6 ms·

The connection Saarbrücken -> Paris (around 500 km) only takes 1:45h. Currently the problem is getting to Saarbrücken from Berlin, which takes up to 7 hours dep

The connection Saarbrücken -> Paris (around 500 km) only takes 1:45h. Currently the problem is getting to Saarbrücken from Berlin, which takes up to 7 hours depending on the connection. So yeah, lots of room for improvement, mostly on the German side though. A big impediment is the federal structure of Germany, as high-speed trains need to have at least one stop in every federal state they cross for political reasons, which of course makes them slow. In France, on the other hand, you have trains going from Paris to Marseille without a single stop in between, and in just 3:04h (for a whooping 780 km).

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>A big impediment is the federal structure of Germany, as high-speed trains need to have at least one stop in every federal state they cross for political reasons, which of course makes them slow. This is absolutely insane to hear. Feels like the whole "German efficiency" trope is mostly a meme or it doesn't apply to government/national services and is in line with all the other negative things I heard about the infamous archaic German bureocracy in general. I know even Ukrainian refugees were shocked at how archaic German paper based bureocracy was compared to their home country which moved to digital, as they expected Europe's richest country to have much more efficient bureocracy than Europe's poorest country. Boy were they in for a surprise. And let's not talk about Germany's infamously abysmal infrastructure and service coverage for fiber and mobile internet that's well behind Eastern Europe.
- cedilla 4y ago
  It's not insane at all. Every additional stop takes about 20 minutes - but there are a lot of people who actually use the stations between, say, Berlin and Cologne. Germany is much less centralised than France. 20% of the population is in Paris. Only 2% of Germans live in Berlin. It would be insanity to mindlessly copy the French model when the circumstances are so different.
  - thriftwy 4y ago
    You can play with combinatorics where there are ten trains per day, of which 2 are direct with no stops, 2 only stop in Cologne, remaining 6 stop in Cologne and some other destination as well.
    - cedilla 4y ago
      There are sprinter trains with only one or two stops early in the morning and in the evening.
  - KptMarchewa 4y ago
    >Only 2% of Germans live in Berlin. Over 6 million people live in Berlin metro, in an 80 million country this is closer to 8%.
    - lispm 4y ago
      And the metro area of Berlin is twice as large as the one of Paris, with not even half of the population.
      - KptMarchewa 4y ago
        Not 2% to 20% though.
  - lucb1e 4y ago
    (Edit: this comment was based on apparently incorrect information from GP that there is some rule that high-speed trains need to stop in any state they cross. A counter-example is given below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31548720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31548720) > there are a lot of people who actually use the stations between, say, Berlin and Cologne Sure, and a stop in the middle would make sense on that length of route, or alternating at which intermediate place(s) it stops. But with a stupid rule like having to stop in whatever state you pass means that you have to build rails around to avoid hitting a corner where nobody lives anyway because you'd have to stop for absolutely no reason. Let the trains make stops and rails be laid based on, like you say, demand. Not on arbitrary border lines.
- kkfx 4y ago
  Germany is mostly a State-less country, their infra suffer from that: Germans rails and roads tend to be far worst than some poor eastern neighbors, still many rails on diesel, roads in obscene conditions etc except few main arteries. French side having a certain State-planning infra are much, much more spread and in shape.
  - KptMarchewa 4y ago
    >Germans rails and roads tend to be far worst than some poor eastern neighbors Example? I know Poland is doing something, but still is far from speed of ICEs. The country is a bit smaller though, and largest destination - Warsaw - is relatively in the centre so it helps.
    - kkfx 4y ago
