
Germany's New Crowdfunded Train - misnamed
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2016/12/locomore-germany-crowdfunded-train/510752/
======
patall
While I like the idea and will probably try it out in January, I think this
article takes it bit too easy. The price of the cheapest ticket maybe €22, but
by that measure, I was also able to do the same journey for €14.25 with
Deutsche Bahn this year. They are mostly cheaper but not that much as the
those tickets are for particular trains which are also cheaper on DB. And
other admenities like Wifi will also finally come to ICE this year, there are
already family zones. Besides maybe the seat gurantee, the other features
sound more like gimmiks to me, nice on the first look but not really world
changing. I like the croudfunding aspect though.

~~~
Fnoord
The article is misleading the price of travel via DB, but OTOH price of DB is
rather complex (its variable, and there are also options for discounts).

It is important to note the price of travel by train in Germany varies _a lot_
depending on variables. You can order your ticket months in advance and get a
specific seat (in the ICE) at a specific fare (ie. a trainseat at a specific
time & date). This allows for massive discounts. However you're inflexible in
your schedule and spot. Consider the following hypothetical examples:

1) You order 3 months in advance and can get a discount of 75%. 2) You order 3
weeks in advance and can get a discount of only 25%-50%. 3) You want to order
2 days in advance and can't even get on the train anymore since its full
(ICE). You think you can travel by ICE and buy your ticket on the spot and
can't since its full. Grumbled you buy a ticket -at full price- for the RE/IC
and have to swap trains all the time which also stop more often.

Note that right now its mid december so it is going to be difficult to book
cheap for end of december.

Since Germany is a large country you'll practically end up travel by ICE if
you travel through the country. For example, the full price of a one way
ticket from Ruhr area to Berlin is ~115 EUR.

So, it is interesting how much time in advance one has to order with Locomore.
Apparently one can only order online and not via DB sale points. But how does
the ticket work then? Does one have to print it out or can it be shown on a
smartphone?

I don't know how pricing works in other countries apart from The Netherlands.
IC in The Netherlands have free WiFi, but it requires one to log in with a web
browser. No cryptography is used in the connection either.

The article mentions the following:

> and a journey on a recycled (dare I say vintage) train that runs entirely on
> sustainably sourced green electricity.

I'd like to know which sustainably sourced green electricity. Because nuclear
energy is also considered 'green' these days. Not sure if that is true in
Germany.

> Europe’s railways have already seen substantial deregulation and
> privatization—often, as in Britain, with highly negative results.

Yeah, there's a national system akin to Oyster card in The Netherlands. Easy
to log in and out and once they swapped from Mifare, more secure. Yet if you
swap train of a different company (and they're more rampant here than in
Germany, apparently) you need to log out and in. If you don't, you are
considered free riding and get a fine of 35 EUR plus the fare price. If this
ever happens to you in The Netherlands know that you can appeal a fine once a
year by phone or the website. So you can get your money back.

~~~
throwaway10129
> I'd like to know which sustainably sourced green electricity.

They use dirty energy and buy some sort of "certificates" that are supposed to
guarantee that somewhere, sometime, some sort of green electricity has been
produced.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Energy_Certificate_(...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Energy_Certificate_\(United_States\))

It's the same in Germany and many believe it to be a scam.

~~~
TillE
It's not a "scam". Electricity is fungible, there's no such thing as "dirty"
electrons. Everything feeds into the same grid, and the math works out.
Germany buys a ton of hydroelectric power from Norway, and generates its own
wind and solar. What more do you want, exactly?

~~~
throwaway212111
Could you please -- by way of the principle of charity -- assume that readers
here know what electricity is?

1) It does not help the German people if green energy is generated in Norway
or someone puts up a solar panel in the Sahara if _they get to breathe
emissions from coal power plants_.

