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Comment by layer8 | Hacker News Reader

> high speed trains in Italy run better than Germany

Not to excuse the German performance, but part of the reason is that the Italian high-speed railway network is significantly simpler than the German one, also in terms of interconnections with neighbouring countries:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Italy_TAV.png#/media...

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ICE_Network.png#/med...

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Germany is much flatter than Italy - while the the line between Bologna and Florence, Florence and Rome, Rome and Naples, must go through a lot of mountains or steep hills. Also, Italy is a territory with a lot of seismic activity every year, and that's something you can't ignore when you send trains at 300 km/h.

The problem in Germany is that due to the structure of the railway network, there are much more interdependencies between connections, so one disruption tends to be harder to contain. It spreads out and affects many more connections.

What does this even mean?

One train has to get off for a different one to get on a track. Delays compound.

How is it different from every other rail network in the world?

France’s high speed trains have a dedicated network of tracks. They don’t have to share those tracks with regional and cargo trains.

btw every high speed train network is separated from the conventional one otherwise they will never be able to travel as fast as 300km/h

I imagine if you have a culture of great engineering you don't expect it to collapse when you lean on it.

which translates as, germany has no land left for rights of way and things like train switching yards.....real estate is bonkers expensive... and switching tracks for high speed trains are going to be HUGE....next step would be to have elevated(double deck) bypass tracks....but that would cause.....further disruptions

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