Recent searches
Search options
In Europe, flying is cheaper than taking the train.
It's an embarrassment, and a major problem: we have to stop flying for silly short distances. Realise that the overheads of flying (reaching the airport, awaiting 2 hours, the flight, the unloading, reaching the destination) largely cancel out any time gains of flying. And the carbon costs are utterly untenable. Not to speak of the modern, dire conditions of the whole flying "experience".
Another embarrassment is that train connections can't be guaranteed when across countries or companies. They aren't even coordinated. As if those who commission and set the schedules didn't travel by train themselves, at least not internationally. In considering how tiny most European countries are, it's frankly bizarre.
There are so many destinations one could travel by train to, yet in practice, it's not sensible. A disgrace.
The upside is that it can be fixed.
@albertcardona The unsaid part of this is that the cheap airlines are private (and hence efficient), while most train companies are either public or semi-public, and hence both expensive and inefficient. If you take a look at Polish train prices, which aren't that bad compared to other places, going by car instead becomes more affordable at 3 to 4 people, assuming normal tickets. This makes no sense, there's no way a car is more efficient than a train.
Cheap air travel IS NOT due the public/private split.
Cheap air travel is due to government subsidies. Why do *private* airlines get taxpayer subsidised fuel in the first place?
Germany has the best and cheapest train system I used in Europe - all public.
England trains are all private and their service is atrocious and crazy expensive.
Private companies think only about profit. Expensive crap services = profit for shareholders.
There is a prevailing belief in Poland that private is good, public is bad.
This has nothing to do with the reality and it stems from post communist attitudes.
If you want to see the true difference between private and public operations look at English vs Scottish Water companies.
Or German public trains vs English private trains.
Private companies have only one goal - to sell cheap products & services for as much money as possible.
@RaffKarva
While I agree with the sentiment, it's important to note that DB is *not* a public entity but a publicly traded company with a controlling stake held by the state. The difference is that it, too, operates on a for profit model (and is failing miserably, given that they started debt free and now owe staggering sums to various banks).
@miki @albertcardona
Thank you, I was under the impression that DB operated just like ScotRail.
According to the Wikipedia Deutsche Bahn is 100% state owned enterprise:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Bahn?wprov=sfti1#
It is therefore considered a public entity operating within the private sector. Banks lending money to DB consider state taxes as security against the loan.
The difference between a SOE and a Statutory Corporation such as Scottish Water is that SOE can invest in private companies such as four British train lines.
1/2
Thatcher’s government privatised water in England 35 years ago. Scottish water remained fully public during this time.
I don’t think there has been a better case study to compare private vs public ownership.
@RaffKarva @albertcardona Water (and other similar utilities, like electricity / internet / TV cables) are somewhat different, because you can't just lay new pipes / cables without government approval, and even if you could, it would be far too expensive. If one monopolist owns all the pipes and no other competitor can realistically lay more, there's nothing stopping the monopolist from raising the prices beyond all reason. This is why I'm not opposed to the government owning train track, undecided on them owning stations and related infrastructure, but definitely against public ownership of the actual trains and railroad companies themselves.
I truly recommend that you study English private train companies (the whole of England got privatised by Thatcher)
It’s not one monopoly. It’s around 30 private companies.
Then compare those companies to one state owned Deutsche Bahn. DB is by far the best train travel I experienced throughout the whole of Europe.
€49 per month for unlimited country wide travel in Germany.
£114 for a single ticket from Manchester to London.
There’s this myth sold by capitalists that within the private market competition leads to lower prices and better services.
This is unfortunately nothing but a myth.
What happens in reality is this:
@albertcardona @miki @RaffKarva Wow! Sitting in a „fast“ train across Germany right now, I do not quite know how to digest this praise for DB! Rarely heard. 
Truth to be told: The 49€ do not allow to use these fast trains… Still, you can get (criss-)cross-country with it.
@kraweel65 @albertcardona @miki @RaffKarva
People who complain about the state of DB have clearly never spent much time relying on the British train system.
@kraweel65 @albertcardona @miki @RaffKarva
Last time I was in Germany, the ICE I was on was taken out of service due to a fault. The whole experience showed me what the correct way to deal with such a situation. We were delayed by 30 minutes.
Trains going out of service happens very frequently on UK trains, and I'm often abandoned with no help or advice, delayed 3 or more hours, forced onto overcrowded alternative trains
@IanSudbery @kraweel65 @albertcardona @miki @RaffKarva
Incidentally, I tell my compatriots who complain about the state of ÖBB that they clearly haven't spent much time relying on long-distance rail in Germany. 
@IanSudbery @kraweel65 @miki @RaffKarva
It’s a bit of an unfair comparison, because the British rail system is perhaps at the bottom (and distant from the second-bottom) of Western European rail.
@albertcardona @IanSudbery @kraweel65 @miki
But that’s the whole point. Comparison.
German train service is public.
British is private.
Former is great and cheap.
Latter is appalling and expensive.
@RaffKarva @miki @albertcardona
Ahhh... Myopic Maggie.
The truth is, privatised 'public services', e.g. roads, rail, power, sewage ... are ALL cartels. That's it. There's nothing clever about it and every single one of them is ONLY interested in maximising profit.
What on earth is the point???
“Myopic Maggie” - I never heard that before. Good one.
Yeap, it’s always been this way with private companies:
@RaffKarva @miki @albertcardona
Ha!
Yes, I came up with 'Myopic Maggie' a few years ago, after ongoing discussions with a very old friend, who thought that Maggie was a true great. Sigh.
It was her complete lack of vision. Her failure to understand humanity and the inevitability of her policies that led me the nickname.
I was often heard in the late 80s saying ... 'just wait to see what this will lead to in 30yrs' ... and ... well, here we are today. Totally predictable.
Poland is roughly a decade behind England in privatisation. Moreover, Poland did not adopt the full scale privatisation as introduced by Reagan-Thatcher neoliberalism.
A lot of my polish friends have this naive view of capitalism. They don’t see that given enough time privatisation always ends up with monopolies and/or cartels. Each time the public ends up paying more for worse product or service.
@RaffKarva @miki @albertcardona
When faced with this, I tend to ask a rhetorical question :
"If you let people do what they want.. what will they do?
...
They'll do what they want."
This aspect of humanity, is where free markets and unrestrained capitalism fall apart. You can't let them do what they want, because some people are the shittiest narcissists you can imagine and they will do anything to get cash and as we all know... money=power=money=power...
I often say:
Circa 10% of humanity is naturally greedy. Circa 10% of humanity is naturally altruistic. The rest can be swung either way.
Capitalism is set up by the greedy.