Gregory's Server@SteveJonesnono1 @quixoticgeek I take issue with "our railways are among the worst in the developed world"—the writer clearly hasn't travelled on Deutsche Bahn in the past couple of years! DB, incidentally, turned to shit BECAUSE it was being prepped for privatization along the British model by starving it of maintenance money. And now it makes the British network look timely and efficient (albeit expensive).
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62 comments
@quixoticgeek @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 Waiting for Finns complaining how it is impossible to get a sleeper compartment to Lapland for Christmas even if you book well in advance, one week before travel. (Sarcasm. Of course for the highest season of all one needs to book much more in advance.)  @tml @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 I've used that sleeper the other way a couple of years back. On this latest trip I couldn't use a sleeper train as there were no spaces available a month out. We need way more sleeper trains, not just more routes. But more trains on a given route. On some routes we could have one sleeper every hour from 1900 to midnight and still have capacity issues. @quixoticgeek @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 Meaningful price comparisons are complicated between railways that use dynamic pricing. I doubt it is hard to find examples of tickets on British trains that are clearly less expensive than tickets for comparable journeys in some other country. I didn’t bother looking exhaustively. Just one example with comparable price, journey time, not far in advance purchase: Edinburgh–London and Hamburg–Mainz on July 17. @tml @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 if I was in charge, I would ban dynamic pricing. Or mandate that it be brought in for all motorways and a roads too... @quixoticgeek @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 But do you accept different prices for the same journey at different times of the day, or on different days? That would be fixed in advance, not vary according to demand. @tml @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 nope. The only one I'm kinda willing to accept is peak Vs off peak. But even that i would like to avoid if possible. The whole point of public transport is to transport the public. Money making is at best a 5th of 6th on the list of things for it to do.  @quixoticgeek @tml @SteveJonesnono1 Yup. Public transport should be funded like roads—as vital national infrastructure available to all and supported via the common purse. @cstross @quixoticgeek @SteveJonesnono1 But now quixoticgeek and Charlie are talking about different things, no? Infrastructure (and rolling stock ?) vs train operation. @tml @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 it's all linked together. Trains should run at least every 15 mins, from every station, from very early in the morning, until late at night, and cost very little to use. Once a society and government realise this is both worthwhile, and attainable. Then we can work out the infrastructure and operational set up necessary to deliver it. Right now too many people start from the point that we can't have nice things because we currently don't have nice things. @quixoticgeek @tml @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 @biohumanisti @quixoticgeek @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 Nah. I would say that it is relatively common in large public transit networks to offer separate off-peak fares. For instance TfL does it. https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/find-fares/tube-and-rail-fares @biohumanisti @quixoticgeek @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 Also in Berlin. A separate “10 a.m.” one-month ticket. https://www.bvg.de/en/subscriptions-and-tickets/all-tickets @tml @biohumanisti @quixoticgeek @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 It also doesn't help that the peak/off-peak rules are inconsistent in the UK. They vary between TOCs, and even by type of ticket. The 9:21 train from my local station is off-peak if you have an off-peak day return, but counts as a peak train if your ticket is an off-peak open (within one month) return. @bencc @tml @biohumanisti @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 UK train ticketting is utterly broken and makes no logical sense, anywhere. Even TFL, the one half decent bit of public transport on the cursed isle, has an utterly fucked up ticket structure that is sexist and discriminatory. @quixoticgeek @tml @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 as a Spaniard I'm curious about the Spanish remark, though Renfe has been notorious for having an unusable website for… since websites became a thing @ehproque @tml @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 You live in Madrid, your daughter just got her first appartment in Barcelona, you want to take your box of tools, and go help her do some DIY. Try that on a RENFE highspeed train. @quixoticgeek @tml @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 that's a funny example too: another common complaint (one I agree with) is it used to be possible to travel to the next province by train on the cheap, but nowadays you can only travel very fast (and at a high price) between Madrid and anywhere else @ehproque @tml @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 It fundemantally breaks rail travel if you can't take stuff with you. At least on an plane you can check your tool box in the hold. But that's not an option on the train the way Renfe implement it. When I was in Barcellona, I took an R11 to Portbou, and then a local SNCF train to avoid the RENFE stupidity at Sants. @quixoticgeek @ehproque @tml @SteveJonesnono1 There are VERY FEW things I will praise Amtrak for, but some of their intercity services have (or had as recently as 2016) a guard's wagon where you could check your big-ass suitcase and they'd offload it on the platform at your destination. @cstross @ehproque @tml @SteveJonesnono1 Deutsche bahn and OBB have guards vans on some trains. That's where bikes go. Ditto VR in Finland, and my bike went in a guards van on a train in Norway too. @quixoticgeek @tml @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 Renfe are trying to act like an airline, but miss some of the benefits, like hold luggage. And hit all of the disadvantages - queuing to board, luggage x-ray... @fishter_uk @tml @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 