German travel chaos blamed on lack of investment in railways | Germany | The Guardian
German travel chaos blamed on lack of investment in railways | Germany | The Guardian
Travellers advised to cancel journeys as heavy snow brings much of country’s rail network to a halt
The German railway system is still better than many other countries, but it was a huge mistake to privatize it (many years ago). Infrastructure shouldn't have to generate profit like companies do.
It's not even truly privatized, the state is the only entity allowed to hold stock.
The uk: hold my beer
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Decades of underinvestment in the German railways have been blamed for chaos in parts of the country after heavy snow led to much of the network grinding to a halt.
Snowfall of up to half a metre in Bavaria, southern Germany, led to numerous breakdowns and prompted the cancellation of scores of trains, with signalling systems and electronic information boards frequently malfunctioning.
“The DB slogan ‘we travel in all weathers’ has lost its credibility,” he told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper, calling large parts of Germany’s rail infrastructure “creaking and dilapidated”.
The transport minister, Volker Wissing, of the pro-business FDP, echoed the criticisms, saying the only way to tackle the problems was with a “general overhaul” of the whole network.
The criticisms came on the back of figures published at the weekend, which showed that last month DB’s long-distance services fell to their least punctual level in eight years.
Partly to blame are extensive construction works being carried out across the network, a response to years of neglect of bridges, tracks and general infrastructure.
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That "Wir fahren bei jedem Wetter" ("We travel in all weathers") was a big slogan of the German Railway services in my youth. Nowadays it has become a source of jokes, with the Deutsche Bahn being anything but reliable or punctual.
I'll just leave this here...
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