It's incredible that about 80% of people in this thread seem to be commenting without having looked at the website.

In defense of Deutsche Bahn, countries with comparable infrastructure but more reliable transport have put in about twice as much money per capita for the last 30 years at least.

Also, it went through a pseudo-privatisation back then, which hasn't helped (just private enough to focus on quarterly profits by letting bridges decay so that they have to be rebuilt or repaired in a few years, just public enough that they have to serve a lot of non-lucrative areas by law).

I have to admit I'm rather biased as I work there, but I would say most employees do the best they can with the hand they're dealt. It's just that politicians dealt them a really bad hand. And if Germany were to properly invest in infrastructure from now on, there's so much stuff that has to be repaired that reliability would go down even more in the next decade or so (seriously, this is not something you could fix in a year or two, even with hundreds of billions).

> In defense of Deutsche Bahn, countries with comparable infrastructure but more reliable transport have put in about twice as much money per capita for the last 30 years at least.

Why is that "in defense?"

When you let your infrastructure rot away since the 90s of the last century for something as complex as a train network by brutally underinvesting.

Then you seriously fucked up. There's nothing to defend here.

> It's incredible that about 80% of people in this thread seem to be commenting without having looked at the website.

Are you new to the Internet? This has been a thing since (at least) Slashdot. :)

Yes everyone does their best but in typical german fashion nobody does the right thing because it would mean to break some rules or habit. Its a general problem but it shows hard at DB.

As someone who is in a group who regularly trashes DB at will, no one blames the line employees, but definitely blame people in upper levels of management

> I have to admit I'm rather biased as I work there, but I would say most employees do the best they can with the hand they're dealt.

I think most people don't blame the normal employees. The blame is on the management layers, the "Wasserkopf", that gives themselves boni, even if things are done poorly and are going badly. A disconnect from the reality on the tracks.

I don't see improvements. I rather see worse and worse reliability, even though Deutsche Bahn asks for more and more money from the government. That money is disappearing somewhere, at least partially, instead of arriving in projects for improving the situation. In many places, if not most, there isn't even a single turnout track, so that any construction work halts the whole line. Disastrous. You cannot ask people to buy train tickets for 100 to 200 EUR, and then be hours late. I mean, you can, but then you are delusional. They are not surviving because of their great product or service, they are only surviving, because people don't have good alternatives. Basically, it is extortion. In other countries I pay 1/10 of the ticket price and I arrive on friggin' time, on a much longer ride.

Privitisation is a huge curse, and a tremendous scam perpetuated by capitalist financiers. Where has it ever produced better results? No private entity can provide a service at cost like the government can.

> It's incredible that about 80% of people in this thread seem to be commenting without having looked at the website.

It’s almost as if people are tired of having betting shoved down their throats.

> I work there

OMG. Employers to never work for:

- the Bund - the Oeffentlichen - Deutsche Bahn - Unions, especially ver.di - established / legacy parties