      Germany still have many non-electrified rails, sometimes even cross-borders ones. Polemics about dangerous bridges and roads etc are regular and so on. For instance https://elib.dlr.de/121661/1/Railways%202018_E3.01_Pagenkopf%20%28DLR%29_Analysis%20of%20German%20diesel%20operated%20regional%20railway%20lines.pdf https://elib.dlr.de/121661/1/Railways%202018_E3.01_Pagenkopf... page 3 you have a map of rails with the fraction electrified or https://www.tellerreport.com/business/2021-07-21-infrastructure-in-germany--every-tenth-bridge-is-in-poor-condition.HymtdBtrC_.html https://www.tellerreport.com/business/2021-07-21-infrastruct... and https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/low-german-infrastructure-investment-worries-experts-a-990903.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/low-german-infr... Broadband coverage is in a similar sorry state respect of similarly big countries in EU, and it's very expensive, electricity is probably the most expensive in the EU etc Long-story short: Germany lack of a state-wide infrastructure development, being too concentrate in private profit of some big industries, that's works well for such industries but not work at all for the country at a whole. I do not know how old is this issue, I do not know if was planted on purpose after WWII to lock their development capability, it might be: I know for Italy was done, with the complicity of vast local corruption "allied" have managed to break up the too quickly too powerful industrial complex born after WWII in most sectors successfully stop many nascent champions. But anyway that's what I've seen in Germany and the little I read about, perhaps someone else here know more and can contribute :-)
- jseban 4y ago
  > Feels like the whole "German efficiency" trope is mostly a meme Yeah it's really false, Germany is painfully bureaucratic, ceremonial and slow and dysfunctional, compared to other leading western nations. German engineering, and german manufacturing, are really what deserves to have good reputation.
  - lispm 4y ago
    If one compares Germany with the France, Poland, Italy or UK, then Germany is a haven of stability. There must be something good to this 'slowness'.
    - jseban 4y ago
      Sure, but then the reputation should be "German stability" and not efficiency.
      - lispm 4y ago
        Yeah, but stability is important. Take the recent federal elections. Germany moved without any pain from a CDU/CSU/SPD to a three party government (SPD/Greens/FDP). No complaints about the election system, besides a too large Bundestag. Compare that to the US elections Biden/Trump: massive problems with the voting system: real and made up. The Germans voted on paper. -> There was an undisputed result.
    - mathverse 4y ago
      Does not feel like stability but instead maintaining status quo.
    - inglor_cz 4y ago
      There is a fine line dividing stability and stagnation. For example, the Poles are much better at building apartments and transport infrastructure fast than anyone else on your list, including Germany.
      - lispm 4y ago
- ant6n 4y ago
  > This is absolutely insane to hear. Its also not true. Local politians are pushing hard to get high speed rail stops, and there is political horse trading going on when building lines to get more local stops, but it doesn't necessarily translate into "one stop in each state" rule. The problem with hsr is geographical (non centralized coubtry means u need a big network), bureaucratic (it takes decades to build big infra projects), pilticical (germany underinvests in hsr, conservatives want cars, many local greens despise big infra that destroys local meadows), inertia (germans lack vision and follow through, they mostly fiddle and optimize).
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Depends on what those stops are, for bigger cities it makes sense if route isn't hugely longer. As you can serve also those not just the end points.
  - SuperQue 4y ago
    Berlin to Hamburg (~1:50) is a nice route. There's almost nothing in terms of population between these two cities. However, every 2 hours there is a train that stops at Wittenberge (population 8k) and Ludwiglust (population 12k). I assume this is one of those mandated/political routes, rather than economic routes. It adds an extra 20-30min to the trip, which isn't so bad. But whenever I've taken this route, maybe 2-5 people get on or off. Would it be better served by more normal IC (200kph) or RE (160kph) train rather than an ICE? I don't know.
    - ant6n 4y ago
      That train on the Hamburg Berlin line doing extra stops is an IC, which is a loco hauled 200 km/h train, compared to all other trains which are high speed rail sets running 230km/h. The slower trains aren’t publicly organised, they are for-profit services operated by the German railways inc. like virtually all other IC and ICE services. The German railways are owned by the federal government, meaning there is political influence into the system, but it’s pretty indirect for local politicians. One thing to consider is that these services may be historic as well. Removing them will burn a lot of good will, which may be expensive in the long run for an operator that is dependent on ongoing public support - even if day-to-day decisions are made independently with economic interests in mind. Compare he marginal cost of providing those stops. Also consider that while Hamburg-Berlin may have a lot of competition from other modes, the small towns may not. Also, most ppl in those small cities will be close to the rail station. Add to that that ppl from surrounding regions will use the stops to get … basically anywhere by train, and you have a bunch of factors that my result in higher ridership than u would expect just by looking at the population of the cities themselves.
