“Daldrup blames “European over-regulation” for many of the complications.”
That’s a bit of a porky. IIRC the issue that stopped them from opening initially was the fire warning system consisting of hundreds of students with mobile phones who were instructed to phone a central number if they saw smoke or flames.
Ottokring
There’s a lot of this – the Elbphilarmonie in Hamburg was massively over budget and years late.
So Much For Subtlety
In fairness the main problem was that smoke rises but they put the smoke extractors on the floor. They had been designed by a guy with no engineering qualification at all. An Italian who just went along when e3veryone assumed he was an engineer. By the name of Alfredo di Mauro. Which I guess means Freddy the Algerian. Roughly.
But of course the decline of German piety means the decline of German things like attention to detail and conscientiousness.
philip
Not even Germany escapes the Iron Law: Built by The Government = POS
Roué le Jour
Youtube has a good doco on this airport. Highlights: Brandt’s family insisting their name was take off the clusterfuck, and all the screens, which had been on for years, needing to be replaced before the airport saw a single passenger.
dearieme
It’s changed now, no doubt, but when we were last in Berlin the main railway station didn’t have a big board telling you about all the arrivals and departures. You were, apparently, meant to somehow intuit that whichever board you were looking at there was another some distance away, and invisible from the first, that carried information on the services not mentioned on the first.
When the penny dropped for us we asked a bystander whether this could be true. He replied that he too found it strange because they ordered these matters better in his native Poland.
Chris Miller
Made even trickier because the tracks at Berlin Hbf are on 4 different levels. I think you’re expected to use the DB app to find out where your train might appear.
Grikath
Decades of complaining that Eur’p should take an example of mighty Blighty, and when the germans finally find a way to emulate it…
It’s never Ok, innit?
KrakowJosh
dearieme @ 1:52
“When the penny dropped for us we asked a bystander whether this could be true. He replied that he too found it strange because they ordered these matters better in his native Poland.”
Ok, but here in Poland we scratch our heads over why platforms aren’t numbered sequentially at large stations, which can be terrific fun when you’re running late…
dearieme
Aw, I’m disappointed. I’d hoped that how the platforms in Poland were numbered might depend on the relevant bit of Poland – the ex-Russian, the ex-German, or the ex-Austro-Hungarian. On which lines (ahem), when did Poland get a uniform railway gauge? After the downfall of the USSR?
Tim Worstall
I know the answer to this one. The change of gauge is at Brest Litovsk – and, I think, always was.
Sigh!! German bureaucracy is also notorious.
“Daldrup blames “European over-regulation” for many of the complications.”
That’s a bit of a porky. IIRC the issue that stopped them from opening initially was the fire warning system consisting of hundreds of students with mobile phones who were instructed to phone a central number if they saw smoke or flames.
There’s a lot of this – the Elbphilarmonie in Hamburg was massively over budget and years late.
In fairness the main problem was that smoke rises but they put the smoke extractors on the floor. They had been designed by a guy with no engineering qualification at all. An Italian who just went along when e3veryone assumed he was an engineer. By the name of Alfredo di Mauro. Which I guess means Freddy the Algerian. Roughly.
But of course the decline of German piety means the decline of German things like attention to detail and conscientiousness.
Not even Germany escapes the Iron Law: Built by The Government = POS
Youtube has a good doco on this airport. Highlights: Brandt’s family insisting their name was take off the clusterfuck, and all the screens, which had been on for years, needing to be replaced before the airport saw a single passenger.
It’s changed now, no doubt, but when we were last in Berlin the main railway station didn’t have a big board telling you about all the arrivals and departures. You were, apparently, meant to somehow intuit that whichever board you were looking at there was another some distance away, and invisible from the first, that carried information on the services not mentioned on the first.
When the penny dropped for us we asked a bystander whether this could be true. He replied that he too found it strange because they ordered these matters better in his native Poland.
Made even trickier because the tracks at Berlin Hbf are on 4 different levels. I think you’re expected to use the DB app to find out where your train might appear.
Decades of complaining that Eur’p should take an example of mighty Blighty, and when the germans finally find a way to emulate it…
It’s never Ok, innit?
dearieme @ 1:52
“When the penny dropped for us we asked a bystander whether this could be true. He replied that he too found it strange because they ordered these matters better in his native Poland.”
Ok, but here in Poland we scratch our heads over why platforms aren’t numbered sequentially at large stations, which can be terrific fun when you’re running late…
Aw, I’m disappointed. I’d hoped that how the platforms in Poland were numbered might depend on the relevant bit of Poland – the ex-Russian, the ex-German, or the ex-Austro-Hungarian. On which lines (ahem), when did Poland get a uniform railway gauge? After the downfall of the USSR?
I know the answer to this one. The change of gauge is at Brest Litovsk – and, I think, always was.