> 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.

Maybe you should leave your home then and go take a look. Most of the Stations,tracks and signalling around me were renewed and modernized in the last 5 years. During the traffic light coalition, a huge chunk of the main lines also got modernized

> That money is disappearing somewhere

Yes, it's "disappearing" in construction projects and new trains. You're onto something big.

> You cannot ask people to buy train tickets for 100 to 200 EUR, and then be hours late

The average train ticket price is well below 100-200€. Also have you heard of the Bahncard?

> In other countries I pay 1/10 of the ticket price and I arrive on friggin' time, on a much longer ride

What other countries are these supposed to be? I've travelled extensively around Europe, and there is hardly a country where you get the same level of comfort for the price.

Even Flixtrain is rarely cheaper than DB with Bahncard50, and they run decades old junk trains without AC, and sometimes even without heating in the winter

In many places, if not most, there isn't even a single turnout track, so that any construction work halts the whole line. Disastrous.

That's true, but that was the result of our moron politicians dreaming of privatising the network in the early 2000s.

We should abolish the stupid structure of a publicly owned company organised like a private one, that was the result of that process back then

I find your comment disrespectful and bordering breaking HN rules.

Please stop taking parts of sentences out of context when quoting, and please refrain from trying to dismiss other people's personal experiences as less valid than your subjective experience.

> What other countries are these supposed to be? I've travelled extensively around Europe, and there is hardly a country where you get the same level of comfort for the price.

Well, there you have it. You only consider European countries. That is quite a limited perspective. In China I can pay around 12 EUR and take a reliable high speed train, that takes me further than Germany is in size. The interior of those trains looks a bit older than ICEs in Germany, but actually offer more space for each individual passenger and allow for a more comfortable ride. The trains actually go fast (200-300km/h), not like in Germany, where it can happen, that you take an ICE train and for part of the way crawl at 30km/h. I am aware, that the comparison is not a 1 to 1 comparison, but ultimately the high speed train system there just works. Whether that is due to massive government investment or cheaper workforce, I don't debate. The result is good, reliable and cheap train service, that pays off in being way more climate-friendly, than the bad train service in Germany, that pushes people to take the car instead.

But another example of how prices in Germany are insane is actually another city in Europe: Madrid. The metro system there even rivals or surpasses modern Chinese cities, because it is even simpler to use. You pay for "1 ride", only a little more than 1 EUR (I paid 11.60EUR for 10 rides), and that ride lasts until you exit the station somewhere. You can change as many times as you want, stay in the metro for hours riding back and forth, if you so desire. The moment you leave a station, you will need to scan your card and only then 1 ride is deducted from your card. It is so simple, it is a dream. Meanwhile in Germany, you pay 3-4x the price for a 1h ticket or so-and-so many stops ticket. Ridiculous.

Germany did a good thing: The Germany ticket. But slowly the cost for that is creeping up. From originally 49 EUR, it is now at over 60 EUR. If this goes on, it will soon no longer be a viable choice for people, who don't take the train every day, but maybe 2-3 times a week.