2) Any overly complex scheme is likely to be gamed. Any German household can
order "Öko-Strom". I don't believe for a second that enough real "Öko-Strom"
is available to fulfil that demand in a legitimate manner.

~~~
good_gnu
In (1) you assume that people buy green energy mainly or to a large extent to
reduce the emissions they personally suffer from. Have you considered that a
big reason for many people to buy green energy might just be to provide
incentives for green energy production in order to combat emissions globally
without regard for whether they personally benefit from it? If everyone
consumes energy "covered" by certificates, this increases viability of
producing green energy.

In (2) you say that the scheme is likely to be gamed. Can you elaborate on how
that would look like? Does this "Occam's razor" necessarily mean that only
simple laws are effective?

Also in (2) you claim that there is not enough real green energy available to
satisfy the demand. This is obviously true but this means that the demand
creates an incentive for companies to produce green energy wherever possible.

Overall what this system really provides is an option for consumers to
optionally subsidize green energy producing companies and so far I have not
really heard of any concrete case in which this system has been gamed. Do you
know any?

~~~
98272109
I don't feel like discussing this any further after the usual stupid down-
voting and rationalizations.

Go and continue to believe that the world is just, no gaming of the system
occurs, as clueless and highly paid A12-A16 civil servants [1] have told you
in school.

[1] German teachers are paid well in return for their indoctrination.

~~~
good_gnu
So, basically you believe that people are gaming the system but you have no
examples of how this happens or which companies might be doing this?

~~~
919182391
Well, if the down-voters are unable to operate Google-search (as expected),
here is one of the first links:

[http://www.energieverbraucher.de/de/gruener-
strom__377/](http://www.energieverbraucher.de/de/gruener-strom__377/)

~~~
good_gnu
So now after 3 layers of us trying to coax you into giving us a little bit
more concrete detail on your argument, you link an article in German which a
lot of people here cannot read?

Anyway, the article's argument is that the certificates for renewable energy
are created in e.g. Norway and Switzerland where it is easy to produce cheap
hydropower which cannot be transported to Germany. Meanwhile the Norwegian and
Swiss do not buy energy with certificates because they "know" that their
energy is clean.

This is indeed true and a valid argument. However Norway and Switzerland
produce only a finite amount of these certificates. If demand for certified
green energy does not exceed this supply then this is simply a sign that not
enough people are willing to pay extra for certified green energy which is
regrettable but not a fault of this system.

------
jpatokal
Way more interesting than this is the upcoming plan to liberalize rail
transport across the entire EU. This should allow effectively anybody (meeting
certain standards) to operate services on common infrastructure, introducing
actual competition to the passenger rail market.

[http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-
room/20160420IPR2...](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-
room/20160420IPR24132/agreement-on-opening-up-of-the-eu-passenger-railway-
market)

~~~
kalleboo
Are there any good studies on countries where this has already been done?
Looking at the situation in Sweden where there has been rail liberalization,
it seems like it mostly leads to underinvestment in the infrastructure because
you can always just blame the passenger train companies... I haven't heard any
happy stories from the UK either.

I'm for it in principal (especially harmonization - any train border crossing
in Europe can be a nightmare) but the incentives need to be engineered _just
right_

~~~
vertex-four
I got shown a graph recently, when arguing for renationalisation of passenger
train services in Scotland, that passenger use of the rail network started
climbing significantly higher when the current franchise system came into
play.

Though the franchise system isn't "liberalisation" \- it's just granting near-
monopolies over certain routes in most cases. As a result, we have
Virgin/Stagecoach providing the only reasonable routes from Scotland to
London.

And, of course, the network in England only ever seems to receive investment
where it affects Londoners. But we tried to privatise the rail network itself
once, and that went very, very badly.

~~~
crdoconnor
>use of the rail network started climbing significantly higher when the
current franchise system came into play

I know more people who have long train commutes these days than I used to.
That's not a function of how much better run the network is though, it's a
function of rising house prices (which has been going on since the 90s)
driving people further and further out.

With a nationalized rail system the same thing would have happened.

~~~
vertex-four
Or did the privatised rail system allow people to more reasonably travel long
distances for work, allowing people to move further out, allowing cities to
grow and require more workers and thus raising house prices further out with
increased demand?

Personally, I'm not really in favour of the franchise system - a concession
system a la London Overground would work better in many places (inc Scotland)
IMO - but I don't think it's as simple as "the franchises are doing exactly
what British Rail would've done".

