Germany’s Tardy Trains Derail National Psyche

Germany, the land of meticulous planning and clockwork punctuality, can’t seem to make its trains run on time.

Last year, a third of all long-distance trains operated by Germany’s national railway company Deutsche Bahn ran late, the worst showing in 10 years, deepening an existential crisis in a country where failing to show up on time is verboten.

“This is an embarrassment, it is a cultural crisis for the German people,” said Andreas Knie, a professor of transport policy at the Berlin Social Science Center. “We love to brag about how we are the best, we are the most efficient, but the late Deutsche Bahn, and our failing football team, are proof that we aren’t making great things anymore,” apparently referring to the fact that both the German men’s and women’s soccer teams failed to advance in the most recent World Cups, to the country’s great dismay.

A Deutsche Bahn spokesperson blamed the delays on rising traffic, aging infrastructure and construction projects. “We expressly regret this,” he said. 

The delays are forcing Germans, who learn from a young age that “pünktlichkeit (punctuality) is the politeness of kings,” to make ever-more-complex travel plans. Stefan Bonauer, a 34-year-old teacher who lives in a suburb an hour outside of Munich, now wakes at 4 a.m. to ensure that he can make the 90-minute trip to the city in time for his 8 a.m. class. On his days off, he prefers to take his motorcycle to meet friends in the city. “I just can’t trust the train,” he said. 

DB, as the company is often called, is scrambling to soothe the nerves of its seething riders. It experimented with calming scents in its coaches, a move that prompted the German tabloid Bild to accuse it of “scent doping.” The state is pouring in €45 billion, or $49.28 billion, to upgrade the tracks. And in a rare act of German corporate self-flagellation, the train company has started trolling itself on the social-media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. 

In June, T.C. Boyle, an American novelist, skewered Deutsche Bahn on Twitter for their tardy trains during a trip to Germany. “We’re doing all we can to give you enough time to write,” DB shot back. 

Onboard announcements provide some comic relief for raging passengers. “The train driver has not yet arrived because of another delayed train. Unfortunately, we are currently blocking the track for his train. We are curious ourselves how this will be resolved,” admitted one announcement, which was featured on a segment in a German comedy show. 

In neighboring Switzerland, where trains still run like a proverbial Swiss clock, officials are now proposing banning the serially late Deutsche Bahn, for fear that German delays are tarnishing Switzerland’s own record of peerless timekeeping. “There is no comparable problem with Italian trains,” said Michael Müller, a spokesperson for the Swiss Federal Office of Transport. 

The Swiss rate of late arrivals: just 7.5%. Already, trains arriving from Germany that are more than 15 minutes late are stopped in the border city of Basel, and passengers are required to board a Swiss train, instead.

Swiss passengers have also had enough of the unreliable Deutsche Bahn, which manages some cross-border routes in the alpine country. 

“I just don’t trust it,” said Cyril Flaig, a student who commutes between Zurich and St. Gallen, Swiss cities that are connected by a DB-run route. “I prefer to take a Swiss train than a German one, because I know that Deutsche Bahn ends up making everyone late.”

The train fiasco is the latest national embarrassment for a country that for years basked in its reputation as a ruthlessly efficient European powerhouse blessed with an unparalleled manufacturing base. Today its economy is sputtering from its dependence on Russian gas and weak demand for its exports. 

Venting about Germany’s transport travails has become the national zeitgeist. 

A popular meme features an upside-down DB logo, with a small train now appearing as a screaming rider. “By turning the logo upside-down, you can see the passenger,” the caption reads. “My most German habit is getting upset about the Deutsche Bahn,” says one person’s dating app profile. 

The Sturm und Drang has been long in the making. 

In 1994, five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Deutsche Bahn was born to unify the train lines of capitalist West Germany and communist East Germany. But DB’s management later turned to nonrail activities, such as a logistics business, and expanding abroad while neglecting rail investments at home, according to a March report from the German federal auditor. 

The government, which owns 100% of DB’s shares, also failed to keep things on track. Last year, the federal government spent a quarter as much per person on rail improvements as Switzerland, according to data from Allianz pro Schiene, a pro-rail advocacy group. 

Germany’s highly congested rail network, which is one of the world’s densest, has seen usage grow by 50% since DB’s creation in 1994, while its total length of track has shrunk by 14%, according to Allianz pro Schiene. A recently introduced €49 universal ticket is leading to a further spike in passengers. Staff shortages, strikes, and even the small doors that passengers need to cram into to board add to the waits. 

On July 19, Vera Meinert, a 29-year old consultant from Munich, was returning home from a hiking holiday in Switzerland when her DB train was forced to stop its trip suddenly due to a blockage on the tracks. She and hundreds of other passengers raced to pile into one of three nearby buses. The slowest runners in the crowd would have to languish in over 90 degree heat until the buses returned.

After her packed bus took her to another train, she arrived two hours later than expected in Munich, she said, noting, “That’s how I knew it, vacation’s over, I’m back in Germany.”

Write to Humza Jilani at [email protected]