On Sun, 1 Jan 2012 14:49:10 +0000 (UTC), Hans-Joachim Zierke
wrote:


Oliver Schnell schrieb:


Please name /any/ foreign investment of DB, which shows a decent ROI.

I have no idea, but this is irrelevant, concerning where the money comes
from.

I think the highest profit margin is achieved in Brandenburg, where all
the traffic went to DB Regio without bidding, and a short while later, DB
gave a nice advisor job to the former transport minister of Brandenburg,
in charge during that decisionmaking.
So the money comes from you, the taxpayer, paid into a corruption scheme,
then used to fulfill manager's dreams of a transport empire.

I'm not against managers trying to build a transport empire, but please,
with legitimate means, asking investors for the money, instead of purging
it from the taxpayers in the grey zone of "as long as we aren't
prosecuted and go into prison, our ways are fine".


We didn't get lower fares or more comfort.

Wochenendticket and Ländertickets meanwhile exist for quite a while

...and might lower the costs for 10% of ones journeys. This doesn't
balance the fare rises.

Without doubt, they have done a useful job of filling empty trains,
though, and admittedly, they really bring down travel costs for the
retired.



and
rotten Silberlinge are out of service or revamped (for the few remaining).

While they have been replaced by better stock at some places, examples
would be Eurobahn FLIRTs or the FLIRTs of DB in Rostock service, there
are also several hundred 425, which are considerably worse than a rotten
Silberling.

Is the problem with the 425 series the seating (or seating
arrangement)? Would it be feasible to change the seating during a
major overhaul and eliminate the problem? If the problems are
elsewhere, are they fixable during a major overhaul at reasonable
cost?

Clark Morris
So I don't see progress at the bottom line.


Hans-Joachim

"Wolfgang Schwanke" wrote in message
...
Oliver Schnell wrote in
:

This rotten company in Berlin should be closed. Getting back to the
subject line.....

No it COULD NOT happen here.

The shutdown (almost or otherwise) of Berlin Train System could only happen
in Germany as US (vermont) Berlin doesn't have a city traim system.

Am 01.01.2012 20:42, schrieb Clark F Morris:
Is the problem with the 425 series the seating (or seating
arrangement)? Would it be feasible to change the seating during a
major overhaul and eliminate the problem?

According to _my_ experience, the problem with the Class 425 is only
the seat. They are too hard for the type of journeys for which those
trainsets are being used. And I think that this could be fixed by a
major overhaul.


Cheers,
L.W.

Am 01.01.2012 20:29, schrieb Neil Williams:

DB isn't really a commercial operator;

wrong

all their shares are owned by the German Government, no?

Yes, but why do you link these two statements into one sentence, only
separated by a semicolon? There is no the slightest relationship between
those two.


Cheers,
L.W.

Am 01.01.2012 20:45, schrieb Wolfgang Schwanke:
Upsides of the communist era:

you forgot the quotes around "communist".

The system worked well given the circumstances, and
it was apparent that the employees were eager to do
their best. There was no talk of shutting down lines for
non-profitability

true for the lines on GDR territory, since the importance was to get
people from A go B

(but for cold war reasons ),

only in the sense that lines across the borders between the GDR and
the peculiar political entity Westberlin were cut in August 1961.

The rest of the lines within Westberlin were actually closed down for
profitability reasons, if you want to employ that word. The GDR did not
want to subsidise public transit in another country, a country which was
very hostile to the govenment which subsidised the S-Bahn in Westberlin.


Cheers,
L.W.

On 01/01/2012 19:45, Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
wrote in
:

On 01/01/2012 17:58, Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
wrote
in :

Failures in 2009/2010 were caused by lack of maintenance, leading
to shortages in rolling stock. The ultimate cause was the closedown
of a vital workshop due to company policy of channeling money to
the owner company as profits. It remains to be seen if the latest
failure can be ascribed to the same cause.

So, would you say that things on the Berlin S-Bahn are better now or
during the DDR era, when Deutsche Reichsbahn was operating that
system?