    - majewsky 4y ago
      > every 2 hours there is a train that stops at Wittenberge (population 8k) and Ludwiglust (population 12k) That's a Milchmädchenrechnung if I've ever seen one. When a long-distance train coming from Berlin stops in Ludwigslust, there is nearly always a guaranteed connection to a local train continuing towards Schwerin and Wismar (combined population 137k). I'm regularly using this route to visit my parents in Mecklenburg, and it's never just me who's changing trains in Ludwigslust. There's always at least two dozen people. On the weekends, sometimes a lot more. In a similar vein, Wittenberge may not have all that much people living directly there, but it is an important train hub for northern Sachsen-Anhalt and Brandenburg with several RE lines all meeting there.
- sofixa 4y ago
  > I know even Ukrainian refugees were shocked at how archaic German paper based bureocracy was compared to their home country which moved to digital, as they expected Europe's richest country to have much more efficient bureocracy than Europe's poorest country Ukraine isn't the poorest European country, Moldova is. (Well without counting the war, and i don't think we can accurately estimate it's economic damage). As for the bureaucracy, it's actually quite easy to understand once you think about it. It's the same reason why Estonia was a frontrunner in eGovernement and eIDs - when regime change happens ( communism is replaced by a democracy-ish), lots of existing things (laws, institutions) are "tainted" with the aura of the old bad regime. So there's lots of impetus, desire and excuse to change all sorts of things. On the other hand, in a country Germany, even with the absorption of East Germany, things have worked, there's momentum, so there's not that much desire to just change everything.
  - ant6n 4y ago
    Germany has plenty of laws and rules leftover from before the big tainted regime change at the end of wwii.
- jillesvangurp 4y ago
  Germans can be efficient when they need to. It's just governments generally aren't so efficient. But they still get shit done. I'd say it's actually much worse in the US in terms of the government's ability to get anything done related to infrastructure. Bad roads, rolling blackouts are a regular thing, etc. And of course there is the complete lack of any form of high speed rail connections anywhere in the US. Apparently it's impossible to get anything done on that front for decades now.
Narretz 4y ago
There are exceptions to the "stop in each federal state required" rule as can be seen on this page: https://www.bahn.de/service/ueber-uns/zugtypen/ice_sprinter https://www.bahn.de/service/ueber-uns/zugtypen/ice_sprinter The article mentions the Berlin - Paris will only stop in Frankfurt.
iggldiggl 4y ago
To some extent this simply reflects the real differences in population distribution between Germany and France. The urban agglomeration of Paris houses roughly one sixth (!) of the total population of France, and is roughly 6½ times as big as the next biggest agglomeration (Lyon). The biggest agglomeration area in Germany in Germany (the Ruhr area, which in turn is itself somewhat spread out and rather polycentric even on the local level) on the other hand only accounts for slightly more than 1/15th of Germany's population, and going further down the list you won't find any such large size discrepancies as between Paris and the rest of France. (In France, Paris is the only agglomeration area with more than 2,000,000 inhabitants, whereas Germany has seven agglomeration areas of that size category, all spread out throughout the country.) So in France it totally makes sense to just build a series of radial high speed lines all linking Paris with the provincial agglomerations, and even where one line might serve several cities along the way (like how going to Marseille you also pass through/next to Lyon), traffic to/from Paris will dominate, so you'll still get lots of non-stop Paris ↔ Province trains and only comparatively few trains making intermediate stops. Germany on the other hand doesn't have such a dominant traffic generator and the existing agglomerations are dotted all around the country, so traffic is more spread out and it's more difficult to capture/speed up an appreciable fraction of that with just a few lines.
- sharikous 4y ago
  The rail network that the Prussians built in the second half of the nineteenth century was probably the most significant factor in their smashing victory against France in 1870. So if the incentive is military (and sadly the Ukrainian Russian war is a reminder that war can happen even not too far away from Germany) Germany has proved its worth in making a dense railway network, possibly more costly than the French one, but very effective once built.
