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Comment by stop50 | Hacker News Reader

In germany (currently month 2 of 3) there is an ticket for 9€ per month for using local public transport. Millions of tickets are sold and people are using the so much that the trains are litterally full. And the users are still enduring it.

For those who don't know it: german trains have an lowsy reputation at best, no cooling in the summer, no heating in the winter and every user has to plan for the case the train is 15 minutes or more late or broke on the way down.

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That's not an accurate representation of the service at all. I'd say it's a lot closer to, say, New York City's subway service: something people love to hate, but that is, despite some flaws, quite successful, especially in comparison. The trains being full, literally, littoraly (to the coasts), or figuratively also calls to mind Woody Allen: "Nobody goes there anymore–it's too crowded".

All trains, even regional ones, also have heating and cooling. And while Acs tends to be underpowered and is broken more often than it should be, I don't remember heating, which is much simpler anyway, to have similar problems.

" I don't remember heating, which is much simpler anyway, to have similar problems."

On the contrary, it is way too warm in the trains in winter and badly vented. And you cannot change anything about it, because for safety reasons it is no longer possible to open a window even a tiny little bit.

(And sometimes the AC is too cold in summer.)

> "Nobody goes there anymore–it's too crowded"

I had never heard this quote attributed to anyone other than Yogi Berra before, and from looking it up, it doesn't seem like I'm misremembering that.

I suspect GP is thinking of Woody Allen quoting Groucho Marx in Annie Hall: "I wouldn't want to join any club that would have me as a member."

I’m writing this from a German train (Regional Bahn, not even the ICE), and it does have air conditioning. Not too crowded, smooth journey for the past 2 hours.

I’ve travelled all across Europe, and German trains aren’t what I would call “lousy”.

You have to live in Germany to appreciate that. Otherwise all you get is a few data points.

Living here for 3 years, I think I can “appreciate” that.

While the German train system can definitely improve, it's hard to come up with many countries that actually have a better service. France and Japan, maybe Spain? I don't know about the Netherlands and Nordics? It's still too rare to have such an extensive network.

The german system is ok. Germans have reasons to complain but isn't terrible.

What germany does horribly is ISP infra. It just sucks ass.

Also, some gas and electricity pipes running south wouldn't hurt, but it's too late...

Well, there will be more LNG terminals at the ports soon I would guess, but it does seem like there is a huge hesitancy to build more gas infrastructure that would diversify away from Russia because it isn't green

It's all relative, I think. I've met Americans living in Ireland who were amazed by how good Dublin's public transport was. "Good" is not a description that anyone in Dublin, or anyone in Europe, would use for Dublin's public transport.

I've always thought that German transport was generally excellent when I'm over there, but then I'm from Dublin :)

> "Good" is not a description that anyone in Dublin, or anyone in Europe, would use for Dublin's public transport.

Light rail in Dublin is quite good, but coverage isn’t great. I used DART a few times, and it wasn’t a nice experience - long waits and less than ideal trains. I traveled by rail between Dublin and Cork, however, and it was quite good - modern and comfortable, and relatively fast (Ireland is small and fast rail feels like overkill)

> Ireland is small and fast rail feels like overkill

Not sure I'd say that; a modern TVG/ICE-type service could do Dublin to Cork in less than an hour, vs 2.5 hours for the current service. That would be a game changer.

There are vague plans for such a service, and more solid plans for upgrading to 200km/h (the trains already support this but the line would need upgrading).

It’d certainly remove some pressure on Dublin housing.

Austria and Switzerland definitely have better train service than Germany. In fact the Austrian federal railways (ÖBB) even bought up the majority of DB's night train routes after DB considered decommissioning them ^^

Does someone in another country made a song about the bad public transport? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXjhszy2f9w

Although it's been a few years since I lived in Germany I strongly disagree with this sentiment. I never had a bad train trip and I took them semi-often for work via Berlin-Munich and many times for pleasure around the country and continent. They far surpassed those in Eastern Europe for instance (although the train from Romania to Moldova was fun partially because it felt like time travel into the Soviet era)

I had quite a few bad trips. Two of them left me at trainstations without any other transportation method (one of them was an fallen tree and the other an broken train). My median for delayed trains gets smaller but is still in the 15 minute region.

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