Exactly. All the disadvantages of plane travel, with none of the advantages of rail travel. @quixoticgeek @tml @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 French rail timetables have not heard of a clock, nor "connection" between services. @fishter_uk @tml @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 They have the sort of giant gaps in the timetable that can only happen if you format things in word... On Monday there were exactly two trains per day from Dijon to Nancy, only one in the morning. Which is just bonkers. @tml @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 @quixoticgeek sorry, the original text said “worst in the developed world” - I believe we take the cake for being worse and more expensive than all eu train systems 🇺🇸 Even Canadian metro systems put American trains to shame, and Montreal doesn’t even have trains… @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 @quixoticgeek Prepared for privatisation along the British model? In the UK, Wikipedia tells me that “Provision of passenger services was split up into twenty-five passenger train operating units (TOUs),[40] known as shadow franchises, split by geographical area and service type.” Is such what has been planned for Germany? Any source for that?  @tml @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 @quixoticgeek at least you have railways. Here in the US we don't have any except a couple along the east coast. If we want to travel somewhere we have to either drive or fly. @SteveJonesnono1 @tml @cstross @quixoticgeek Privatization of DB failed many years ago, probably because they were too slow off the blocks to get the deal done before the markets went south and the brief German privatization craze died. Unfortunately Deutsche Telekom, Deutsche Post and Lufthansa were flogged off. Financial investors poison everything. @tml @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 @quixoticgeek The Bahn is now an anomaly. It’s no longer a state entity, as its corporate form was changed, in what they thought was the run-up to their flotation, to that of a plain old AG (plc, basically). But the state owns all the shares. @marcas @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 @quixoticgeek An incumbent rail operator that is a limited company where the state owns all the shares is not really an anomaly. That is the case also in Sweden and Finland. Probably many other countries, too. @marcas @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 @quixoticgeek But note that even if a part or all of the shares would be sold openly to investors, that would still not be the “British model”. @cstross @tml @SteveJonesnono1 @quixoticgeek If the British model means saddling the business with crushing debt, massive value leakage to the new shareholders, vastly worse service, vastly higher fees, and raw excrement pumped into rivers and lakes, I’m wholly confident a successfully privatized Deutsche Bahn would have lived up to it. @marcas @cstross @tml @SteveJonesnono1 @quixoticgeek The partial privatization here in The Netherlands didn't turn out too well. Where has privatization actually worked? @quixoticgeek @julf @marcas @cstross @tml @SteveJonesnono1 Before my time there was even a 3rd class with wooden benches for the workers. And smoking everywhere until just a few years back. 1st class helps if you need extra quietness for those with ADHD (and the rich) and contributes overproportional to financing the railway. Also good for advertising to switch away from car commuting. No first class in busses or other city traffic anyway. @quixoticgeek @http @julf @marcas @tml @SteveJonesnono1 Quiet coaches aren't quiet. Last time I booked a seat in one I ended up sharing it with a hen night. And folks watching music videos on their phones at full volume without headphones. Someone spoke to me and complained in an Edinburgh-London quiet coach once, because I was explaining Gödel's theorem and the Church-Turing thesis too loudly  @marcas the rail privatisation in poland was a bloody disaster. @cstross @tml @SteveJonesnono1 @quixoticgeek @cstross @mawhrin @tml @SteveJonesnono1 @quixoticgeek Do you know what? I am beginning to suspect that privatization might not be the magical solution to all life’s problems after all. @marcas @cstross @mawhrin @SteveJonesnono1 @quixoticgeek Of course, “privatisation” can mean so much. Mastodon is hardly an ideal medium to explain in detail what one means. Some people no doubt would claim that even allowing open access to private train operators that have their own rolling stock is “privatisation” even if no state-owned property has been sold to private companies… @tml on the regional networks there are providers others than DB. Though u can buy tickets from one provider and it is also valid with another one. @yuribackinthehood Yes, but these regional trains surely are heavily subsidised? And it is the regional public transport organisation that decides on fares. Even if the operator is private. @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 @quixoticgeek The only part of the British rail network that I'd agree is better than the Bahn is TfL. Maybe ScotRail, if they're as good as they were 10 years ago.  @pkraus @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 @quixoticgeek Scotrail is now run by the Scottish Government, having taken the franchise over from Abellio. Does it still count as privatised if it's owned by another country's government? 🙂 @pkraus @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 @quixoticgeek I wouldn't call either the rolling stock or timetable used on the more rural lines of ScotRail good, though... rather worn clunky Sprinter DMUs, big gaps in the timetable. @tml @pkraus @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 that's the sort of timetable SNCF would be proud of. Should be every 15 minutes. @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 @quixoticgeek Indeed. Come to the U.S. sometime as well. I am fairly sure we have DB beat.  @cstross @SteveJonesnono1 @quixoticgeek they must not be counting north America as developed then. |
@cstross @SteveJonesnono1 @quixoticgeek Let’s see how many people pop up in this thread claiming “no, no, *our* railways are the worst in Europe”…
As an outsider, I have found both the British and German railways perfectly adequate with mostly good service. Granted, I have not done any daily commuting by rail in either country, only travelled while on vacation, and in recent years never in high season.