I guess we’ll see, but I’m skeptical as the biggest problem of the German railways is not really the trains themselves, but the crumbling infrastructure they have to rely on. The article mentions all those supposed positive examples of privatization, but neglects to mention countries that show how it can go wrong, like the UK. Let’s not forget that German trains were fantastic and reliable when they were fully state-owned.

Opening up markets can (and even that is often questionable…) only improve an issue regarding demand or supply(-quality).

Intentionally broken infrastructure because the corrupt politicians are paid by fossil fuel and car industry to sabotage any alternative will not get fixed by a more open market for train providers. Because the trains are not the problem.

This will only lead to more competition on the profitable main lines, meaning DB will lose moeny while still having to serve the smaller rural lines. And then this will be used to “justify” even more cuts and just make it worse. Which might be the actual plan as usual… so a few more Autobahn lanes can save us from obviousy useless trains and public transport in general simply not working 🤮

Never thought I’d read this sentence in my life

Opening up markets accomplishes that private companies get all the prime lines, while the fully state-owned DB has to keep servicing the not-as-profitable lines. Or abandon them for cost cuts, because surely that will increase Germany’s wealth in the long run /s.

I’m sceptical. The problem is that the infrastructure is overloaded and kind of damaged after decades of austerity. The problems are not that Deutsche Bahn is unable to operate a train, but that tracks are not maintained. That some routes are so overloaded that you can’t fit more trains on them and that even small delays like someone holding open a door or some police action are having an effect on the whole network. That is nothing the italian train company can change.

(And this “make trains run on time”-headline is something. That claim “he made the trains run on time” is fascist propaganda from Mussolini (who simply lied about delays) and I really am not sure if someone should use that slogan here)

The real problem is political. It’s conservative politics deliberately sabotaging the railway sector, in order to force people to use cars. It may seem harmless at first, but motorways are entirely useless to you if you are too poor to afford a car. Also, if there is no public transport, you need someone to play taxi driver for your children, the mother in that case, raising the number of stay at home mothers in the country. It benefits the car industry with sales and the conservatives because they can force their political worldview onto others quite easily and effectively. Simple win-win situation, the car oligarchs win, the political establishment wins and you loose, but that’s the point.

I think it has mostly made it more expensive.

Luca di Montezemolo, the company’s co-founder, says Germany resembles Italy before Italo.

lol that’s bullshit, it’s not like Italo did all that much, and they just run a few high-speed trains which, while important, are a tiny minority of the railroad traffic in Italy.