this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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It‘s unfortunately not as great as it sounds… in 2022 about 40% of trains were delayed (with some cities probably well above that). In my hometown I would have delays almost every day, costing me about 10-30 minutes more time. Once every 2 months I would also be on a train coming to a full stop with no alternatives. Most the people I know from south Germany don’t trust trains to ever arrive on time and rather commute by car, because going by train you have to assume you’ll be late to whatever appointment you have. It is good to finally have affordable tickets, but there’s a lot to be done and invested to the infrastructure before I would consider it a worthy substitute for a car / bike.
Also: apparently the providers of public transportation are losing money on the discounted tickets - which could lead to fewer connections and more delays in the future…
Last time I was in Bavaria and needed to go to a town about an hour away from Cologne. I decided to take the ICE, mixed with some regional express trains to get there. Seemed fine.
First ICE was delayed and I missed the connection. Went to the Information Office and got a separate route. Sounded good as I only needed one change instead of two. Well, turned out, the train was late again and I missed my connection again. I was now about 2-3 hours late already, in a planned 5.5 hour journey.
Then I waited for the next train and it was cancelled. There was no train scheduled for another 1.5 hours so I went to the pub next to the train station to watch some of the World Cup football final that I missed because of this mess. Walked out again to the platform. No information at all but I just stayed waiting. No information coming in at all at the platform but I saw something online about a train coming in "soon". That info disappeared again.
I had been waiting in 0°C weather for about 1.5 hours on the platform already and after the beers at the pub, I needed to take a leak. Went to go for a piss, come back to the train already at the platform, literally 3 minutes later, and I almost missed it.
In the end, I was at my final stop about 7 hours after the planned time. Never again. Plane would have cost less and I'd have been there a lot quicker.