra - as Flixtrain and many others do. The central problem is a lack of investment in that infra that blights DB and everyone else, and dates back to the 1990s. @julienmarchal

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𝓒𝓱𝓻𝓲𝓼𝓽𝓸𝓯 𝓓𝓸𝓷𝓪𝓽 Jan 21

@jon @julienmarchal

Yes, you can get timeslots on DB infrastructure, but DB controls

1. the price
2. the quality of the infrastructure, and
3. the existence of an infrastructure.

You can only get a timeslot on tracks, that exist. Many smaller towns in Germany, that used to have a train station, don't even have tracks any more.

And on investment, who would have to have invested in that infrastructure? The 100% state owned DB, maybe?

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Jon Worth Jan 21

@cdonat Hey, thanks for explaining Germany to me. I am German and rail policy is my job. And 2. is not really fully in DB's own control, but the state's, and the state under invested. Oh and I now live in France, and you're complaining about Germany not having a dense network? 🤔 You're complaining at a high level. @julienmarchal

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𝓒𝓱𝓻𝓲𝓼𝓽𝓸𝓯 𝓓𝓸𝓷𝓪𝓽

@jon @julienmarchal

I'm German as well, and now live in Switzerland. I use the Swiss train network pretty much every day. Germany has no dense net at all.

It used to be dense. My mom used to take the train to her home town in eastern Bavaria, when she was young. But the tracks don't exist any more. And that's by far not the only town, that has been cut off from the train network in the last decades.