[realityking]

Same here if the entire journey is booked on one ticket. I’ve taken a Taxi from Cologne to Aachen (~75km) on Deutsche Bahn’s dime.

Unfortunately Deutsche Bahn is not very up-front about these option (e.g. with vouchers) and you have to expense that taxi ride or hotel after the fact. A lot of people are scared of that as they’re not sure if they’ll get the money back.

[currysausage]

They will only refund you for the taxi if the scheduled arrival is after midnight and the expected delay at your destination is >60 minutes OR if it’s the last connection for the day and there is no other means of public transport that will allow you to reach the destination before midnight, and only up to EUR 80,00 [1] which wouldn’t even cover Cologne—Aachen (that is one intercity stop).

For regional tickets, some states or transport systems offer additional voluntary compensations. In NRW, you would be refunded up to EUR 25,00 before 8pm and up to EUR 50,00 after 8pm if your train or bus departs more than 20 minutes behind schedule. [2]

Obviously, there are edge cases like acts of God where voluntary compensations won’t apply (and legally binding compensations won’t apply either in a few years if a pending legislative initiative is successful). Since passenger information is less-than-ideal, it might be hard to tell if you will be compensated even if you know about the basic rules.

[1] https://www.bahn.com/en/view/booking-information/passenger-r...

[2] https://www.mobil.nrw/service/mobigarantie.html – I couldn’t find an official English version on my phone