Are you Lüko's twin? That's a silly question.

I'm asking purely out of curiosity -- no other reason.

I'll try to reanswer with perspective. You're asking me if the downsides
of communism and the cold war era were worse than the downsides of the
privatisation era. I can't really make up my mind .

No, I was just wondering if operations on the Berlin S-Bahn were
generally better or worse when Deutsche Reichsbahn was operating the
service, all politics aside.

Am 01.01.2012 16:16, schrieb Wolfgang Schwanke:
Oliver wrote in
:

This rotten company in Berlin should be closed. Tendering the S-Bahn
services could be the first step.

Re-nationalise it. A different commercial operator will squeeze it for
profit just like the current one.

Sqeeze for profit? How to make profit with a company with a lack of 50%
in efficiency compared to other ones, when all bidding for the same tender?

It's the taxpayer who pays for keeping that last socialistic company in
Germany alive. But as the state of Berlin who pays for these S-Bahn
services higher prices then necessary is more or less bankrupt and gets
financed by a few other Länder anyway, Berlin does not care, if to spent
a few dozen millions of (external) Euros per year more or less for the
S-Bahn.

In 2008 the S-Bahn received 294 mill. Euro of public money for running
the train services, meaning a subsidy of 7.5 Euro Cent per passenger
kilometre in addition to the fare revenues.

And its the same with other public transport in Berlin (metro, tramway,
buses). Its level of cost coverage is at 36% (2008). This is sigficantly
lower than for very other big city in Germany, where the average cost
covergae in public transport is at about 60% (2007).

Sources:
http://www.ihk-berlin.de/linkableblo...ibung-data.pdf
http://www.staedtetag.de/imperia/md/...ien/2009/9.pdf

Oliver Schnell

Clark F Morris schrieb:


Is the problem with the 425 series the seating (or seating
arrangement)?

Both.

Would it be feasible to change the seating during a
major overhaul and eliminate the problem? If the problems are
elsewhere, are they fixable during a major overhaul at reasonable
cost?

The seating could be changed, and this could make it a much better train.
Knee room would still not be sufficient, though, but there are more
examples for that, so it would be bad, but not exceptionally bad.
(Arrangement is unchangeable due to tech under the seats.)

As well, noise damping against the ear-piercing inverter frequencies at
some loadlevels should be technically possible.



BTW: The original concept for the 425 pointed to a superior train.
Then the beancounters came in and ruined it beyond repair.



Two adult males can't sit side by side. On the window side, the garbage
can gets pressed into your leg above the knee, on the other side, the
base of the armrest was sharpened towards the passenger's leg for maximum
torture effect...

Some days ago, I did my first really long ride in one of those
contraptions, Mainz-Karlsruhe, and it is outright horrible. We can only
pray, that DB looses all the contracts, which they run with 425s.

The competitors use mostly FLIRTs, which are paradise (in comparison).
The original Stadler seating is junk (though /much/ better than 425), but
with Grammer seats, as used in new Eurobahn units, they are comfortable
trains. Well, not as in "long distance comfort", but okay.



Hans-Joachim



--

Frieda Uffelmann * 15. August 1915 â€* 9. Dezember 2011

http://zierke.com/private/tante_frie...abgestellt.jpg

On Sun, 01 Jan 2012 21:56:38 +0100, Lüko
wrote:
Yes, but why do you link these two statements into one sentence,
only
separated by a semicolon? There is no the slightest relationship
between
those two.

If it's owned by the Government it's nationalised, whatever means
that ownership may take, IMO.

Neil

--
Neil Williams, Milton Keynes, UK

Wolfgang Schwanke schrieb:


Failures in 2009/2010 were caused by


design error by the manufacturer, miscalculating wheel strength.



Hans-Joachim



--

Frieda Uffelmann * 15. August 1915 â€* 9. Dezember 2011

http://zierke.com/private/tante_frie...abgestellt.jpg