It’s been a bad few weeks for Germany’s rail network. Striking train drivers brought much of the system to a halt last Thursday and Friday, and they promise more to come. Meanwhile, the Center for Consumer Choice, a Washington-based research firm, placed Bremen’s Hauptbahnhof in a solid last place among 50 European stations in its annual Train Station Index. It was found that “more than 43 percent of trains were late”, there were “only nine shops” and “there was no free wifi”.
Germans won’t be surprised by the bad publicity. They probably have a (very long) word for putting luggage on national rail networks, because it’s become a national pastime. And the statistics certainly don’t look good for a country with a reputation for efficiency. Long-distance train punctuality has fallen to 73 per cent, compared to a performance rate of 79 per cent in the UK. But Deutsche Bahn says around 75 percent of these delays are caused by trains passing through at least one construction site due to massive investment and renovation programmes.
I personally have little to complain about recent experiences. I’ve just returned from a trip from Berlin to the Baltic to Dresden to Berlin. Two of these trips involved three trains, each with a 10-15 minute connection between them. All worked fine. Each train was comfortable, there was plenty of room and there was an outlet next to my seat to keep all my gadgets organized. If you take a closer look at the European Train Station Index, Zurich comes first (ah, those Swiss trains!), but there are also two German hubs in the top ten, Berlin and Frankfurt.
Meanwhile, the network is adding new departures, so some of them are causing growing pains. There have been new sleeper introductions from Hamburg to Copenhagen and Berlin to Paris, and towards the end of this month the European Sleeper, hitherto one of the best sleepers for travelers in the UK, connecting Brussels to Berlin, is launching its service from Dresden. e and eventually expands to Prague. . On the way, it will offer a stop right in the heart of Saxon Switzerland, a mountainous woodland on the banks of the Elbe, much loved by hikers and artists (including Caspar David Friedrich, who celebrates his big anniversary in 2024). I traveled on that train in January, and although the carriages were frankly awful – in Eastern Europe from the late 1970s onwards – the 11-hour journey reached Berlin on time.
I can recall two occasions over the years of German rail travel where my journeys continued with a bit of Hose (literally “in the pants”, aka pear-shaped). One of them was on an international train from Amsterdam to Cologne and had to change locomotives when he crossed the border. The Dutch locomotive disconnected and rolled away looking smug, but its German equivalent didn’t have the decency to look even remotely embarrassed when it finally emerged 45 minutes late.
The other event was Deutsche Bahn’s first introduction of the €49 per month pass bargain in 2022; The idea proved so popular that it has since been partially adopted by Spain and is being introduced in France this year.
One summer Friday afternoon I was on a train from Hamburg to Rostock and the seaside, and I wasn’t alone, I was far from there. In fact, it was so crowded that the train conductor lost his cool and called the police. They repeatedly called for people to get off, but no one moved, no one was doing anything illegal, and eventually the train set off completely full. It was somewhat amusing to see how baffled Germany’s railway authorities could be when faced with the overcrowding that was quite common on British trains.
Part of the problem facing the German network is its scale. It has a railway length of 20,753 miles, twice the UK’s 10,072 miles, and carries a lot of freight as well as passengers. It operates like a local bus for many rural areas and stops at almost every lamppost. For international travelers, this means being wary of train descriptions. ICEs (Intercity Express), ICs and EuroCity trains are slightly more expensive and do what they say. At the other end of the scale are RB trains (RegionalBahn, stops everywhere) and RE (RegionalExpress, faster, with fewer stops).
Most high-speed trains and stations have Wi-Fi, which makes me think Bremen caught the inspector on a bad day. Most of the time I sat in a station oven/cage with my laptop fully connected. Station bakeries are ubiquitous with their irresistible käsestange crusty breads dipped in bacon and melted cheese; but there are other types of meals as well. There are no fewer than 24 outlets in Hamburg, from sushi and vegan to Indian cuisine. What UK station can match this?
Architecturally, some of these buildings stand next to the great railway cathedrals of Europe. Cologne’s main hall has a giant curved glass roof, straight out of Kew Gardens but ten times bigger. Frankfurt’s roof also has very ornate curves. And then there are the new ones, notably the Berlin Hauptbahnhof, a charming open-plan spaghetti junction of railways built like a layer cake, coming in at different levels from different angles.
Some of the lesser-known stations are undiscovered gems: In the farthest south-east corner, across the Polish border, I love Görlitz, with its art nouveau interiors and echoing emptiness. And at the same time, Leipzig, in the art nouveau style, won the title of the third best train station in Europe in 2020, with its huge arches and light sandstone facade. At that time, just four years ago, at least five of the world’s top ten stations—in the same Center for Consumer Choice survey—were German.
I think Deutsche Bahn has bigger concerns right now than the Washington-based polls, especially if these strikes continue. But if he wants to re-establish the Freundschaftsbezeugung (friendly relationship) he wants to establish with his customers, some support is clearly required.