How bad has German Rail become? Rail guru warns against planning swift connections

On the eve of the closure for engineering work of one of Germany’s major rail lines, many travellers are reporting serious disruption on trains run by Deutsche Bahn (German Rail, DB).

“Everyone in Germany treats delays as the norm,” says one long-suffering passenger, Barry Freeman.

As soon as the Euro 2024 football tournament ended in July, the key Frankfurt to Mannheim corridor closed for six months for improvement work.

Now another important north-south line, between Karlsruhe and Freiburg in southwest Germany, is closing from 10 August for three weeks to add two extra tracks. Intercity trains will be diverted while local services will be replaced by buses.

But even without the latest shutdowns, rail passengers in Germany are encountering a wide range of problems this summer:

Now, a leading expert has warned against assuming standard train connection times will work.

During his latest trip across Germany, Mark Smith – known as The Man In Seat 61 – recommended allowing extra time to change trains when planning trips online because so many services run behind schedule.

“Always change ‘Transfer time’ from ‘normal’ to 45 minutes when using bahn.de,” he wrote on X.

One respondent said the state of the railways is the so bad that intercity passengers can save money on long journeys by going for the cheapest fare on a given day, on the basis that the connections are likely to be missed – allowing the traveller to board any other train.

“Await the magical Zugbindung aufgehoben [train connection cancelled] text to appear on your digital ticket and then take the train you actually wanted.”

Almost half of German long-distance trains were at least six minutes late at some point in their journey in June 2024.

Deutsche Bahn blames outdated track infrastructure, intensive engineering work and sheer traffic density at key hubs including Frankfurt, Cologne and Stuttgart.

Over recent weeks, the Berlin-based co-editor of Europe by Rail, Nicky Gardner, has criss-crossed Germany by train and has clearly fared better than some others. “Yes, some trains were late,” she says. “But nothing like the statistics might suggest.

“Most of the trains are making journeys which run to many hours. My own experience is that…