There's a fair amount of Bahn (railway) chatter this morning (I'll reference this to a N-TV news report from this AM)....on positive future railway travel.
The Bahn folks say that very shortly....every major city in Germany will have a ICE train (high-speed rail train) that will leave every 30 minutes for another major German city.
Now, I admit.....they are careful about the wording. For example, they will talk about the Hamburg to Berlin route, or the Stuttgart to Munich route.
Enticing more people to use the train? To some degree. Germans have a willing nature to use trains, it's just that so many negative things happen along the way (lack of seats, AC broke, trains operating late, or broken-down situations). Because of this, there is continual apprehension over such travel.
Infusion of more tax revenue into the system to upgrade the rails? This might help to some degree. If you could cut 30 minutes off the Munich to Berlin route....it'd probably be a plus-up. If you repaired the AC units more often in the summer, it'd help. If you ensured empty seats existed on a train from Frankfurt to Dusseldorf, it'd help.
But I will say this....if you compared rail travel today against the way it was in 1985....it's greatly improved. It's just that you have expectations, and when you step on a remarkably new train....to discover that of the six cars....only the toilets in two cars work, you start to shake your head over the modern era. Or you get on a train that has a cafe in the middle....but then discover that it's non-functional today, so there's no coffee for this three-hour trip. All of these little inconveniences add up.
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