Damn I am tired of people laughing about Deutsche Bahn.

[jon@gruene.social]

Damn I am tired of people laughing about Deutsche Bahn.

Travel in many other places in Europe and you will discover Germany is trying to do many things right with its railways. A quick blog post / rant from me:
https://jonworth.eu/your-deutsche-bahn-joke-is-no-longer-fu/

#CrossBorderRail

[rainerzufall_le@mastodon.social]

@jon While I'm still fairly often annoyed at Deutsche Bahn, I feel they handle issues often better than Swedish rail companies. In Sweden, I once saw a conductor and a train driver trying to organise replacement busses at the plattform, as their company didn't do anything

[odoruhako@mastodon.social]

@jon The thing that annoys me about Germans joking about DB, mainly is the extremely common laziness to learn anything about economic and operational constraints of railway. Also there's like zero awareness of difficulties other railways are pushing on their customers, and to which trade-offs DB's problems can be attributed to.

IF German public and media would be more competent, maybe the existing issues with our railway network could actually be fixed...

[swaldman@mendeddrum.org]

@jon
Hear here!

[operand@todon.nl]

@jon a lot of these points you make here resonate with me quite strongly. i feel like when i was younger there were a lot of jokes about the SNCB to a similar effect and yet ive personally always had the impression that... the system works pretty well. if you take a longer train journey theres a good chance you'll have some delay or miss some connection but you'll almost always get to where you're going.

(of course, Belgium is much smaller than Germany so it's very different in terms of rail)

[alberich@social.tchncs.de]

@jon Thank you for this crossborder perspective. I think we try to laugh because the sense of loss is so strong for anyone who remembers (correctly or not) DB as a point of pride.

[jon@gruene.social]

@odoruhako Yes. Totally this! And fundamentally Deutsche Bahn is *trying* to do the right thing, somehow, still. Just within massive constraints.

[jon@gruene.social]

@operand SNCB is underrated in my view - I think it is solid (I wish some of the trains were nicer inside, but that is a minor point). It's definitely better than its reputation.

[jon@gruene.social]

@alberich That ought to be a cause for anger, not laughter! But yes, I sort of see the point. (Please also be aware I am German, as well as British)

[mgleadow@mastodon.green]

@odoruhako @jon this is not exclusive to Germany either. Plenty of people in the UK assume all European railways are perfect and it's just ours that runs into issues.

I'm not sure what it is that makes a nation want to kick their railway when nationalism is so good at falsely attributing brilliance to the mediocre

[stoori@polyglot.city]

@operand @jon i guess people in every country joke or complain about their trains being always late. germany is an outlier mainly in that respect that it's become an international joke.

for example in finland finnish people, in their usual exceptionalist way, think that VR must be the most unreliable railway company. well, in comparison to other european companies, it's not. and while finnish train services are not very frequent, VR actually makes sure that everyone makes it to their...

[stoori@polyglot.city]

@operand @jon ...destination, that is, they have guaranteed connections. i've understood that it's not very common in other european countries, but you may have more data on this. anyway, what this means that whenever you step on a VR train, you can be sure that you'll get to your destination in the end, if not by train then by a taxi paid by VR.

i simply see no reason to joke about VR's reliability, even though at times it feels like all their trains are running late.

[pgoetz@mastodon.social]

@jon Thank you very much for this post. I really like that it is balanced and fair and points out the good and the bad. And most thanks of all to pointing out that this is not because people at Deutsche Bahn are bad, but that our politicians neglected our railway infrastructure and organization for long enough to now feel those consequences heavily.

[markhburton@mstdn.social]

@jon
Interesting and credible.
A question though. You promote the German Green Party, effectively saying a vote for any other party is a vote against rail investment. Is that true for Die Linke too?

[plactagonic@f.cz]

@jon I think it is bit of every nations joke about their railway infrastructure.

ČD - stands for "čekám dlouho" (waiting long) classic here

But after some traveling I don't find them funny anymore.

[jonas_bostrom@mastodonsweden.se]

@jon Delayed German trains can be really annoying, especially when you get stuck somewhere. But I agree, it generally works fine, and there are other trains to choose from.

[mgleadow@mastodon.green]

@samuele963 @odoruhako @jon there's a certain amount of cherry picking that's for sure

[ja_e_i_o_u@norden.social]

@jon @alberich
Anger towards people really in charge, yes. But laughter makes the situation easier to bare.
(Hello and thank you to @BahnAnsagen ! )

(But actually, I'm often enough angry about missed connections.)

[jonas_bostrom@mastodonsweden.se]

@jon Although it was a bit annoying when I had to spend half the night helping my sister when she got stuck in Basel one evening, and then having to help her the next day again when she got stuck in Hamburg.

Or the time I spent at a station in rural Sachsen a very hot summer day waiting for a train that just kept getting more and more delayed…

[rainerzufall_le@mastodon.social]

@jon I heard lots of Danes complaining about DSB, but I had some really great experiences with them trying to smooth things out. Granted, Denmark is a lot smaller than Germany