So anecdotally, I needed to figure out a way to commute in the Benelux in the early morning for a job. It’s supposed to be one of the better-integrated parts of Europe. Of course, I needed an early morning train, so when I looked up the timetable, I had a Belgian train that could get me to where I needed to be, but the first Dutch train of the day was going to arrive three minutes after the Belgian train departed. And this is a major connection between two nearby capitals that the Dutch and Belgian train companies couldn’t organize to allow people to commute an hour from where they live.

On the other hand, we just had the “once-in-a-lifetime” fuckening of the working class that seems to happen every five years now, that had strikes on a lot of places, and maintenance just didn’t get done, and the companies couldn’t be arsed to do the jobs even afterwards. So now we have regularly missing train services that have buses instead - which cannot carry bikes. And then there is the absolute state of Deutsche Bahn.

And for the actual ugly part, you have to go east. Look at Hungary, where everything is politicized, the dickhead appointed to oversee transportation has it out for the capital since it is opposition-leaning. Thus, funds for maintaining the main terminals were diverted to “the countryside”, basically projects which most people will only ever see in a not-too-prominent news article. All the while the whole country’s rail transport has been paralysed for days, if not a whole week.

Basically, this happened - the bottom drawing is a plan for the maintenance of the switches that the new minister killed off as punishment for the capital.