> when you ignore critical infrastructure for three decades

To be fair, Deutsche Bahn is currently spending “€107bn between 2025 and 2029” on infrastructure upgrades [1].

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/db75e347-b13b-4753-8130-6301bb55c...

It's interesting how software systems and these large systems always have the same problem. Software failures are described by the engineers as being caused by "not enough maintenance and now the code needs to be refactored" and these real world systems are always caused by "not enough funding for preventative maintenance". It's a curious case that these issues are rarely caused by actions in the present but primarily by actions (and often other actors) in the past.

Presumably, we too shall be the villains to the people of 2050 as they shall, in turn, be the morons who built this stupid fucking system in this dumbass way instead of just designing it correctly and keeping it up to date over the years to the people of 2080. One thing I must consider doing is calling any fellow coworker an idiot pre-emptively since that way it's like I'm living 25 years in the future.

I was once on a job interview there, in the Train/Station Wifi branch, mostly web programming related though IIRC. It wasn't so much of a quiz format but the interviewers wanted to know what I worked on before, why I wanted to change etc. What really stuck with me was how the department CTO insisted how superior and privacy conforming their logging system is. Not saving anything, not even for a micro second. I didn't dare to ask how they debugged anything. But in the end I was rejected and the reason was: more questions than answers.

The one good thing is that they failed to take it private. Imagine how bad it would be with the current maintenance backlog and no public funding.

> Not sure if this is better or worse than the UK's Network Rail story

“About 72 per cent of Deutsche Bahn’s intercity trains arrived within 10 minutes of their scheduled arrival time in the year to January 2025, compared with 78 per cent of British long-distance trains, according to the FT analysis.

Any interaction with the German rail network is also one of the biggest factors affecting the punctuality of long-distance rail travel in Central Europe” [1].

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/d3b6e6b5-eddb-4230-b866-932d284ce...

Well, the EU insists that track & train operations are separate. (ironically the UK _is_ combining passenger operations and track somewhat back together, which is only possible because of brexit).

The bigger issue tbh is the enormous cost inflation in civil engineering in general. This seems to be a problem everywhere. There's no doubt some of this is caused by material cost increases, labour shortages etc, but I'd say the huge amounts of regulation added over the years is really a core driver of this.

> Not sure if this is better or worse than the UK's Network Rail story, but at the end of the day the only thing that will solve this is if they re-nationalize the tracks & infrastructure. What kind of an idiot thought including that in the privatization is a good idea is beyond me. It's not like you can build a 2nd railway network in order to get free market & competition. (For comparison, imagine privatizing the entire road network, village street to Autobahn.)

If you privatize the infrastructure and trains together you can at least compare one region against another, even if they're not directly competing. Trying to operate the trains separately from the tracks was a disaster in the UK and lead pretty directly to two mass casualty incidents.

What is the incentive for politicians to sell a publicly owned company for a lot of money? How would they personally benefit from a high price? I can only think of incentives to sell it for as little as possible to a most favored investor/buddy.

You may not be far off. Word is that it's a failed software update.

My 100 bucks are on an expired certificate in the trust chain. the same kind of issue that took down almost all Verifone payment terminals in Germany in 2022.

Was waiting for someone to bring this up. X is already full of similar nonsense. As if DB didn't have a track record of utterly broken infrastructure. For decades.

I guess by this logic we could also claim that "there Germans caused the power outage in Berlin last winter" because the perpetrators were likely German political activists.

Do you have a link?

Was it similar to what we’re seeing now (nationwide, radio related)?

> it was confirmed that Russians did it.

>> It’s believed the perpetrators of the attack were supporters of the Russian war effort, as the stop signals were also joined by broadcasts of the Russian national anthem and a speech from Russian President Vladimir Putin. The attacks have some significance to the invasion of Ukraine, as Poland has been a hub for crucial weapons deliveries supporting the defence of Ukraine.

Yes, yes, it's a code of honour not to use the someone' else national anthem, sure. Especially if you need to bolster the population support for some ongoing cause.

Don’t forget trains not running due to leaves on the track.

Neglect is basically unscheduled maintenance.

Thirty years of it.

You'd be wrong and you're spreading "dangerous misinformation".

It's not, it was a scheduled software update.