enzo1982 4y ago
> A big impediment is the federal structure of Germany, as high-speed trains need to have at least one stop in every federal state they cross for political reasons, which of course makes them slow. That's not generally true. For example, the ICE train from Hamburg to Berlin goes through 3 other states (Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Brandenburg) without stops. There may be local politicians in some states making such demands ("If you want to build your tracks through _my_ state, ..."), but I would assume they are trying to make an impression in an election campaign or something.
- majewsky 4y ago
  In this particular case, it works because there are other long-distance services on the same line that do the extra stops. The EuroCity towards Prague stops in Büchen, Ludwigslust and Wittenberge, which (funnily enough) maps precisely onto the three states that the train passes through. Edit: It turns out this EuroCity (line 27) is the only long-distance line that stops between Hamburg and Berlin. Lines 18, 28 and 29 go non-stop, as per https://assets.static-bahn.de/dam/jcr:b4fca34a-4b95-4d82-98d5-70d925a271d4/220127_Liniennetz%20ICE%20IC%202022-korr.pdf https://assets.static-bahn.de/dam/jcr:b4fca34a-4b95-4d82-98d...
lispm 4y ago
Germany is more densely populated (232 people / km², 357000km²)and not centralized, compared to France (106 people / km², 547000km²). The ICE trains connect larger cities & regions, not just the big ones. There are ICE Sprinter trains with fewer stops, though. The ICE trains often don't have their own tracks, which is what makes them slow. Think of German train infrastructure as a mesh, compared to a more star like system in France with Paris (14 Million people for the metropolitan area) as its center. Berlin is not the center of Germany and has only around 6 Million people in its metropolitan area.
- lucb1e 4y ago
  Sounds like sprinter is the fastest class of train in Germany. (Fun?) side fact: As a neighbor (Dutchman), sprinter is a euphemism for the slowest class of trains here. They rebranded it from "stoptrein" (a train that stops at every station it comes through) to "sprinter" for marketing reasons. (The new generation doesn't know better and started using the word; for me I think it'll always remain a euphemism -- in NL specifically of course.)
  - Tijdreiziger 4y ago
    It is for marketing reasons but it's not a euphemism. IIRC the reasoning is that the newer (Sprinter-class) trains can accelerate much faster than intercity trains; as it were, they're 'sprinting' from station to station (instead of taking their time like the older stoppers).
    - yread 4y ago
      I always thought of it as "use a sprinter for a short sprint and something else for a marathon"
      - Tijdreiziger 4y ago
        Indeed, that 'something else' being an intercity.
Archelaos 4y ago
> as high-speed trains need to have at least one stop in every federal state This is not correct. The Frankfurt-Berlin Sprinter, for example, is nonstop. It takes about 3h 50-55min. Connections with 6 to 8 additional stops take not much long, though: around 15 to 20 min. more. Less than 3 min. more per stop. The biggest problem with trains is Germany, in my opinion, is not speed, but the unreliability of the connections.
- ThePhysicist 4y ago
  Yeah there are exception, but in general it's very difficult to get a train pass through a federal state without stopping, at least if a new track is needed. The high-speed connection from Berlin to Munich needed to go through the "Thüringer Wald" due to political intervention, which added tremendous cost and delay to the whole project.
  - Archelaos 4y ago
    You are right that that some train stops only exist for very peculiar reasons, such as Montabaur on the Cologne-Franfurt line. However, regarding the high-speed connection Munich-Berlin, the question was not so much whether to got through the Thüringer Wald (via Efurt), as the alternative would have meant to cross the Thüringer Schiefergebierge to the east (via Leipzig–Probstzella–Hochstadt-Marktzeuln), but whether building the line is worth the high costs at all. There are quite a lot of "Inter City" railway stations in Germany.[1] This reflects the situation that Germany has not many large cities (only four have more than 1 mil. inhabitants), but a lot of medium sized ones (80 of over 100,000 inhabitants). Sometimes there are "Inter City" stops at small towns with important companies, such as Walldorf, where SAP is located. So the focus is not on connecting distant cities, but on train rides in the 50 to 150 km range. (Long distance commuting averages around 100 km.) [1] The German Wikipedia has a list: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Bahnh%C3%B6fe_mit_Halt_von_Intercitys_der_Deutschen_Bahn https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Bahnh%C3%B6fe_mit_Ha...