~~~
crdoconnor
>Or did the privatised rail system allow people to more reasonably travel long
distances for work, allowing people to move further out, allowing cities to
grow and require more workers and thus raising house prices further out with
increased demand?

No. The increase in house prices was both _staggering_ and coincidental with
investors buying up properties an leaving them empty.

>don't think it's as simple as "the franchises are doing exactly what British
Rail would've done

British Rail was neglected and lacking investment. This is part of the
privatization handbook - intentionally underfund and then use that as a
pretext for pushing privatization.

I think if it was well funded we'd have a cheaper, better system.

------
kriro
I think there's a market for a one route alternative "experience" train where
the train isn't only the means to get from A to B but the journey itself
provides value. I still vividly remember travelling to a Chaos Communication
Congress on a privately operated "hack train". Must have been around 2000. Not
the fastest connection but loads of fun :)

------
carlob
I think this is more of a statement to how bad DB is. In Germany traveling
with blablacar or mitfahrtgelegenheit is still very very popular, because
trains are slow and incredibly expensive. Even if in my own country (Italy)
people love to say that everything in Germany is better, but it's incredible
to see how much worse trains are, and for 3x the price!

~~~
beberlei
Imho DB is the best means of transportation in Germany, in my experience only
people travelling with DB once every one or two years are complaining about
it, because they don't understand how it works.

You cannot compare the standard DB fares with anything competitors offer,
because they include an amount of flexibility no one else offers by a long
shot.

Even if you only take 2-3 trips per year it already makes sense to get the 25%
or 50% discount cards. A massive amount of germans have these cards (see
[https://infographic.statista.com/normal/infografik_3025_Besi...](https://infographic.statista.com/normal/infografik_3025_Besitzer_einer_BahnCard25._BahnCard50_oder_Bahncard100_n.jpg),
over 3 million BC25, 1.4 million BC50 owners).

If you know when exactly you want to travel, which exact train and hour, then
you can easily get a 62.5% discount and you are only at ~45 instead of 125€
for the trip, which given the comfort of DB vs all other means of
transportation is well worth the price.

I myself prefer to be flexible and have a BC50 which includes 50% discount on
every trip. But that means I can take any train on the date of my ticket or
even up to 5 days later, leave at any station in between for as long as I
want.

My sister had an accident with car share service, which kind of turns me off
these services. She now often takes the bus that is much cheaper than DB. But
then you have to have someone bring you with a car to the off site locations
that bus often stop and it still takes several hours longer than DB for most
destinations.

~~~
pluma
> Even if you only take 2-3 trips per year it already makes sense to get the
> 25% or 50% discount cards.

I'm not sure how you're calculating that, but when my wife did the math she
ended up ditching the 25% card because it would have only been profitable for
her if she took at least one trip a week.

I guess you're thinking ICE (inter-city high speed trains) not RB (regional
transport)? I guess at >€100 per ride the numbers work out but most "normal
people" I know think of ICE as equivalent to travelling by plane, i.e.
something you may do for vacations but very much out of the ordinary for
regular travel.

> in my experience only people travelling with DB once every one or two years
> are complaining about it

I take a two and a half hour commute roughly twice a week (in addition to a
daily tram commute of half an hour or so). There's no direct route and one of
the two stations isn't serviced by ICE.

I could take an ICE to the interchange station but that would barely save me
any time due to the long transfer wait, so instead I'm travelling by RB or RE.

The trains haven't been replaced in ages (I'd say on average at least one door
is out of order on every train I've used). The RBs often don't even have
working toilets. Outside periods with extremely light traffic there is
generally not enough seating to accommodate all (2nd class) passengers (though
1st class is nearly empty because there's no practical difference between 1st
and 2nd class service outside ICEs).

And of course trains are routinely late or delayed. Delayed trains often add
insult to injury by being delayed further when they have to wait to be
overtaken by an ICE. So because I know I have to switch trains I always plan
for an hour longer in case I miss a connection or end up having to switch
trains again.

