<story><title>High speed train between Paris and Berlin could start operating as soon as 2023</title><url>https://www.euronews.com/travel/2022/05/25/high-speed-train-between-paris-and-berlin-could-start-operating-as-soon-as-2023</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ChuckNorris89</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;A big impediment is the federal structure of Germany, as high-speed trains need to have at least one stop in every federal state they cross for political reasons, which of course makes them slow.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is absolutely insane to hear. Feels like the whole &amp;quot;German efficiency&amp;quot; trope is mostly a meme or it doesn&amp;#x27;t apply to government&amp;#x2F;national services and is in line with all the other negative things I heard about the infamous archaic German bureocracy in general.&lt;p&gt;I know even Ukrainian refugees were shocked at how archaic German paper based bureocracy was compared to their home country which moved to digital, as they expected Europe&amp;#x27;s richest country to have much more efficient bureocracy than Europe&amp;#x27;s poorest country. Boy were they in for a surprise.&lt;p&gt;And let&amp;#x27;s not talk about Germany&amp;#x27;s infamously abysmal infrastructure and service coverage for fiber and mobile internet that&amp;#x27;s well behind Eastern Europe.</text></item><item><author>ThePhysicist</author><text>The connection Saarbrücken -&amp;gt; Paris (around 500 km) only takes 1:45h. Currently the problem is getting to Saarbrücken from Berlin, which takes up to 7 hours depending on the connection. So yeah, lots of room for improvement, mostly on the German side though. A big impediment is the federal structure of Germany, as high-speed trains need to have at least one stop in every federal state they cross for political reasons, which of course makes them slow. In France, on the other hand, you have trains going from Paris to Marseille without a single stop in between, and in just 3:04h (for a whooping 780 km).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cedilla</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not insane at all. Every additional stop takes about 20 minutes - but there are a lot of people who actually use the stations between, say, Berlin and Cologne.&lt;p&gt;Germany is much less centralised than France. 20% of the population is in Paris. Only 2% of Germans live in Berlin. It would be insanity to mindlessly copy the French model when the circumstances are so different.</text></comment>
<story><title>High speed train between Paris and Berlin could start operating as soon as 2023</title><url>https://www.euronews.com/travel/2022/05/25/high-speed-train-between-paris-and-berlin-could-start-operating-as-soon-as-2023</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ChuckNorris89</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;A big impediment is the federal structure of Germany, as high-speed trains need to have at least one stop in every federal state they cross for political reasons, which of course makes them slow.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is absolutely insane to hear. Feels like the whole &amp;quot;German efficiency&amp;quot; trope is mostly a meme or it doesn&amp;#x27;t apply to government&amp;#x2F;national services and is in line with all the other negative things I heard about the infamous archaic German bureocracy in general.&lt;p&gt;I know even Ukrainian refugees were shocked at how archaic German paper based bureocracy was compared to their home country which moved to digital, as they expected Europe&amp;#x27;s richest country to have much more efficient bureocracy than Europe&amp;#x27;s poorest country. Boy were they in for a surprise.&lt;p&gt;And let&amp;#x27;s not talk about Germany&amp;#x27;s infamously abysmal infrastructure and service coverage for fiber and mobile internet that&amp;#x27;s well behind Eastern Europe.</text></item><item><author>ThePhysicist</author><text>The connection Saarbrücken -&amp;gt; Paris (around 500 km) only takes 1:45h. Currently the problem is getting to Saarbrücken from Berlin, which takes up to 7 hours depending on the connection. So yeah, lots of room for improvement, mostly on the German side though. A big impediment is the federal structure of Germany, as high-speed trains need to have at least one stop in every federal state they cross for political reasons, which of course makes them slow. In France, on the other hand, you have trains going from Paris to Marseille without a single stop in between, and in just 3:04h (for a whooping 780 km).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jseban</author><text>&amp;gt; Feels like the whole &amp;quot;German efficiency&amp;quot; trope is mostly a meme&lt;p&gt;Yeah it&amp;#x27;s really false, Germany is painfully bureaucratic, ceremonial and slow and dysfunctional, compared to other leading western nations.&lt;p&gt;German engineering, and german manufacturing, are really what deserves to have good reputation.</text></comment>