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

>A big impediment is the federal structure of Germany, as high-speed trains need to have at least one stop in every federal state they cross for political reasons, which of course makes them slow. This is absolutely insane to hear. Feels like the whole "German efficiency" trope is mostly a meme or it doesn't apply to government/national services and is in line with all the other negative things I heard about the infamous archaic German bureocracy in general. I know even Ukrainian refugees were shocked at how archaic German paper based bureocracy was compared to their home country which moved to digital, as they expected Europe's richest country to have much more efficient bureocracy than Europe's poorest country. Boy were they in for a surprise. And let's not talk about Germany's infamously abysmal infrastructure and service coverage for fiber and mobile internet that's well behind Eastern Europe.

cedilla 4y ago
It's not insane at all. Every additional stop takes about 20 minutes - but there are a lot of people who actually use the stations between, say, Berlin and Cologne. Germany is much less centralised than France. 20% of the population is in Paris. Only 2% of Germans live in Berlin. It would be insanity to mindlessly copy the French model when the circumstances are so different.
- thriftwy 4y ago
  You can play with combinatorics where there are ten trains per day, of which 2 are direct with no stops, 2 only stop in Cologne, remaining 6 stop in Cologne and some other destination as well.
  - cedilla 4y ago
    There are sprinter trains with only one or two stops early in the morning and in the evening.
- KptMarchewa 4y ago
  >Only 2% of Germans live in Berlin. Over 6 million people live in Berlin metro, in an 80 million country this is closer to 8%.
  - lispm 4y ago
    And the metro area of Berlin is twice as large as the one of Paris, with not even half of the population.
    - KptMarchewa 4y ago
      Not 2% to 20% though.
- lucb1e 4y ago
  (Edit: this comment was based on apparently incorrect information from GP that there is some rule that high-speed trains need to stop in any state they cross. A counter-example is given below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31548720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31548720) > there are a lot of people who actually use the stations between, say, Berlin and Cologne Sure, and a stop in the middle would make sense on that length of route, or alternating at which intermediate place(s) it stops. But with a stupid rule like having to stop in whatever state you pass means that you have to build rails around to avoid hitting a corner where nobody lives anyway because you'd have to stop for absolutely no reason. Let the trains make stops and rails be laid based on, like you say, demand. Not on arbitrary border lines.
kkfx 4y ago
Germany is mostly a State-less country, their infra suffer from that: Germans rails and roads tend to be far worst than some poor eastern neighbors, still many rails on diesel, roads in obscene conditions etc except few main arteries. French side having a certain State-planning infra are much, much more spread and in shape.
- KptMarchewa 4y ago
  >Germans rails and roads tend to be far worst than some poor eastern neighbors Example? I know Poland is doing something, but still is far from speed of ICEs. The country is a bit smaller though, and largest destination - Warsaw - is relatively in the centre so it helps.
  - kkfx 4y ago
    Germany still have many non-electrified rails, sometimes even cross-borders ones. Polemics about dangerous bridges and roads etc are regular and so on. For instance https://elib.dlr.de/121661/1/Railways%202018_E3.01_Pagenkopf%20%28DLR%29_Analysis%20of%20German%20diesel%20operated%20regional%20railway%20lines.pdf https://elib.dlr.de/121661/1/Railways%202018_E3.01_Pagenkopf... page 3 you have a map of rails with the fraction electrified or https://www.tellerreport.com/business/2021-07-21-infrastructure-in-germany--every-tenth-bridge-is-in-poor-condition.HymtdBtrC_.html https://www.tellerreport.com/business/2021-07-21-infrastruct... and https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/low-german-infrastructure-investment-worries-experts-a-990903.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/low-german-infr... Broadband coverage is in a similar sorry state respect of similarly big countries in EU, and it's very expensive, electricity is probably the most expensive in the EU etc Long-story short: Germany lack of a state-wide infrastructure development, being too concentrate in private profit of some big industries, that's works well for such industries but not work at all for the country at a whole. I do not know how old is this issue, I do not know if was planted on purpose after WWII to lock their development capability, it might be: I know for Italy was done, with the complicity of vast local corruption "allied" have managed to break up the too quickly too powerful industrial complex born after WWII in most sectors successfully stop many nascent champions. But anyway that's what I've seen in Germany and the little I read about, perhaps someone else here know more and can contribute :-)
jseban 4y ago
> Feels like the whole "German efficiency" trope is mostly a meme Yeah it's really false, Germany is painfully bureaucratic, ceremonial and slow and dysfunctional, compared to other leading western nations. German engineering, and german manufacturing, are really what deserves to have good reputation.
- lispm 4y ago
  If one compares Germany with the France, Poland, Italy or UK, then Germany is a haven of stability. There must be something good to this 'slowness'.
  - jseban 4y ago
    Sure, but then the reputation should be "German stability" and not efficiency.
    - lispm 4y ago
