EN ROUTE TO BERLIN — When the 12:06 p.m. Intercity Express pulls out of Bern and slips across the border, a quiet resignation settles over the carriage: Swiss punctuality ends where Germany begins. In Switzerland, trains are famously precise; here, timetables feel more like suggestions.
Elisabeth Eisel, 57, makes the seven-hour run frequently. “Trains in Switzerland are always on time, unless they’re arriving from Germany,” she says. “Harsh but true. It didn’t used to be that way.”
Decades of underinvestment have chipped away at another national boast: German efficiency. Deutsche Bahn’s long-distance services are now among Europe’s least punctual. In October the operator set another unwanted benchmark, with only about half of long-distance trains arriving on time.
Punctuality is only one symptom. The state-owned company is running at a loss, and passengers complain of unreliable or nonexistent Wi‑Fi, messed-up seat reservations, missing carriages and frequent, enigmatic announcements about “technical problems.”
The government has responded with a pledged 100-billion-euro injection into rail infrastructure, but activists and industry insiders say cash alone won’t cure the system. Lukas Iffländer, vice chair of passenger lobby Pro Bahn, argues the damage stretches back years. “We are now paying the price for years and years of neglect, basically since 1998,” he says. He adds that the troubles are not only physical — decaying track and aging signals — but organizational: an overly bureaucratic network operator where every task is slow and complex.
Iffländer also calls Deutsche Bahn top-heavy: too few frontline staff like train engineers and signal operators, and too many managers in offices. Recent reporting in Der Spiegel suggested senior staff had agreed to cancel some long-distance services to improve punctuality figures, since canceled trains are excluded from the statistics. Deutsche Bahn denied manipulating official data and said the report relied on dispatcher chat messages rather than the formal records.
The effects are visible on everyday journeys. On an 11:18 a.m. service from Munich to Berlin, passengers were packed beyond capacity after another fully booked ICE was canceled at short notice. Many stood for hours; yet the atmosphere remained oddly upbeat.
Catherine Launay, 51, a French traveler who managed to find a seat, laughed that French passengers might have protested by now. Deutsche Bahn has even leaned into the absurdity with a mockumentary series on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube about a beleaguered train crew — complete with a dance number and the catchphrase “zenk yoo for träveling wiz Deutsche Bahn.” The clips are popular, albeit often unwatchable in transit because the onboard Wi‑Fi can’t handle streaming.
A conductor’s wry send-off — wishing passengers a pleasant journey “as far as it’s possible” and quipping “we should just about make it to Berlin” — drew laughter and a rueful cheer.
Federal Transport Minister Patrick Schnieder warned that many see the rail problems as a reflection of broader state dysfunction. Evelyn Palla, the new CEO recruited from Austrian Federal Railways, has pledged to slim management and boost efficiency, but she has cautioned there is no quick fix.
When the train finally rolls into Berlin Hauptbahnhof, travelers step onto the platform with weary acceptance. Whether the root cause is aging infrastructure, swollen bureaucracy or political neglect, Germany’s once-proud rail network is plainly in need of a major course correction.