The punctuality of the trains has been more of a joke for quite a bit, I don't think it's a big part of German identity.

The part that is really terrible are the long-distance trains. Not that the regional trains are always punctual, their reliability varies a lot per route. But they're not as bad as the long-distance trains.

One big recent improvement is the Germany ticket, for 58 EUR per month you can take any regional train or bus.

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firefax 7 days ago | parent | next [-]

I got the impression they have a different cultural definition of "late" -- they'd get as mad about a 15 minute delay as folks in the states would get about an hour plus delay.

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MrJohz 7 days ago | parent | next [-]

Maybe twenty years ago, but these days it's pretty common to have hour-long delays, or to have trains be cancelled at short notice, or rearranged such that you won't get a connection. When traveling East/West, I'd pretty much always recommend planning a buffer of at least an hour, more if your journey involves connections.

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patrickmcnamara 7 days ago | parent | prev [-]

6 minutes is late for DB. But trains are often much later (or cancelled).

	▲	firefax 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		>6 minutes is late for DB This is what I was getting at... they equated a ten minute delay in the same category as an hour plus... it was atomic, binary -- that's what I meant to get at in my post, that the level of "umph" was the same. It's my understanding the delays that prompted the OP are longer, 30+ is a big deal even in the states.

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theshrike79 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's a meme, even Duolingo's German lessons bring up "the train is late" phrases pretty early :)

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flobosg 7 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> But they're not as bad as the long-distance trains.

In my recent experience the most punctual trains I’ve taken have been long-distance ones, namely IC (as opposed to ICE). Not sure why, though.