Deutsche Bahn Passenger Operations

I have only taken one overnight trip on European trains, it was a CityNightLine train from Amsterdam to Munich. A friend and I traveled in the top class on that train and had an upper level room in one of the doppelstock schlaffwagens. My thoughts were this...the car as well as similar cars in the consist were worn from heavy use and I recall duct in a few small spots here and there. The ride was good, but the bed was short and this is from a person who is a hair under six feet. The car attendent or whatever he was called was not that good. We were supposed to get meals in our room, we had to go to the dinning car to find him. He did bring us our food though. Then he was supposed to wake us up an hour before we got to Munich...this is where I woke up and looked out and saw a sign on a signal box that said Munchen HBF and asked my friend what that meant. He woke up and started getting hurriedly dressed as he explained that was the main train station. We were the last people off the train, and got off just before it headed back out to the yard...they were waiting on us because are attendant didn't wake us up as asked. My opinion on sleeping cars is this....a via Budd Car cannot be beat, the only thing that comes close despite its shortcomings is a Viewliner. Everything else falls in below that.
Cheers,
Nick

Mr. ngotwalt,

Very sorry to hear that your trip from A'dam to Munich wasn't up to par.

I have taken that very same trip, several times over the past twenty years (as recently as two years ago) and many others such as Hamburg-Munich, Copenhagen-Cologne, Hamburg-Zurich, Munich-Berlin or Ostseebad Binz, Innsbruck-Hamburg, Cologne - Prague etc. and have always had a delightful experience.

It may have been you "caught" the CNL at a "bad period" which is most unfortunate. The CNL (as well as other NachtZugs including Talgo sets) that I have taken have all been well kept, and since many times I have "gotten off" at an intermediate stop along the way at 6am or so, I have never been failed to be woken at time requested.

Gilbert B Norman wrote:Tell me I'm mistaken, but European rails are swift, efficient, reliable "people movers' (glorified interurbans - just like your moniker); Luxo? they ain't.

I know it wasn't me you asked, but since I'm European I'll offer my answer anyway...

You seem to be pretty much correct in your assumption. The future of European passenger services seem to consist of:

-Dedicated high-speed services like TGV, ICE etc
-For conventional long distance services: Tilting EMU/DMUs like the Italian Pendolino, combined with night trains mostly consisting of couchettes and ordinary seating cars, with a sleeping car or two for those with loads and loads of dough. Throw in a few conventional loco hauled trains on the most heavily-used services.
-For regional services: A combination of loco-hauled double-decker trains and EMU/DMUs with or without tilting abilities.
-For commuter services: Almost solely single/double-decker EMU/DMUs.

Traditional trains like the Orient Express of old seem to be dying a slow but certain death.

I believe the term "BundesBahn" went the way of reunification Mr. Norman. I believe its just Deusche Bahn now.

http://www.bahn.de/p/view/international ... ests.shtml

Actually, I think the legal trademark is now just "DB". You are correct that "Bundesbahn" was apparently dropped after the reunification, tho.

DB changed not because of unification but rather because of an effort by the government to make DB look and act more like a private company than a government agency. For instance the DB once put out a monthly newspaper which I thought was fabulous that was a cross between government propaganda and service information, in fact was supported by an entire wing of the DB bureaucracy. It was all shut down because it did not promote the DM ( Deusch Mark) bottom line, hundreds of employees were reassigned and much public protest took place at the time. The original idea is that DB would at some point be divested off of the governement books just as the telephone service has been. The government impossed the same cultural shift on both organizations during the Ninties in order to get them ready for privatization, though the rail service to date had not been completely privatized as the phone service has been . The DB has successfully been transformed culturally (within DB) but the final goal, the legal privatization of DB, has been unobtainable.

I don't mean to derail an Amtrak thread, but I'll add that during my time in Mannheim (03-05), I noticed every interlocking had it's own active tower, give or take a few. The DB it seems is still being run as a bit of a social service, providing mass employement as well as mass transit...

In the interest of bringing this back to Amtrak, those who believe that Amtrak should be private, or should operate as if it is private, should look closely at the German experience. America has been attempting to shift the culture at Amtrak in much the same way the Germany forcefully shifted DB, and we can study the German experience and decide if this entire enterprise is a good idea. We can also take notice of how Germany has completely backed off of the original idea of privatizing DB, nobody seriously considers that doable or a good idea anymore.

