• 2nd September 2024

Oh dear! Deutsche Bahn

Regular visitors to Germany will know that the locals love to put the boot in to their national rail network. Personally, I found it to be pretty reliable until this summer, when I tried to go from Cologne to Passau, using ICE trains. The first was so delayed I missed my connection, and the second was re-routed, so I had to take a third with an unplanned change. Thanks to all this upheaval, nobody had their correct seat reservations. It was chaos.

The official reasons were mixed: signal failure was mentioned, as were summer thunderstorms, as was a shortage of staff during the holiday period.

Afterwards I had a look at the national statistics, and was surprised to find that long distance train punctuality is down at 73 percent (compared to a UK performance rating of 79 percent). UK trains better than German ones! That’s a novelty.

Deutsche Bahn says that around 75 per cent of those delays are because the trains are transiting through at least one construction site, due to their massive programme of investment and renovation.

Whatever the reason, it’s all a bit hit and miss. On my way back on this particular journey, all was so on time – nay early – that the ICE from Frankfurt airport to Brussels had to loiter for 15 minutes in the freight yards of Cologne. Schade!