Let's also not forget that unlike with long distance busses, "WiFi" doesn't
mean "Free WiFi". There's only WiFi on the ICE and it's decidedly not free
(nor significantly better than cellular) and requires you to jump through
hoops if you're not already a Telekom customer (which seems anachronistic in
the times of Freifunk & co).

I'm very happy that UK's National Express recently started servicing two lines
in my region (RE7 and RB48). Their trains are brand new, they waste very
little space on first-class seating (which is still enough for the few people
travelling first-class on REs and RBs) and they provide wall outlets for
charging laptops and mobile devices.

DB's ICE lines may be somewhat laudable (though still disappointing compared
to the Thalys) but DB Regio's service is ripe for disruption.

Let's also not forget that DB has a track record of letting stations and
infrastructure fall into disrepair to cut costs, especially the smaller
stations not serviced by ICEs or ICs (which btw, look about as vintage as
Locomore).

~~~
beberlei
I take around 10-20 personal trips to family and friends every year, for
around 1000-1500€ of "standard" fares, but pay only half with the BC50. I
don't own a car. The card would cost me 250€/year so its quite a big saving.
Its mostly long distance, so just for regional you are probably right it
wouldn't matter.

I can't comment much on the regional experience, especially when living
outside a large city. I have 3 train stations in distance of different trams.
So you can be right. Although here the National Express won a contract as well
and their trains are bad compared to the DB regional ones, so maybe DB is
running the old trains in your region, where here in Bonn/Cologne they have
very modern ones.

DB internet changed providers just some weeks ago, they now have a multi
provider approach and Telekom isn't the only one anymore. Its also free for
everyone even in second class on the Telekom served ones and ICs are supposed
to get internet next year as well. They are even talking about adding it to
regional ones.

Like with Deutsche Telekom who was government monopolist before, the
competition will push the DB in a 10-20 year change cycle and after that it
will be on top again with the best service and offer across the board. That
kind of investment and change just takes a long time for this kind of big
company.

~~~
pluma
For context: I travel between Cologne and a city near Gütersloh, which means
switching trains in Hamm.

The National Express trains I'm talking about are the RB48 and RE7. There are
two ways to get to Hamm besides the ICE: RE7 (National Express) and RE1 (DB
Regio).

Although the RE1 is a double-decker, most of the extra space is wasted on
first class seating. They do have toilets but they're tiny and usually
extremely filthy. Maybe I'm particularly unlucky but as I said, the average
train seems to have at least one door marked as out of order at any given
time. I've actually seen an RE1 leave Hamm with an open door once (I was too
surprised to take a picture though).

The main reason I prefer the RE7 is the ability to charge my laptop (allowing
me to get actual work done). I also find the trains much nicer in general. The
only exception was during Karneval because there is sadly no ban on drinking
alcohol on regional trains (unlike trams in Cologne).

My worst experiences with DB Regio have been on RB and S trains though. I had
a daily from Cologne commute to Neuss for a year and a half and none of the
trains had toilets even though some of them still had signage directing you to
non-existent toilets. Officially they were no longer offering toilets on S
trains because travel times were short enough that passengers don't need them
-- which certainly comforted me while routinely spending roughly an hour on
those damn trains.

------
daenney
It's really nice to see a project like this crop up after the rail
privatisation. In the EU countries that have gone through that transition the
situation for the passenger hasn't improved much and since there usually still
only is a single provider for most routes the prices tend to only go up
without much for it in return. That's not to say it would necessarily have
been better to keep it public, just that the promise of privatisation hasn't
really delivered, in my experience.

This might not be groundbreaking, it might not even work but I'm really happy
to see someone try something new(ish) in this arena.

Also, trains are the best. Choo-choo!

~~~
pluma
The only thing the privatisation originally did was eliminate DB's
accountability and allow them to cut costs like infrastructure maintenance. I
think the mistake was to turn a state monopoly into a private monopoly.

I'm still not convinced privatising infrastructure like rail passenger
transport is better than socialising it and at least on the communal level I'm
convinced socialised public transport would be a better approach (i.e. treat
trams and roads equivalently). But DB only really cares about their high speed
trains, so it's good to see someone try to improve the rest.

------
nobrains
"speed or price? A new, crowdfunded entrant in Germany’s passenger rail scene
is betting on the former, offering low-price but slightly slower than average"

Betting ON the former or Betting AGAINST the former?

