Meh. I have lived here for 7 years, and get a bit tired of these sorts of complaints about DB coming from the US. Germans have exceedingly little, if any, patience for anything going wrong. DB is always painted as this evil, completely broken system when in fact it's been a joy compared to e.g. San Francisco.

I've only encountered flexibility and slight discomfort in a few cases where something has happened. I'm not entirely sure what Germans expect DB to do. A car had an interconnecting door problem and had to remove that car from the train. Everyone had to filter in to other cars to compensate for the lack of seating. Should they instead cancel those tickets? Or make them stand? It was a full train, and no answer is the correct one for everyone involved. I ended up giving my seat to an elderly gentleman and sat between cars on the ground. Mild discomfort but literally nobody was to blame for this. I suppose I could have gotten the next train but I didn't want to wait - that's also not DB's problem to fix.

Another time, my train was delayed for several hours. Of course I was quite annoyed but found out the reason was that someone had offed themselves in front of one of the trains before it, bringing the line to a standstill while it was dealt with.

Most of the whining I've heard about DB boils down to inconvenience in situations nobody could have predicted nor helped, and this almost insatiable attitude by some Germans that any inconvenience is an offense to Germany seems always to be directed at an otherwise highly reliable and robust trnasporation system whilst having zero other frame of reference. Seriously, come to the US or, from what I've heard, the UK. Then tell me Germany's is awful with a straight face.

This article reads exactly like that. You weren't kidnapped. You were rerouted. Don't dilute words like that, it just undermines your point.

▲ jeroenhd 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> This article reads exactly like that. You weren't kidnapped. You were rerouted.

Obviously. There's a joking undertone in those words. If they were serious, they would've called the police.

DB has gained its reputation for good reason. In this case, taking someone away into another federal state without giving them the option to get out of the train to find alternative transport. Their reasoning for not stopping seems to be purely bureaucratic.

Maybe the UK is worse; the UK is famous for its extremely high prices. The US probably is worse with the way their trains are operated. That still doesn't excuse the absolutely awful service DB provides in a country as wealthy and developed as Germany.

The worst part is that DB wasn't always this terrible. It's now playing catch-up with itself, taking care of overdue maintainance causing seruous disruptions that should've been minor annoyances years ago.

I have been advised by rail enthusiasts to make sure my train is scheduled to arrive two to three hours before my transfer, because DB will be late. A foolish friend once tried to make their transfer with only an hour and a half of scheduled margin; they missed their connection and lost their (paid-for) seat reservations.

Then there's the government side of things: we, the Dutch, want to run more and better train connections to the rest of Europe. Germany just doesn't want it to happen, though. Even when the Dutch offered to pay to have a broken bridge upgraded, the Germans turned down the offer, leaving plans for their old, outdated single track bridge in place.

DB probably works fine a lot of the time, but you shouldn't accept DB's incompetence as normal. You deserve better.

	▲	microtonal 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Even when the Dutch offered to pay to have a broken bridge upgraded, the Germans turned down the offer, leaving plans for their old, outdated single track bridge in place. Or how a bridge Friesenbrücke was hit by a ship in 2015 and the replacement is still under construction (supposed to be finished in 2026 now). As a result no train could drive between Groningen and Leer. To make the whole thing more sad, the replacement bridge has to be open 40 minutes every hour because a shipbuilder has convinced the Wasserstraßen- und Schifffahrtsamt to do so, severely constraining train traffic. No one on the other side of the border understands why they haven't built a bridge that would allow ships to pass through without opening the bridge. This kind of nonsense is very typical of German bureaucracy (I have lived there). Nobody has ambitions and nobody wants to stick their neck out.

▲ pell 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Most of the whining I've heard about DB boils down to inconvenience in situations nobody could have predicted nor helped [..]

I agree with you that there’s a lot of complaining and it does get tiresome. The German train system is one of the most complex in the world and works closer to an interconnected spider web than the typical straight line systems in other countries.