      Yeah, but stability is important. Take the recent federal elections. Germany moved without any pain from a CDU/CSU/SPD to a three party government (SPD/Greens/FDP). No complaints about the election system, besides a too large Bundestag. Compare that to the US elections Biden/Trump: massive problems with the voting system: real and made up. The Germans voted on paper. -> There was an undisputed result.
  - mathverse 4y ago
    Does not feel like stability but instead maintaining status quo.
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    There is a fine line dividing stability and stagnation. For example, the Poles are much better at building apartments and transport infrastructure fast than anyone else on your list, including Germany.
    - lispm 4y ago
ant6n 4y ago
> This is absolutely insane to hear. Its also not true. Local politians are pushing hard to get high speed rail stops, and there is political horse trading going on when building lines to get more local stops, but it doesn't necessarily translate into "one stop in each state" rule. The problem with hsr is geographical (non centralized coubtry means u need a big network), bureaucratic (it takes decades to build big infra projects), pilticical (germany underinvests in hsr, conservatives want cars, many local greens despise big infra that destroys local meadows), inertia (germans lack vision and follow through, they mostly fiddle and optimize).
Ekaros 4y ago
Depends on what those stops are, for bigger cities it makes sense if route isn't hugely longer. As you can serve also those not just the end points.
- SuperQue 4y ago
  Berlin to Hamburg (~1:50) is a nice route. There's almost nothing in terms of population between these two cities. However, every 2 hours there is a train that stops at Wittenberge (population 8k) and Ludwiglust (population 12k). I assume this is one of those mandated/political routes, rather than economic routes. It adds an extra 20-30min to the trip, which isn't so bad. But whenever I've taken this route, maybe 2-5 people get on or off. Would it be better served by more normal IC (200kph) or RE (160kph) train rather than an ICE? I don't know.
  - ant6n 4y ago
    That train on the Hamburg Berlin line doing extra stops is an IC, which is a loco hauled 200 km/h train, compared to all other trains which are high speed rail sets running 230km/h. The slower trains aren’t publicly organised, they are for-profit services operated by the German railways inc. like virtually all other IC and ICE services. The German railways are owned by the federal government, meaning there is political influence into the system, but it’s pretty indirect for local politicians. One thing to consider is that these services may be historic as well. Removing them will burn a lot of good will, which may be expensive in the long run for an operator that is dependent on ongoing public support - even if day-to-day decisions are made independently with economic interests in mind. Compare he marginal cost of providing those stops. Also consider that while Hamburg-Berlin may have a lot of competition from other modes, the small towns may not. Also, most ppl in those small cities will be close to the rail station. Add to that that ppl from surrounding regions will use the stops to get … basically anywhere by train, and you have a bunch of factors that my result in higher ridership than u would expect just by looking at the population of the cities themselves.
  - majewsky 4y ago
    > every 2 hours there is a train that stops at Wittenberge (population 8k) and Ludwiglust (population 12k) That's a Milchmädchenrechnung if I've ever seen one. When a long-distance train coming from Berlin stops in Ludwigslust, there is nearly always a guaranteed connection to a local train continuing towards Schwerin and Wismar (combined population 137k). I'm regularly using this route to visit my parents in Mecklenburg, and it's never just me who's changing trains in Ludwigslust. There's always at least two dozen people. On the weekends, sometimes a lot more. In a similar vein, Wittenberge may not have all that much people living directly there, but it is an important train hub for northern Sachsen-Anhalt and Brandenburg with several RE lines all meeting there.
sofixa 4y ago
> I know even Ukrainian refugees were shocked at how archaic German paper based bureocracy was compared to their home country which moved to digital, as they expected Europe's richest country to have much more efficient bureocracy than Europe's poorest country Ukraine isn't the poorest European country, Moldova is. (Well without counting the war, and i don't think we can accurately estimate it's economic damage). As for the bureaucracy, it's actually quite easy to understand once you think about it. It's the same reason why Estonia was a frontrunner in eGovernement and eIDs - when regime change happens ( communism is replaced by a democracy-ish), lots of existing things (laws, institutions) are "tainted" with the aura of the old bad regime. So there's lots of impetus, desire and excuse to change all sorts of things. On the other hand, in a country Germany, even with the absorption of East Germany, things have worked, there's momentum, so there's not that much desire to just change everything.
- ant6n 4y ago
  Germany has plenty of laws and rules leftover from before the big tainted regime change at the end of wwii.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
Germans can be efficient when they need to. It's just governments generally aren't so efficient. But they still get shit done. I'd say it's actually much worse in the US in terms of the government's ability to get anything done related to infrastructure. Bad roads, rolling blackouts are a regular thing, etc. And of course there is the complete lack of any form of high speed rail connections anywhere in the US. Apparently it's impossible to get anything done on that front for decades now.