56-57 said:" don't mean to derail an Amtrak thread, but I'll add that during my time in Mannheim (03-05), I noticed every interlocking had it's own active tower, give or take a few. The DB it seems is still being run as a bit of a social service, providing mass employement as well as mass transit..."

My sense is that the relatively strong unions are only part of the reason for this. It is also an attitude with-in DB that safety comes before profit, and even if there is money to be saved by eliminating people there is a great value in having boots on the ground and eyes on the physical RR 24/7. Keep in mind that these lines are very busy by American standards, German interlockings are potentially very dangerous places, there is no room for mistakes. Germany is extremely concerned with not making the same mistakes that were made in GB, cutting cost (people) at the expense of safety. The German people will have none of that, there will be huge political costs to any Government that allows DB safety to falter.

icgsteve wrote:and we can study the German experience and decide if this entire enterprise is a good idea. We can also take notice of how Germany has completely backed off of the original idea of privatizing DB, nobody seriously considers that doable or a good idea anymore.
.

I think that's probably wishful thinking on your part. DB recently proposed privatizing alarge chunk a couple of months ago.

Monsters & Critics from September 17 (last Monday at time of writing) in regards to backlash against the DB partial-privatization bid.

oh dear , looks like theyre copying New Zealands mistake . that is to lease the whole network to one operator . the major supposed benefit of privatisation is to allow competition , it appears DB will have complete access to the network ??? . i wonder how long their monopoly remains in force ?
At least we have provisos that if they chose to remove service from a line , then that line becom,es open to anyone who wishes to lease it to provide service .

This should be in the DB forum, but there is not one:

Obviously I was unaware that the new German government is making a renewed push to get privatization of DB done. The scheme is that Germany will own the rail, DB will continue towards becoming a far flung multi mode transit company, and will be partly private. The Government will subcontract out operation to DB which will manage German rail, and will either run its own trains or alternately sub-subcontract operations out.

Can this get pushed through over the objections of the states, labour rank and file, consumer groups, and the majority of the German citizens? Will this scheme be judged as constitutional by the German courts? Iffy on both counts.

The more important thing at the moment is that the current bill does not include the privatization of DB. That will be the next step. For the moment political are trying to claim that they will never sell of more than 49% of DB, and are thinking of 25% as a first step. My question is this: if DB is not going to be controlled privately what exactly is the point of all of this? Even if DB becomes a broad EU transit company as is hoped why would capital put up with the German government being in control of DB? If the German government is not in control of DB then German rail transit will be massively cut back in the pursuit of profits, because it will be profits and not German rail transit desires that count.

I personally would hope and expect that the Courts will have none of this flimsy scheme to make an end run around the constitution. Germany keeping ownership if the rails does not equal Germany providing transit to its citizens. It seems that the argument is that so long as Germany subcontracts out operation to a company that it nominally controls then Germany has fulfilled the constitution. The counter argument is that once the Manager of German rail becomes beholden to the profit desires of outside interests DB is no longer controlled by the best interest of the German citizens even if it is legally controlled by the German Government owning 51% of the shares. The German government is trying to massively delute German control over its rail network and also make profit the master of DB, instead of the German people through the Government as was clearly intended in the Constitution.

Note: It is claimed that Conrail is the model upon which this scheme was based. Importantly however the US Constitution has no clause that demands that the governement provide transit.

Amtrak Forum Moderator's Note:

This has been split from Amtrak Forum thread comparing Amtrak sleepers to DB sleepers.

I think DB has just brought English frieght operation , EWS . (formerly a wisconision central company ).
In the case of lightly served lines , it will probably be a case of the operating company been paid a subsidy to run the service . Much like the english model .
In Australia , state owned railway companies compete with each other , and private firms , and it seems to work quite well .

icgsteve wrote:In the interest of bringing this back to Amtrak, those who believe that Amtrak should be private, or should operate as if it is private, should look closely at the German experience. America has been attempting to shift the culture at Amtrak in much the same way the Germany forcefully shifted DB, and we can study the German experience and decide if this entire enterprise is a good idea. We can also take notice of how Germany has completely backed off of the original idea of privatizing DB, nobody seriously considers that doable or a good idea anymore.

Another thing to consider vis-a-vis Amtrak is that DB had and has a solid railroad network to begin with as the German federal government began the transition from Deutsche Bundesbahn to Deutsche Bahn.

This stands in stark contrast to the track conditions Amtrak faced at its inception in 1970, and as it started operations in 1971.