Comment by rob74
1 year ago
"Privatizing" is not the correct word for it - DB was reformed and is now a company instead of a government agency, but it's still 100% owned by the state. Which however didn't stop it from acting like a profit-oriented private company, favoring short term savings over long term sustainability, which led to the sorry state in which German rail infrastructure is today. IMHO the major issue with the reform is that the trains and the infrastructure were left in the same company (with other train operators forced to use the tracks provided by the "incumbent"), which leads to all kinds of conflicts of interest.
" Which however didn't stop it from acting like a profit-oriented private company, " Except it does not make any profit. It is tightly controlled by the government. They could change any management behaviour. But they don't.
So its just a goverment agency.
I think it's worth adding the fact, that not only the Deutsche Bahn has been privatized, but also the Deutsche Bundespost (mail service/telecommunication) has been privatized and split into Deutsche Post and Deutsche Telekom coming from the same policy.
As far as I know this all boils down to the fact, that the European Union (or better it's predecessor) wanted to get rid of state monopolies. It did work out for the "Deutsche Post" (more or less) and very good for "Deutsche Telekom". But "Deutsche Bahn" was a failure coming from that policy.
> very good for "Deutsche Telekom"
It didn't work very well for Telekom's competitors, though.
I've switched apartments about once every two years in average and every.single.time I've had to wait more than a month without internet (after already waiting a month for the scheduled appointment) because Telekom is the owner of the DSL lines and they connect their competitors' customers only when they feel like it.
Isn't Deutche Telekom one of the main reasons why Germany's broadband and internet coverage is abysmal in comparison to even significantly poorer countries in Europe these days?
Except Deutsche Bahn is not private but 100% owned by the German government.
It's the words that were used in the 90s. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahnprivatisierung
That's a general article about privatizing state-owned railways all over the world. If you look at the part referring to Germany, it links to https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahnreform_(Deutschland), and "Bahnreform" is the term that's more commonly used to refer to what happened in Germany.