As a Dutchman, I’ve come to love German trains. The joy of a first class ICE seat to with table service as the empty middle of Germany swooshes by at 250km/h is hard to describe. Those trains are very good. Super comfortable, super fast, and did anyone say “restaurant car”? Seriously, the little bottle holes in the tray in front of you seems perfectly designed to fit a .5L glass of Erdinger and I don’t believe it’s a coincidence. Freshly tapped Erdinger! On a train! I generally travel for the destination, but in Germany, I travel for the travel.

So as a fanboy, I am saddened by how bad DB has become. Once you’re on the train, and it actually goes, and it goes all the way to the destination, it’s still fantastic. All of the above generally still holds. But the many hours I’ve spent in the dark in cold windy places like Duisburg Hbf gleis fünf are uncountable, and it really does discount from the experience. I don’t remember the German trains being this late, this often, a ~decade ago. I really hope DB will get its shit together because there’s a lot worth saving.

> I don’t remember the German trains being this late, this often, a ~decade ago.

Except: they were - over 20 years ago, I did my „Grundwehrdienst“ in the German army, travel with DB from Nuremberg to Munich and back every weekend for 8 months.

The number of times the ICE was on time I can count on one hand. 15 minutes delayed regularly, sometimes more.

After a while we planned to use the last train to arrive in Munich, and having to go a bit further with S-Bahn, we most of the time missed the last one (on purpose).

We then went to the DB counter and got free coupons to head our final destination by Taxi.

Also already happening back then: broken aircon, often in comical ways - I.e. totally non working in one wagon, with everyone sweating at some 45 degrees Celsius or more, next wagon: freezing at 16 degrees…