3 ms·

I have observed that it is a recurring pattern. I am most aware of the behind the scenes in public education, but I believe it is across the board. Massive eff

by oersted 9mo ago

I have observed that it is a recurring pattern. I am most aware of the behind the scenes in public education, but I believe it is across the board. Massive efforts are done to implement reforms to conform to EU standards, believing that that’s how the “superior” EU members do it (Germany, NL, Nordics…). But then I go there and I see that their system has nothing to do with the standards and they are not doing much to conform. It’s fine, these reforms are often beneficial for Spain, and I do believe that generally being in the EU is a big win-win. Although sometimes it’s just a lot of unnecessary reshuffling at great cost. A certain segment of the Spanish population really looks up to northern EU countries, or rather they feel a sense of inferiority. In practice there is not all that much to look up to and I believe Spain should be feel more confident. Many great things are prevented by the widespread belief that we are in a shitty country and that everyone is useless, but it is just not true.

pestatije 9mo ago
exactly...39 dead and we should feel more confident, that's how shitty we are
- wongarsu 9mo ago
  Compared to road deaths that's practically nothing. Obviously 39 dead are 39 too many, and in terms of railway disasters it's a lot, but in the bigger picture it's a blip
- tpm 9mo ago
  Tragedies like this do happen elsewhere. It's just important to make sure they don't happen twice for the same reason. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschede_train_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschede_train_disaster
wongarsu 9mo ago
It's a common pattern far beyond the EU. One big driving force is that if you have an existing solution that achieves 80% you have much less incentive to change than if your current state only achieves 50%. So the "inferior" country modernizes to the new 100% solution while the "superior" one might stay on the 80% solution for far longer
jeroenhd 9mo ago
> Massive efforts are done to implement reforms to conform to EU standards, believing that that’s how the “superior” EU members do it (Germany, NL, Nordics…). I can't speak for Germany or the Nordics, but here in the Netherlands the government is doing just about anything in their power to keep foreign competition from our rail network. The only lines serviced by foreign operators are the ones that would cost the national operator more than they would bring in and (some of) the international train services. Our "high speed" rail is a joke. The trains themselves are fine, but the bridges over them are too brittle for the train to actually achieve high speeds, so it's operating at less than half the speed Spanish high speed rail is operating at. If anything, the success of the Spanish rail operators is an argument in favour of actually bringing competition to Dutch rail operators. That said, the Dutch railway network is very different from the Spanish railway network. We're a small, densely populated country with many stops along just about any track, barely giving most trains time to accelerate even between larger city centers. The network is complex, the rails are extremely busy all hours of the day, our trains run on an idiotically low voltage and two trains with a dozen minutes in delays can back up the national train grid in no time if they slow down in the wrong spot. There are only a few long-distance high-speed rail options that make sense, some of which already sort of exist (Eurostar to the south), some of which our neighbours plainly don't want (any Dutch rail project crossing into the German border), and some of which are hardly financially viable (trains from the big cities to remote parts of the country) in a country that doesn't want to spend money on public transport.
- ReptileMan 9mo ago
  >Our "high speed" rail is a joke Do you need high speed rail at all? There are not many points in the country that are more than 1 hour away with regular speed trains.
  - yurishimo 9mo ago
    It would be nice to have a couple of routes between a few major cities with nonstop service, but there are are no bypasses around the interstitial cities so those would need to be built first. Groningen -> Amsterdam Maastricht -> Amsterdam Eindhoven -> Amsterdam Nijmegen -> Amsterdam I can only speak for myself, but a trip from Maastricht to Amsterdam is almost 2.5 hours by train for a distance of a smidge over 200km. This is mainly due to all of the stops along the way to pick up riders in every major city between the two. Currently, our trains never go faster than 160km/h if the onboard screens are to be trusted.

by oersted 9mo ago

pestatije 9mo ago

exactly...39 dead and we should feel more confident, that's how shitty we are

wongarsu 9mo ago
Compared to road deaths that's practically nothing. Obviously 39 dead are 39 too many, and in terms of railway disasters it's a lot, but in the bigger picture it's a blip
tpm 9mo ago
Tragedies like this do happen elsewhere. It's just important to make sure they don't happen twice for the same reason. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschede_train_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschede_train_disaster

wongarsu 9mo ago

It's a common pattern far beyond the EU. One big driving force is that if you have an existing solution that achieves 80% you have much less incentive to change than if your current state only achieves 50%. So the "inferior" country modernizes to the new 100% solution while the "superior" one might stay on the 80% solution for far longer

jeroenhd 9mo ago

> Massive efforts are done to implement reforms to conform to EU standards, believing that that’s how the “superior” EU members do it (Germany, NL, Nordics…). I can't speak for Germany or the Nordics, but here in the Netherlands the government is doing just about anything in their power to keep foreign competition from our rail network. The only lines serviced by foreign operators are the ones that would cost the national operator more than they would bring in and (some of) the international train services. Our "high speed" rail is a joke. The trains themselves are fine, but the bridges over them are too brittle for the train to actually achieve high speeds, so it's operating at less than half the speed Spanish high speed rail is operating at. If anything, the success of the Spanish rail operators is an argument in favour of actually bringing competition to Dutch rail operators. That said, the Dutch railway network is very different from the Spanish railway network. We're a small, densely populated country with many stops along just about any track, barely giving most trains time to accelerate even between larger city centers. The network is complex, the rails are extremely busy all hours of the day, our trains run on an idiotically low voltage and two trains with a dozen minutes in delays can back up the national train grid in no time if they slow down in the wrong spot. There are only a few long-distance high-speed rail options that make sense, some of which already sort of exist (Eurostar to the south), some of which our neighbours plainly don't want (any Dutch rail project crossing into the German border), and some of which are hardly financially viable (trains from the big cities to remote parts of the country) in a country that doesn't want to spend money on public transport.

ReptileMan 9mo ago
>Our "high speed" rail is a joke Do you need high speed rail at all? There are not many points in the country that are more than 1 hour away with regular speed trains.
- yurishimo 9mo ago
  It would be nice to have a couple of routes between a few major cities with nonstop service, but there are are no bypasses around the interstitial cities so those would need to be built first. Groningen -> Amsterdam Maastricht -> Amsterdam Eindhoven -> Amsterdam Nijmegen -> Amsterdam I can only speak for myself, but a trip from Maastricht to Amsterdam is almost 2.5 hours by train for a distance of a smidge over 200km. This is mainly due to all of the stops along the way to pick up riders in every major city between the two. Currently, our trains never go faster than 160km/h if the onboard screens are to be trusted.