by It’s been a bad couple of weeks for Germany’s feted rail network. Striking train drivers halted the grinding of the system last Thursday and Friday, and are promising more to come. Meanwhile Washington-based research company the Center for Consumer Choice has ranked Bremen’s Hauptbahnhof last out of 50 European stations, in its annual Train Station Index. It found that “more than 43 percent of trains were delayed”, that there were “only nine shops”, and “no access to free Wi-Fi”.
The Germans will not be surprised by the bad publicity. They probably have a (very long) word for putting the shoe into their national rail network, as it is now a national pastime. And the statistics certainly don’t look good for a nation with a reputation for efficiency. Long-distance train punctuality is down at 73 per cent, compared to the UK’s performance rating of 79 per cent. But Deutsche Bahn says around 75 percent of those delays are because the trains are moving through at least one construction site, due to its massive investment and renovation program.
Personally, I don’t have much to complain about from recent experience. I have just come back from a trip from Berlin to the Baltic, down to Dresden and back to Berlin. Two of those journeys involved three trains, with 10-15 minute connections between each. All worked fine. Each train was comfortable, had plenty of space, and a plug socket next to my seat to keep all my devices in place. And if you look more closely at that European Rail Station Index, Zurich comes out on top (ah, those Swiss trains!), but there are two German hubs, Berlin and Frankfurt, in the top ten.
Meanwhile the network is adding new events, so some of this is growing. Sleepers have recently been introduced from Hamburg to Copenhagen, and Berlin to Paris, and later this month, the European Sleeper, the most convenient of UK travelers connecting Brussels to Berlin to until now, expanding its service to Dresden and eventually Prague. . On the way he will be offering a stop right in the heart of the Saxon Switzerland, a mountainous area of forests on the banks of the Elbe that is much appreciated by hikers and artists (including Caspar David Friedrich, whose anniversary is big in 2024). I traveled on that train in January, and although the carriages are ironically old – Eastern Europe from the late 1970s – the 11-hour journey to Berlin was just on time.
Over many years of German train travel I can only recall two times when my journeys went a bit in a die Hose (literally “in the trousers”, aka pear-shaped). One of them was on an international train from Amsterdam to Cologne, which had to change locomotives once across the border. The Dutch loco dismounted and slowed down, looking smug, but his German counterpart didn’t dare look remotely embarrassed when he finally got up, 45 minutes late.
The other occasion was when Deutsche Bahn introduced a €49 per month bargain pass for the first time, back in 2022, a popular idea that has since been partially adopted by Spain and is being introduced in France this year.
I was on a train from Hamburg to Rostock and the seaside on a summer Friday evening, and I was not alone, far from it. In fact the crowd was so big that the train conductor lost her and called the police. They called repeatedly for people to get off, but no one stopped them – no one was doing anything illegal – and the train finally left, fully loaded. It was very amusing to see how unhinged the German railway officials could be when faced with the kind of overcrowding that British trains regularly experience.
Part of the problem facing the German network is its sheer scale. It has 20,753 miles of rail, double the UK’s 10,072, and moves a lot of freight as well as passengers. In many rural areas it runs like a local bus, stopping at almost every lamp post. For international travelers, that means keeping track of train designations. The ICEs (Inter City Express), ICs and EuroCity trains cost a bit more, and do what they say on the ticket. At the other end of the scale are the RB (RegionalBahn, stops everywhere) and RE (RegionalExpress, faster, with fewer stops) trains.
Many of the faster trains offer wifi, as do the stations, which makes me think that Bremen must have caught the inspector on a bad day. Many times I have sat in a station bakery/coffee shop with my laptop fully connected. Station bakeries are ubiquitous, with irresistible käsestange crusty bread smothered in bacon and melted cheese, but there are other types of restaurant as well. Hamburg has no less than 24 outlets, from sushi and vegan to Indian. What UK station can match that?
From an architectural point of view, some of these buildings are up there with the great railway cathedrals of Europe. Its main hall features Cologne’s huge curved glass roof, like something out of Kew Gardens but ten times bigger. The Frankfurt roof, too, makes very decorative curves. And then there are the new ones, especially the Berlin Hauptbahnhof, built like a layer cake, a mesmerizing open plan spaghetti junction of railways coming from different angles on different levels.
Some of the lesser-known stations are gems: I like Görlitz, in the southernmost corner against the Polish border, with its art nouveau interior and echoing vacuum. And Leipzig, also art nouveau, with its huge arch and light sandstone facade earned the title of the third best railway station in Europe back in 2020. Back then, just four years ago, no less than five of the ten best station in itself. -there were Germans in the same Consumer Choice Center survey.
Daresay Deutsche Bahn is currently more concerned than Washington-based surveys, especially if the strikes continue. But if he wants the Freundschaftsbezeugung (friendly relationship) he wants to get back with his customers, some stock-pulling is clearly needed.
