[britzsquad]

For my job, I travel all over Germany very often. I take the car, train, bus, or sometimes even the plane. The train is the most comfortable means of transportation in Germany. Of course, there are delays, and sometimes mistakes happen that result in very long delays. But where doesn't that happen? I find traveling by car to be the worst. How many times this year have I been stuck in traffic jams for several hours without being able to go forward or backward? No one pays me compensation for being late. With the train, I even get some of my money back if we are late. I find this blog post ridiculous. The rail system in Germany is extremely complex and tightly scheduled. We have regional, long-distance, and freight traffic on the same tracks. Of course, the train can't just stop anywhere when there's a problem. Grow up. For those who are interested: I traveled from Berlin to Konstanz for the Christmas holidays, and both trips were on time. I paid €70 per trip and didn't have to worry about traffic, icy roads, or snow. I worked on my laptop for 6 hours on both trips. It couldn't have been more relaxed.

[DiogenesKynikos]

The train is indeed the most comfortable means of transportation in Germany, but it's so unreliable nowadays that it's practically unusable if you need to get somewhere on a schedule.

Want to get to the airport 2 hours before your flight? Sorry, you have to plan in at least an extra hour, because there's a 40% chance your train will be severely delayed or canceled.

This unreliability drives people who need to get places on time to other modes of transportation. But if you don't mind being randomly delayed by an hour, the train is great. It's sad, and it didn't use to be this way.

[alexott]

Want to be at airport at time? Go with DB a day before and sleep at hotel near airport

[lucianbr]

> the train can't just stop anywhere when there's a problem. Grow up

> didn't have to worry about traffic, icy roads, or snow

Aren't these statements contradictory? I think "grow up" means problems are unavoidable and the adult thing to do is expect them and accept them, and then you say you didn't have to worry, as if problems never happen.

To me it sounds like you just got lucky on your Christmas trips. Two trips on time hardly prove a rule that there's never trouble, and in any case you directly state there's trouble sometimes and that's something to accept.

Now I don't know the stats on problem frequency, which of course matters. But that's different from "don't have to worry". Opposite really. "Here's how much you should worry".

[DiogenesKynikos]

According to the Deutsche Bahn, 61.9% of passengers arrived at their destinations with less than 15 minutes of delay in November 2025.

You can decide whether a 38.1% chance of being delayed by more than 15 minutes is bad. I think it is.

Source: https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen...

[ivan_gammel]

I don’t think it’s ridiculous. A complex system that delivers customer further from destination than they were originally from, is flawed by design. And we all know what the problem is exactly: it is the design for capabilities that the company could not afford based on its budget/planning/KPIs. DB did not invest enough in infrastructure to support the big dream, and now they also have huge aging and retiring workforce problem. So let’s not pretend it’s normal and business as usual: complexity is not an excuse for mismanagement.

[stefanlindbohm]

DB does not decide how much to invest in infrastructure, that’s decided by politicians.

[ivan_gammel]

Politicians do not dictate operational decisions. If they allocate X for infrastructure, the company should scale up or scale down to match that budget, rather than overpromise.

[stefanlindbohm]

”The company” is not one company. The infrastructure manager (DB InfraGo in Germany) is managing tracks on behalf of the state. Operators (a regional operator in the case of this article) run as many trains as they want/are allowed, which in practice is more than the system can handle reliably. There are laws regulating how track access is awarded, so even when a DB group operator runs on tracks managed by DB InfraGo there is no single ”company” that makes a certain promise. The remedy is political either way, either change how track access is awarded to limit the number of trains allowed or increase funding for added capacity and maintenance.

[ivan_gammel]

As I see it, InfraGo could technically fix the problem by increasing operational buffers based on failure rates and reduce number of slots. This would contain the cascade of delays, but they decide to go easy way because they are not accountable for those delays. So in principle you are right, it’s a political problem - cost of delays is not shared with infrastructure provider as it should be, and while InfraGo actually could fix the problem (because they determine the number of slots), they choose not to.

[eigenspace]

I'm glad at least someone has a sense of proportion here. German trains have problems for sure, but the train system in Germany is nonetheless fantastic.

[DiogenesKynikos]

It's fantastic compared to Amtrak. It's terrible compared to the Swiss, Chinese or Japanese rail systems, or even just the Deutsche Bahn 20 years ago.

[AmazingTurtle]

lmfao sorry to say that to both of you: were you lobotomized?

[user34283]

Where doesn't that happen?

In any neighboring country, where punctuality is at like 74-99%, depending on the country.

The DB is at 48.5% (Oct 2025) to 60% (2024 avg).

[lostlogin]

Where are you getting those numbers? Thats impressively terrible.