Punctuality of Deutsche Bahn's long-distance trains down to 51.5%

Posted by Mark (Schwerin) on 11/03/25 07:27 PM

Relevant for actual travel planning with long-distance trains in Germany.

"Punctuality of Deutsche Bahn's long-distance services reached another low point in October. Only 51.5 % of trains were less than six minutes late. Deutsche Bahn confirmed this in a report in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. The reasons for this are the poor condition of the rail infrastructure and the many roadworks that result from it.

In addition, there were short-term disruptions to points or overhead lines as well as external factors such as severe weather. “Train congestion quickly affects the entire network and impacts punctuality nationwide,” the newspaper quoted a DB spokesperson as saying." (source)

Info: in Feb 2025 this value was 66.3%. Roughly this means that 2 of 3 trains were on time (max. + 6 mins) 10 months ago and this is now down to nearly only every 2nd train (source).

Important to know: Not included in these numbers are canceled train connections.

Posted by Frank II

Freedonia

11/03/25 07:30 PM

18049 posts

Ten minutes late today. However, in the DB app, they put "Delay not in Germany." (It was in Austria.)

Posted by Kenko

Citizen of the World

11/03/25 08:08 PM

3712 posts

The German airlines can thank Deutsche Bahn for any bump in their business.

Posted by Jmo

11/03/25 10:28 PM

81 posts

Just returned from a week in Germany. We took several trains, Boppard to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Munich, Munich to Heidelberg, and several shorter regional trains. Only the Frankfurt to Munich train was delayed, for an hour. We also took trains from Heidelberg to Strasbourg and Strasbourg to Triberg which were also fine. All of the others were on time or just a minute or so late. We enjoyed traveling by train.

Posted by geovagriffith

11/04/25 04:50 PM

9415 posts

We lived in Germany from 87-91 and trains were never late.
However, on our trip to Bavaria last year, we had NO trains that were on time. Some are 30 minutes late. Also, we had two that were cancelled and we almost missed our transport to our river cruise.

It is sad, we never saw graffiti in Germany, but today you see it a lot, not as bad as other countries, but still not good.

What has happened to Germany?

Posted by Mr Ê 🇺🇸 🇺🇦

Republic of Texas / U.S.A. / Magyarország / Budapest

11/04/25 05:07 PM

24341 posts

My daughter lined in Bonn for a while. She said the trains were never late because being late indicated a failure to meet expectations ... and with German trains there were no expectations.

Posted by Mark OP

Schwerin

11/04/25 05:20 PM

4132 posts

A little bit over-dramatic question for me. Maybe some people did not follow history but Germany had a little bit to do with reunification after 1991. The GDR infrastructure was very much outdated, so a few thousand billions were invested there. Also the whole EU landscape changed a lot - and Germany is by various parameters the largest country in the EU with the most neighbors.

Some answers to the reasons for the rail system situation:
The whole rail infrastructure and the control systems are just old now and the fundamental renewal takes time, e. g. closing of Berlin - Hamburg for 9 months or Cologne Central for 10 days (from Nov 14 on). As mentioned the political focus was different. Furthermore Germany has not a separated fast train network. And growing demand: The rail-based passenger traffic volume grew 82% in 30 years; the traffic volume of goods on rail grew over 50%. The German rail system reached its limits and therefore also smaller impacts end in larger negative outcomes.
This PDF contains more details on 30 years of Deutsche Bahn transformation in German language.

And I agree that the current status is not acceptable.