~~~
dao-
Probably confused "former" with "latter" rather than "on" with "against" :)

------
dep_b
It kind of baffles me that the only long distance trains that are still being
done on European scale are prestigious high speed trains (usually connecting
Brussels to X) that are much more expensive than plane tickets or anything
else really.

I wouldn't mind to take a trip to Paris from Amsterdam in a slower train for
20-30 euro, but this is really impossible unless you spend almost a day
piecing badly connecting trains together.

Especially when it's slightly more entertaining with draft beer, coffee, wi-fi
and such.

~~~
gsnedders
> It kind of baffles me that the only long distance trains that are still
> being done on European scale are prestigious high speed trains (usually
> connecting Brussels to X) that are much more expensive than plane tickets or
> anything else really.

> I wouldn't mind to take a trip to Paris from Amsterdam in a slower train for
> 20-30 euro, but this is really impossible unless you spend almost a day
> piecing badly connecting trains together.

Looking on the SNCF website, the cheapest Thalys (i.e., "prestigious high sped
trains") tickets are 35 EUR each way, which seems to require booking about a
month or two in advance to get. The cheapest flights are 34 EUR each way,
which seemingly similarly requires booking about a month or two in advance.
So, uh, it doesn't seem like they're much more expensive than plane
tickets—and the cost of getting to/from airports is likely far more than 1 EUR
(given travel to/from airports tends to be more expensive than travel to/from
city centres).

Obviously dynamic pricing as practiced by both airlines and train operates
makes it hard to tell what's generally cheaper, but the fact that on many
routes high-speed rail has caused airlines to drop routes due to lack of
custom tends to imply they are competitive: if they started yanking up the
prices after the airlines had dropped their routes, one would expect the
airlines to reintroduce them and take back marketshare.

~~~
lucb1e
From experience, I can say that even if it isn't cheaper than flying, it's
definitely less convenient. Amsterdam and Paris are close and popular so the
trains run well, but try Echt (NL) and Meckenheim (GER) by public transport.
Or Echt to Modane (FR). As soon as you cross borders it's a nightmare.

The German trains website (db.de) does a surprisingly good job (after recently
having a _terrible_ experience with Belgian and, three years ago, French
public transport websites) of piecing together connections, but that also
means it'll happily tell you go take a bus, e.g.: bus-train-train-bus-train-
train.

------
kriro
I was wondering how they crowdfunded this and expected some sort of ticket
prepurchase kickstarter. It seems that you can actually loan them money
instead (over five years): 1500 Euro: 3,45% (6,9% if you take tickets not
cash) 2500 Euro: 3,75% (7,3%) 5000 Euro: 4,15% (8,3%)

Max. of 100k

------
moomin
I think the bus vs train analysis is missing an important dimension:
travelling on the bus is unpleasant. You can't stand, your kids feel sick. The
same amount of time on a train is vastly preferable.

~~~
LeanderK
i regularly travel from karlsruhe to munich and i can't work on the bus, since
there is not enough space for my laptop. Working inside the train is pleasant
and after christmas every ICE has free wifi (wow, that took forever for them
to decide to implement it! Rolling out was rather quick)

------
lenni
I do the Berlin-Stuttgart train journey regularly to visit my parents and
quite like taking the train as it gives me a block of uninterupted time to
read, work and just plain relax that I usually take for myself.

So this sounds like an excellent way of making this even more enjoyable. I
think I will give this a try next time I'm travelling south.

------
lh7
The idea of having "zones" for people with different interests sounds good.
Given the sort of amenities on offer and the unusual founding route, not to
mention its Eastern endpoint, it would have been more accurate to refer to
this as "zones for hipsters with different interests" though. :-)

Piss-taking aside, I think it's nicely representative of a certain
"Germanness" trait which is perhaps not so well-known outside the country,
where the stereotype of a population of humourless engineers still prevails.

------
limaoscarjuliet
"Runs entirely on green electricity" \- so is Deutsche Bahn at times, as
Germany has been reported to produce more renewable electricity than they can
consume.

