Summary:
Tesla has opened its railway line east of Berlin to passenger trains, providing transportation to workers at its new Gigafactory. The short rail line, which was bought from an independent German rail infrastructure holding company, gives Tesla direct connections to the main line linking Berlin with Poland. The railway line has been used for construction and will be used to dispatch or receive up to six freight trains daily. The Tesla factory is expected to employ around 10,000 people working 24/7 shifts, and the company has sponsored passenger trains to transport employees to and from the factory. The passenger trains are being operated by a local rail contractor and run 54 times a day on weekdays. There are plans to relocate a nearby Deutsche Bahn station near the factory in the future.

Comments:
Tesla has bought a German railway line to serve its new Gigafactory outside Berlin, which some have deemed irrelevant to the German passenger landscape. The railway line is primarily a short branch to service the factory and does not have multiple stations like a traditional railway line. Commuters have stated that the train service won’t change much for them, as they were already using a shuttle bus. However, the fast commuter trains mentioned in the article run irregularly throughout the day. Some have found it ironic that Tesla is building a railway line to facilitate car production, considering that Elon Musk has expressed open hostility towards public transportation.

  • teriEnglish
    637·
    1 year ago

    Selling railway infrastructure to car manufacturers is generally a bad idea. That’s how the car industry contributed to killing public transportation in the US.

    Public transport is their competition. Killing it brings profit. Very simple logic.

    • anlumo@feddit.deEnglish
      32·
      1 year ago

      In this case, it’s only going to be used by employees of that company due to the stations on that track, so I don’t see a problem.

      I personally do see a problem with companies building their facilities in the middle of nowhere and then expecting the public transport network to figure it out.

    • ANIMATEK@lemmy.worldEnglish
      15·
      1 year ago

      Germany is not the US. They surely agreed to a lengthy list of things they can and cannot do. I for once think this is a good thing (I live in Germany)

      • 520@kbin.social
        5·
        1 year ago

        Which Elon Musk will promptly shit all over the moment it’s inconvenient for him.

    • bouh@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      1 year ago

      I feel like public transports are never good in the hands of private companies anyway. It always needs to be heavily subsidised, and it’s never better than publicly managed. And competition makes things even worse.

      • bluGill@kbin.social
        3·
        1 year ago

        The subways in NYC did just fine until the 1920s.when the government started making things hard.

        • HubertManne@kbin.social
          2·
          1 year ago

          I don’t know about NYC but chicago all the lines were owned by different folk and jumping from one to the other had cost. One of the things I like about our system (especially having experienced DC’s metro) is that moving between train lines and bus routes is all free once you paid the base fare. Recently they are getting the metra rail and cta/pace more integrated to which is great and I hope that trend continues. Actually the bike rental became sorta bs and I wish it had been integrated into the cta.

          • bluGill@kbin.social
            1·
            1 year ago

            There are up and downsides to a private market, and switching trains was one of the downsides. NYC also runs a lot of lines today that don’t make sense until you realize it was done in 1910 to compete with some other company. There are pros and cons of both private and government run transit is all I can say confidently.

            • HubertManne@kbin.social
              1·
              1 year ago

              Yeah I guess it does depend on the individual. All I can say is the switching trains downside basically makes public transit a non starter for me. Where I live the appeal is I can get absolutely anywhere in the city and a fair amount of the suburbs and then further out you become a bit more limited as you get away from the grid structure and the plethera of train lines and busses. Certainly within the city there is nothing you can’t go to in the generic sense (id you can go to many sea food restaurants but not bob chins necessarily [holy crap but while I right this it is possible to go by bus but it would take like an hour and a half and that assumes you get to the buses on time since the last leg as unoften as hourly at times])