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Comment by rjzzleep | Hacker News Reader

The German rails network went downhill when they decided to socialize the losses and privatize the profit. Failure is blamed on the grunt workers, which are absolutely not interested in taking responsibility as a result of this. The fact that there are rotting railways everywhere and the DB waits until it gets so bad for cities to step in and take over part of the cost is a wonderful example of this. The new ICE's speed is actually lower than previous generations.

I have seen this systemic problem in other domains I worked in. The problems are very similar, and at the end of the day I can somewhat relate to the workers attitude of "why should I lean out of the window if I get punished anyway". But in some cases the workers are unfireable and oftentimes it is exactly that attitude that let the management get away with the terrible working conditions (most of the times more psychological than physical abuse) so it feeds into each other.

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Just an aside, as a railway-nerd:

> The new ICE's speed is actually lower than previous generations.

While not the fastest ICE, the new ICE-L (assuming you refer to it) with a top speed of 230km/h, is not actually slower than what it is supposed to replace on most routes: InterCity trains, topping out at 200km/h.

ICE-L, btw, was planned to be a IC train, but just like before with IC-T/ICE-T (same top speed of 230km/h), and IC X (ICE 4), DB management has a tendency to decide next-to-last minute, that new vehicles must earn money and thus get rebranded ICE, which is both more prestigious and (at least in a fictional world without "Sparpreis") pricey.

TL;DR: This would be outrageous if ICE-L was to replace ICE 3 (neo; 320km/h +) services - but it is not.

Yeah, I didn't feel like looking up the exact details, so thank you for adding that. I didn't know that it was rebranded like that, I was just baffled at the outcome. Our mechanical engineering professor was responsible for the ICE breaking system a long time ago and those guys were all extremely good.

The other aspect is that there is a whole host of periphery issues, one of which is track maintenance, making it so for a lot of segments the ICE will not reach its top speed.

Could be. It used to be that to get phone service in Germany could take up to a month after putting in the order, that’s when it was state controlled. After the reforms installations were quicker.

So to me, there doesn’t seem to be a panacea except to hold the services accountable in some way.

That's a different situation / scenario and addressed a different problem.

The government is the most efficient and effective at big capital spending and with what I would call static operations. Competitive private entities are the best at delivering value on the front-end.

Monopolist/cartel private entites combine the rapacious nature of rent seeking with the lazy inefficiency of bureaucracy to great a giant ball of failure. Effective privatization requires either creating a framework for a robust competitive landscape OR tight, effective regulatory control. There's no universal correct answer.

If competition is in place and companies can win or lose, they will move mountains to yield marginal gain. If you let them get fat & lazy, you will need to move a mountain to do anthing -- even make more money!

> If competition is in place and companies can win or lose, they will move mountains to yield marginal gain.

... in the short term, happily screwing over society at large and possibly even themselves in the medium to long term. Perverse incentives are everywhere.

> After the reforms installations were quicker.

And everybody has the same "market" price.

Add to that the transport buisness beeing marginal to the company who is mainly a immo speculation company trying to sell the strips of inner city land they hold.

Immo being real estate (Immobilien), for the curious.

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