~~~
iso-8859-1
When the weather is nice...

See these graphs: [https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/news/news-2016/germanys-
ele...](https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/news/news-2016/germanys-electricity-
exports-surplus-brings-record-revenue-of-over-two-billion-euros)

Why would Germany sell electricity to the Netherlands but buy it from France?

Because, when the weather is bad, Germany can't produce enough to cover its
own needs.

So Germany is still involved in nuclear power.

------
galfarragem
The 'idea' is not new, it recalls me Polish trains: old and slow but so cheap
that everybody can afford them. Few years ago you could travel 500km for 15€.
Despite that, there were still massive discounts (50%) for students and
elders. Who cares if the trains are the fast/most comfortable if you can't
afford to use them regularly.

~~~
user5994461
> Who cares if the trains are the fast/most comfortable if you can't afford to
> use them regularly.

People who don't need to travel 500km regularly.

------
pluma
More competition might help DB to address some of its problems, but as a
commuter one of the most frustrating problems with public transport is the
chaotic pricing.

Others have explained why DB's own pricing is a mess, but on a communal level
public transport is even more of a mess[0]. You might think getting a
"BahnCard 100" (a 100% discount card that costs ~€400/month) might be worth it
if you travel a lot but if you routinely travel by train you'll also likely
have to rely on public transport at your destination but bus and tram are
often not part of the deal (i.e. no discount is applied whatsoever).

I live in Cologne in NRW. If I only moved around within Cologne, I could get a
monthly ticket for all tram and bus transport (for ~€100/month) in Cologne
from the KVB (the city's privatised transport agency). If I want to go beyond
that, I could instead get a monthly ticket for the regional railway from the
VRS (the regional privatised transport alliance that includes the KVB).

But although I generally stay within NRW I regularly commute to a city that's
not within the boundaries of the VRS (or its parent alliance, the NVR). It's
actually part of another alliance, the NWL. So I would need a ticket to move
within the VRS region and then another to move within the NWL region.

But there are actually three such alliances in NRW and I need to cross the
region of the third alliance to get from one to the other, which is the VRR.
So I would need a ticket for the VRS, another for the VRR and then another for
NWL.

But that's obviously silly, so there's also the NRW-ticket which covers the
regions of all three alliances as a yearly subscription (which works out to
~€300/month).

But of course that's only for NRW (one of the sixteen states/counties in
Germany) and only for busses, trams and regional rail. If you want to use the
intercity or ICE trains, even within NRW, you still need an extra ticket at
the full price. Likewise if you ever need to cross the borders of NRW.

As for the joys of actually using and validating the various tickets you might
have to buy in addition to whichever subscription you end up with, that's what
the article I linked to is about.

[0]: [http://www.wiwo.de/unternehmen/dienstleister/werner-
knallhar...](http://www.wiwo.de/unternehmen/dienstleister/werner-knallhart-
das-ticket-chaos-bei-bus-und-bahn-macht-arm-und-krank/9984412.html) (German)

~~~
kogepathic
> You might think getting a "BahnCard 100" (a 100% discount card that costs
> ~€400/month) might be worth it if you travel a lot but if you routinely
> travel by train you'll also likely have to rely on public transport at your
> destination but bus and tram are often not part of the deal (i.e. no
> discount is applied whatsoever).

What? BC100 gets you onto every DB train and also all public transportation in
Germany.

"Bei der BahnCard 100 ist das City-Ticket automatisch integriert. Die BahnCard
100 gilt in den Geltungsbereichen der teilnehmenden City-Ticket Städten für
beliebig viele Fahrten."[0]

[0]
[https://www.bahn.de/p/view/bahncard/vorteile/cityticket.shtm...](https://www.bahn.de/p/view/bahncard/vorteile/cityticket.shtml)

~~~
pluma
Interesting. The article I linked to suggested that the general conditions for
the City Ticket also apply with the BC100 (i.e. only for the destination city
when travelling more than 100km).

The page you linked to also is a bit ambiguous about whether the BC100 follows
those restrictions of the City Ticket or not. If what you say is true, that's
pretty awesome.

