While it is true that that many problems where already visible 10 years ago, it is also true tat during the pandemic more trains were on time because having very few passengers speeds up the boarding/offboarding at stations enormously. So the pandemic somehow delayed the already inevitable fall into the abyss.
Experienced that a few months ago. Next time I‘ll be tempted to pull the emergency brake which will cost them at least half an hour to get the train going again. Or so I have been told.
Before the DB became a public limited company, their services worked remarkably well. I know from first hand experience because I was already a customer then.
The privatisation and the crazy idea that it could somehow not being run on a deficit is what ruined it. Of course the competition thing is artificial, and the internal structures are kaput, but I doubt that more competition would fix it.
Surprisingly, 90% of the train personnel is still pretty good, acting friendly and professionally.
The main issue is over-utilisation and under-investment of the rail network. Like in many other EU countries. There is no evidence that a state monopoly would perform any better given today’s state of infrastructure and increased traveler numbers.
That’s nice, but I really don’t get why people don’t resize their browser window when they think the lines are running too wide. If you go the custom stylesheet route, it would be better to apply a max-width in the em unit instead of px, though.
It isn’t, but to get a full professorship, you need to publish in higher ranked journals. APC-Open-Access is just another iteration of the parasitic business model of the few big publishers. In the end, universities pay the same amounts to the publishers as before, or even more. This business model can only be overcome if and when academia changes the rules for assessment of application to higher ranked academic positions. There are journals that are entirely run by scientists and scientific libraries. Only in this model the peer review and publishing platform becomes a commodity.
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