I used DB quite a few times last month and all of the delays and problems were listed on the trip planner website (in German and in English) despite there being no notifications at the departure station and the train driver speaking in German only when communicating.

We had a trip planned in which we needed a specific train. The website said “there has been an incident on the tracks. There will be a delay of 20-50 minutes waiting for a platform. Not all connections will be made,” and that is exactly what happened. This worked for our time window so we took the train. But there were a lot of confused and upset passengers who had absolutely no idea what was going on.

I’m sure DB has many problems, but one of them appears to be communication that surely isn’t too difficult to fix.