Narretz 4y ago

There are exceptions to the "stop in each federal state required" rule as can be seen on this page: https://www.bahn.de/service/ueber-uns/zugtypen/ice_sprinter https://www.bahn.de/service/ueber-uns/zugtypen/ice_sprinter The article mentions the Berlin - Paris will only stop in Frankfurt.

iggldiggl 4y ago

To some extent this simply reflects the real differences in population distribution between Germany and France. The urban agglomeration of Paris houses roughly one sixth (!) of the total population of France, and is roughly 6½ times as big as the next biggest agglomeration (Lyon). The biggest agglomeration area in Germany in Germany (the Ruhr area, which in turn is itself somewhat spread out and rather polycentric even on the local level) on the other hand only accounts for slightly more than 1/15th of Germany's population, and going further down the list you won't find any such large size discrepancies as between Paris and the rest of France. (In France, Paris is the only agglomeration area with more than 2,000,000 inhabitants, whereas Germany has seven agglomeration areas of that size category, all spread out throughout the country.) So in France it totally makes sense to just build a series of radial high speed lines all linking Paris with the provincial agglomerations, and even where one line might serve several cities along the way (like how going to Marseille you also pass through/next to Lyon), traffic to/from Paris will dominate, so you'll still get lots of non-stop Paris ↔ Province trains and only comparatively few trains making intermediate stops. Germany on the other hand doesn't have such a dominant traffic generator and the existing agglomerations are dotted all around the country, so traffic is more spread out and it's more difficult to capture/speed up an appreciable fraction of that with just a few lines.

sharikous 4y ago
The rail network that the Prussians built in the second half of the nineteenth century was probably the most significant factor in their smashing victory against France in 1870. So if the incentive is military (and sadly the Ukrainian Russian war is a reminder that war can happen even not too far away from Germany) Germany has proved its worth in making a dense railway network, possibly more costly than the French one, but very effective once built.

enzo1982 4y ago

> A big impediment is the federal structure of Germany, as high-speed trains need to have at least one stop in every federal state they cross for political reasons, which of course makes them slow. That's not generally true. For example, the ICE train from Hamburg to Berlin goes through 3 other states (Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Brandenburg) without stops. There may be local politicians in some states making such demands ("If you want to build your tracks through _my_ state, ..."), but I would assume they are trying to make an impression in an election campaign or something.