~~~
kogepathic
> The page you linked to also is a bit ambiguous about whether the BC100
> follows those restrictions of the City Ticket or not.

Yes, and unfortunately I don't have a BC100 so I can't say anecdotally if it's
true or not.

> If what you say is true, that's pretty awesome.

Since the BahnCard 100 is created for people who are traveling quite
frequently, I don't see how it would make any sense unless it also included
free local transit. However this is Bahn, so it may well be nonsense!

~~~
pluma
> I don't see how it would make any sense

> However this is Bahn, so it may well be nonsense!

Exactly. That's always the problem with using common sense to figure these
things out.

------
mrweasel
I don't know if this is still a thing in German trains in general, but the
main selling point for me would be the fact that it looks like the train has
coupes. A coupe is so much nice than a big open carriage.

------
nathanbarry
I love the idea of having a car specifically for children to play. I'd pay
extra for my kids (5 and 2) to have a place to play. Just a carpeted car with
basic toys like many airports have.

------
tiatia
Weird train rides in Germany?

I guess you could give this a try: [http://www.un-
verschaemt.de/](http://www.un-verschaemt.de/)

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linohh
I own a Bahncard 100 which is a rail pass for the entire country.
Unfortunately due to wtf, I cannot use it on this train. There's still a lot
to be done.

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sauerbraten
Your BahnCard 100 is only for DB trains, and their partners like regional
transport associations. Not sure why you suspect it to be valid for a
competitor's service. And I doubt Locomore will ever partner with DB...

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linohh
That's not how it works. There's the tariff union TBNE which covers almost
every train in the country. I can use non DB trains without a problem (e.g.
the HKX) - just not this one (and Thalys).

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dao-
I suspect TBNE is pretty much what your parent comment meant by "...only for
DB trains, and their partners like regional transport associations."

I.e. DB would only partner with regional operators on tracks where DB itself
doesn't operate anymore.

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linohh
no. it's up to locomore to join, they just don't want to. same with HKX, in
the beginning they didn't want to join, eventually they did.

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posterboy
Crowd funding the new word for financed by shareholders.

~~~
dmurray
Bondholders, according to a very interesting parent comment
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13200369](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13200369)

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gravypod
Aren't all trains crowdfunded? Isn't that what tax is?

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jaclaz
AFAIK it is not just Germany trains that are a mess (regarding fares), it is
the same all over the world.

What I really hate is that every time I take a train (in Italy) I can be sure
that:

1) the lady in front of me payed 30% less than me (OK, she is elderly and some
discount may be fine)

2) the guy on my right payed 25% less than me (OK, he is a student, and has
one of those cards)

3) the girl on my left has payed 45% less than me (OK, she has a special
discount as a woman and booked the ticket in large advance)

4) the guy in businessman suit on the seat on the other side of the aisle has
paid anyething between 50%, 80% or 100% less than me (OK, because he is an
employee of the railway or of the government)

5) etc.

Simplified, I am the only one that is paying the full fare.

~~~
gotofritz
> OK, she is elderly and some discount may be fine

And who reimburses the rail company for those discounts?

> the girl on my left has payed 45% less than me (OK, she has a special
> discount as a woman and booked the ticket in large advance)

"she has a special discount as a woman" \- What? I call BS.

"booked the ticket in large advance" \- better. And what's stopping you from
doing the same?

> (OK, because he is an employee of the railway or of the government)

And how many of those there are?

> Simplified, I am the only one that is paying the full fare.

Simplified, you are someone who exaggerates to use as an excuse for whinging
about non existent unfairness.

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vintageseltzer
Thank you for responding. The parent comment has to be one of the worst HN
comments I have ever read.

It is important that people who exaggerate and lie are held accountable for
their words.

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thatfrenchguy
Yeah, let's waste energy operate trains from the 1970's (or buses) and pretend
it's a good thing because "look it's cheaper and you get organic food inside".

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linohh
The locomotive is brand new. The only thing missing is regenerative braking in
the carriages which DBs long distance carriages also don't have.

