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nicolas_t

> You know how it is with trains. Even the unsurprisingly much more efficient German rail system.

Efficient and German Rail systems are not words that go together.

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-november-train-punctuality-wor...

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I'm surprised this is coming from the Metro. Trains in England are bad, but trains in Germany are the worst.

The only thing that works in Germany are the busses, and even then, some of them you have to call an hour before first...

Why is that in your opinion? In the US, passenger trains (Amtrak) are generally hopeless as well (expensive, not punctual, etc) especially across most of the country where Amtrak operates on other company's (freight) tracks. In the northeast corridor (where Amtrak has its own tracks), its service is markedly better.

Lol Trains in the UK are shit. Every ICE Trainset and even most commuter services have way more comfort than the UK trains with uncomfortable seats, usually no tables or sockets in second class on commuter routes, a smell of shit inside the Avanti Pendolinos, and trains that should have been recycled 30 years ago.

ICE yes, RB or RE? Forget it.

I have heard this opinion over and over again but it just hasn't been my experience. I've spent a lot of time in both Berlin and Munich over the last couple of years and I never waited more than 10 minutes for a train

It's not that bad, but if you have Switzerland south of you, every single of your trains look bad.

(Take it with a bit of neighbourly humour.)

It’s not an opinion anymore, it’s fact. A huge percentage of trains are late in Germany because of crumbling infrastructure here.

This would be a promotion piece if it was written for the US or Ireland

https://www.thelocal.de/20230410/more-than-a-third-of-german...

Not sure what point you're getting at, but you can see vast majority of trains in Ireland (over 90% from eyeballing this page) are on time[1].

[1] https://www.irishrail.ie/en-ie/about-us/train-punctuality-re...

The cross country ones aren't really of interest to me. Those don't move a whole lot of volume. The inner city transportation such as the DART is what most people use and it's punctuality rating is closer to 70%. I'd love to know how they measure that though because I took the DART 5 days a week for months and it was not on time far more often than it was. The people here literally don't bother checking the listed times because they're wrong. Show up at the station and pray one arrives within the hour

When people talk about Deutsche Bahn being unreliable, they are talking about the cross-country regional / ICE network, not city rail (S-Bahn etc in Berlin, Hamburg are frequent and pretty reliable).

You may have had a good experience here in Germany as a tourist, but it's simply not reality. Trains are not reliably on time here these days, and it's a huge problem.

I do not doubt the DART is unreliable in Dublin, the buses are just as bad (I moved to Germany from Dublin a little over a year ago). I know it's a bit apples to oranges comparison between Germany and Ireland, but I can assure you, it is bad here in Germany currently!

Ah, that changes things. I haven't ridden the cross-country trains there much. Thanks for the clarification

No worries. The city transport here in Germany is on another level, incredibly efficient and reliable, I agree there!

I've had terrible experience with intercities train with delays that were more than 25% of the length of the trip. Once I was waiting for a train that was an hour late. The next train on the same line even arrived before the train I was waiting.

I've traveled in a lot of countries and used train in a lot of them, none of them have been quite as bad as DB when it comes to reliability.

And the recent articles that claim only around 60% of trains arrive on time bears that.

The reliability of trains in Germany is horrible compared to the planned and published timetables.

However, there are typically many more connections than in many other countries. Don't expect to be at your destination in time, but once you have accepted that travelling by train is still better than in many other countries. Yes, Switzerland plays in a different league.

Cars get stuck in traffic jams all the time. Still I don't hear frequently how horrible travelling by car is.

Things must have really changed. Back in 1998 I did a month long trip around Germany on whatever the ticket was called to travel as much as you wanted for that month. I never had issues and I loved it all.

Indeed, my limited experience with German trains is awful.

There are lines in Switzerland where some of the trains doing it are DB trains transiting through CH and going from or to Germany. These trains also pickup and drop off passengers in CH, doing the same stops as the national trains.

I’ve learnt to avoid these German trains like the plague: they’re often late, crowded, dirty, or even canceled at the last minute.

Even if they (in theory) offer a shorter travel time, I know by now it’s mostly fictional because of the issues above. I prefer to take the SBB train that I’m sure will show up even if it means the trip will be 30 min longer.

I mean, you could argue that given how bad the state of our rail infrastructure is overall, being punctual on slightly over 50% of trips could be counted as efficient?

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