However much of this has been predicted in the past. I think that’s why a lot of people are annoyed. Here are some sources if you’re interested to read more:

(2006) Audit critique regarding the bad state of DB funding after privatization: https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/16/008/1600840.pdf

(2011) DB is not spending enough on the track network: https://taz.de/Investitionen-in-das-Schienennetz/%215117195/

(2014) State of German train bridges: https://www.zeit.de/mobilitaet/2014-09/deutsche-bahn-bruecke...

▲ cowl 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

rerouted? it was a completly different destination, much further than he was originally. there is nothing "noone can do" about stupid burecracies like "can't stop at this station because we are not registered". First they had time to register the stop when they changed the itinery, Second if they failed that somehow, and most probably because of "there was no manual how to do it", in a sittuation like these, stupid rules like that should go out of the window and the passengers be let off as soon as possible and not 60km away. Somehow they can be flexible with the people's time but not with their stupid checklists.

▲ manarth 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The key explanation for failing to stop at the station is that the train was on the wrong track.

    > "Apparently we were not registered at Troisdorf station, so we are on the wrong tracks"

Many stations have a 4 track system: a left track and right track which are adjacent to platforms, and 2 tracks in the middle, which are designed for non-stopping trains.

If the train was on the middle track, stopping would introduce risk and disruption by slowing/stopping the other trains travelling on the high-speed non-stopping line, and also endanger passengers who would have to dismount at height from the train onto an active track, cross the active track, and climb up to the platform.

Once the train was routed onto the incorrect track, correcting it was likely to be impractical (infrequent track transfer points) and stopping on the high-speed track would would be excessively disruptive and dangerous.

	▲	loglog 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It was extremely easy for that train to stop in Bonn-Beuel, which is anyway far superior to Troisdorf for a train that was originally scheduled to stop at Bonn Central Station. Failing to stop there shows perfectly how little DB cares about its passengers.
	▲	mcv 7 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Lame excuse. There has to be a better alternative than to take them an hour in the wrong direction. Stop and shunt to the right track. Stop at one of those other 15 stations they skipped. But the best would be to simply avoid these kind of unnecessary errors in the first place.

▲ microtonal 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is so typical for German bureaucracy. I used to work at a German university, which included teaching. I once had a small group of students who collectively plagiarized their coursework. Some of the group admitted doing so. I went to the examination office asking them to enforce the punishment for plagiarism (which would increasingly severe with the number of offenses).

They simply told me: this behavior ought to be punished. Which is a euphemism for but I'm not going to do it. They didn't want the hassle of potentially dealing with one out of many students filing a complaint or worst-case go to Karlsruhe (Germans know what that means). Which is exemplary of German bureaucracy, nobody wants to make decisions and carry responsibility.

I love Germany, but this is really something they need to fix going forward, because it stifles society and the economy in many ways.

▲ ernst_klim 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Most of the whining I've heard about DB boils down to inconvenience in situations nobody could have predicted nor helped

Somehow doesn't happen in most other countries I lived. These things are easy to deal with with a bit of redundancy, which as I've heard is lacking in Germany these days.

I've had much better experience with trains in Russia despite much harsher weather conditions, much larger distances and much older cars. This problem is absolutely fixable, just let the trains go around problematic sections with redundant routes.

▲

throw-the-towel 9 hours ago | parent [-]

On the other hand, Russian trains are absurdly slow when conpared to Europe. The flagship "high-speed" service barely does 200 km/h.

	▲	ernst_klim 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's true, but at this point I would prefer slow but steady over being disembarked at random *dorf or standstill in a middle of nowhere with zero signal and no clue when we'll get back on track.

▲ throw-the-towel 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The OP, judging by their site, lives in Germany. A lot of comments here are coming from Europeans (including Brits BTW). So, pray tell, why did you feel the need to get all defensive and blame the Murricans?

▲ gordonhart 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Nothing here suggests that the author is American beyond his blog post being shared on an American website.