Paul

Paul Gipe

To date around 22% of the 230 km of tunnel bores has been completed. Finance for the base tunnel is also secure, with Austria and Italy each contributing 30% of the cost and the European Union the remaining 40%. The rate of progress is now focusing attention on southern Germany and Italy under pressure, as failure to improve the approach routes would jeopardise the success of the project.

Herrmann's commitment will be tested over the coming months as the planned addition of two tracks from München to Kufstein on the Austrian border, either parallel to the existing main line or on a nearby alignment, has already stirred up fierce opposition. Planners hope to reach a consensus on a viable and acceptable route within three years, although planning and construction are expected to take at least another 20 years.

Germany's inability to do major infrastructure projects properly strikes again.

On that subject, on the occasion of the opening of the  Gotthard Base Tunnel, Süddeutsche posted an article titled (translated) What Germans can learn from the Swiss. The long article is more blank amazement at how different things go in Switzerland than in-depth analysis, but it does mention three significant factors: wide consultation at the planning phase, willingness to give something (mitigation measures, parallel projects) to those who don't benefit from the project, and separate funds for project finance instead of dependence on annual central budgets.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

...what can you do if nobody is paying any attention because this isn't happening in the metropolis? What do you do when the investigative journalists have mostly disappeared, along with the trains?

It isn't as if I have any great expertise in the railway world. I was just equipped with a strong sense that the phrase "temporary staff shortages" which accompany every cancellation wasn't the full story.

A conversation with rail staff confirmed this, so I posted a blog about it, and within three days it had been read by 40,000 people (it is now more 85,000 across two posts). When it reached 2,000, nearly 10 times the number who usually read what I write, I felt chuffed. As the figures rose, I began to feel unnerved.

Then the messages began to pour in, on email and Twitter, some anonymous, some logical, some incoherent with rage; there were leaked memos, quotes, facts, messages from company directors motionless at Clapham Junction, from guards, drivers and administrators. One platform staff member said they had just resigned after another horrendous shift being shouted at by furious passengers. I had a poignant message from a disabled passenger unable to travel because he could no longer phone ahead to ask for a ramp when the trains never arrived.