majewsky 4y ago
In this particular case, it works because there are other long-distance services on the same line that do the extra stops. The EuroCity towards Prague stops in Büchen, Ludwigslust and Wittenberge, which (funnily enough) maps precisely onto the three states that the train passes through. Edit: It turns out this EuroCity (line 27) is the only long-distance line that stops between Hamburg and Berlin. Lines 18, 28 and 29 go non-stop, as per https://assets.static-bahn.de/dam/jcr:b4fca34a-4b95-4d82-98d5-70d925a271d4/220127_Liniennetz%20ICE%20IC%202022-korr.pdf https://assets.static-bahn.de/dam/jcr:b4fca34a-4b95-4d82-98d...

lispm 4y ago

Germany is more densely populated (232 people / km², 357000km²)and not centralized, compared to France (106 people / km², 547000km²). The ICE trains connect larger cities & regions, not just the big ones. There are ICE Sprinter trains with fewer stops, though. The ICE trains often don't have their own tracks, which is what makes them slow. Think of German train infrastructure as a mesh, compared to a more star like system in France with Paris (14 Million people for the metropolitan area) as its center. Berlin is not the center of Germany and has only around 6 Million people in its metropolitan area.

lucb1e 4y ago
Sounds like sprinter is the fastest class of train in Germany. (Fun?) side fact: As a neighbor (Dutchman), sprinter is a euphemism for the slowest class of trains here. They rebranded it from "stoptrein" (a train that stops at every station it comes through) to "sprinter" for marketing reasons. (The new generation doesn't know better and started using the word; for me I think it'll always remain a euphemism -- in NL specifically of course.)
- Tijdreiziger 4y ago
  It is for marketing reasons but it's not a euphemism. IIRC the reasoning is that the newer (Sprinter-class) trains can accelerate much faster than intercity trains; as it were, they're 'sprinting' from station to station (instead of taking their time like the older stoppers).
  - yread 4y ago
    I always thought of it as "use a sprinter for a short sprint and something else for a marathon"
    - Tijdreiziger 4y ago
      Indeed, that 'something else' being an intercity.

Archelaos 4y ago

> as high-speed trains need to have at least one stop in every federal state This is not correct. The Frankfurt-Berlin Sprinter, for example, is nonstop. It takes about 3h 50-55min. Connections with 6 to 8 additional stops take not much long, though: around 15 to 20 min. more. Less than 3 min. more per stop. The biggest problem with trains is Germany, in my opinion, is not speed, but the unreliability of the connections.

ThePhysicist 4y ago
Yeah there are exception, but in general it's very difficult to get a train pass through a federal state without stopping, at least if a new track is needed. The high-speed connection from Berlin to Munich needed to go through the "Thüringer Wald" due to political intervention, which added tremendous cost and delay to the whole project.
- Archelaos 4y ago
  You are right that that some train stops only exist for very peculiar reasons, such as Montabaur on the Cologne-Franfurt line. However, regarding the high-speed connection Munich-Berlin, the question was not so much whether to got through the Thüringer Wald (via Efurt), as the alternative would have meant to cross the Thüringer Schiefergebierge to the east (via Leipzig–Probstzella–Hochstadt-Marktzeuln), but whether building the line is worth the high costs at all. There are quite a lot of "Inter City" railway stations in Germany.[1] This reflects the situation that Germany has not many large cities (only four have more than 1 mil. inhabitants), but a lot of medium sized ones (80 of over 100,000 inhabitants). Sometimes there are "Inter City" stops at small towns with important companies, such as Walldorf, where SAP is located. So the focus is not on connecting distant cities, but on train rides in the 50 to 150 km range. (Long distance commuting averages around 100 km.) [1] The German Wikipedia has a list: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Bahnh%C3%B6fe_mit_Halt_von_Intercitys_der_Deutschen_Bahn https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Bahnh%C3%B6fe_mit_Ha...