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How about the Brenner Base Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenner_Base_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenner_Base_Tunnel We've been lucky enough t

How about the Brenner Base Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenner_Base_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenner_Base_Tunnel We've been lucky enough to visit the tunnel system just south of Innsbruck, it's really impressive. We were taken in by bus(!) and allowed to explore on foot during an open day. Amazing stuff, the kids were blown away... :) On the positive side, the Austrians are pressing ahead with expanding the rail lines through Tyrol towards Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Lower_Inn_Valley_railway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Lower_Inn_Valley_railway On the negative side, the Germans seem to have done nothing much to expand the railway on their side of the border. Once you cross over the border from Kufstein(AT) to Kiefersfelden(DE) heading north you're back down to a pair of tracks...

RGamma 5y ago
Die Bahn is an unmitigated clusterfuck[1]. The money comes and comes, gets wasted, yet no heads ever roll. I met someone who managed a local train station (network) for a few years. He told me a story of hilarious bureaucracy, metric gaming (mostly for evasion of sanctions for missed deadlines), people just not showing up while being covered by their union, construction firms delaying construction because it's just "Die Bahn". Then he quit and was paid for months despite expired contract. Later he got a legal threat for owing them wages... Although pay seems quite good and you get 40days vacation, well good for them I guess. [1] You might even call it a slow-motion trainwreck badumm-ts
- elygre 5y ago
  Sure, let’s share stories. I’ll counter with the recently opened new BER airport. The construction process disaster even got its own podcast.
  - RGamma 5y ago
    There's tons of crap like that. Just now found there's yet another public transportation-related money sink in Berlin currently: https://www.schwarzbuch.de/aufgedeckt/steuergeldverschwendung-alle-faelle/details/zob-der-kleine-ber https://www.schwarzbuch.de/aufgedeckt/steuergeldverschwendun... It's a frustrating affair quite frankly and bad for my heart.

RGamma 5y ago

Die Bahn is an unmitigated clusterfuck[1]. The money comes and comes, gets wasted, yet no heads ever roll. I met someone who managed a local train station (network) for a few years. He told me a story of hilarious bureaucracy, metric gaming (mostly for evasion of sanctions for missed deadlines), people just not showing up while being covered by their union, construction firms delaying construction because it's just "Die Bahn". Then he quit and was paid for months despite expired contract. Later he got a legal threat for owing them wages... Although pay seems quite good and you get 40days vacation, well good for them I guess. [1] You might even call it a slow-motion trainwreck badumm-ts

elygre 5y ago
Sure, let’s share stories. I’ll counter with the recently opened new BER airport. The construction process disaster even got its own podcast.
- RGamma 5y ago
  There's tons of crap like that. Just now found there's yet another public transportation-related money sink in Berlin currently: https://www.schwarzbuch.de/aufgedeckt/steuergeldverschwendung-alle-faelle/details/zob-der-kleine-ber https://www.schwarzbuch.de/aufgedeckt/steuergeldverschwendun... It's a frustrating affair quite frankly and bad for my heart.