@deshipu@Gina the Dutch railway system is tiny, only having 2 neighbouring countries bringing external effects ... ES and IT might be worthwile comparing (IT has large waterfronts, ES largely scarce populated regions though ...).
@cstross@Gina Fun side fact. The Rail ways are now Operated by the British private companies that left Britain. At least that's what we found out in FOSDEM dinner talks between Brits and Germans.
@Gina Idk, last year we needed to take the train from Hamburg to Rostock, and it went really well, both ways, no significant delays. One connection was overfilled, but the DB app warned us. All in all, quite passable. And I'm Swiss, so my expectations are high.
@Toasterson@Gina Brit who has travelled on DB as well as the British post-privatization network here: this is EXACTLY right. The UK privatization was made attractive to investors by skimping on maintenance for a few years (to offer them cash inducements once they bought the pig in a poke). Said investors turned their noses up at the resulting sickly porker and stayed away. Upshot: DB now has a huge backlog of technical debt.
@Gina there is, as always, no easy answer and no easy fix. a) we are a "hub" country aka "junction" in Europe since the beginning of time (cp the many wars since the middle ages) - a trillion external effects from neighbouring countries which moght cause delays (UK ans Japan are islands ...) b) there are some geographical specialties aka bottlenecks in very populated and top business areas along the rhine (solutions known c) we are no 3 GDP country with very solid environmental, participations laws (which i am proud of). Things take time. E.g. BER MUC high speed train.
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