4 ms·

This is an international site and I think people don’t understand just how big Deutsche Bahn’s problems with delays are and how incredible dissatisfied its cust

This is an international site and I think people don’t understand just how big Deutsche Bahn’s problems with delays are and how incredible dissatisfied its customers are. The situation with DB is really unique compared to its neighbors in any direction. While the tech described probably has merits, anyone who has been near DB lately would instinctively go: why are you doing this when you cannot get the basics right?

lukan 2y ago
Or basic information about when and where a train comes late or not at all. Sometimes the information is there and correct - sometimes not at all or is wrong and 100+ people waiting for a train that is never coming. Experienced that way too often. But hey, the Bahn management achieved all their self proclaimed targets (non of them related to reliable trains) so they surely deserved their fat bonus.
marsRoverDev 2y ago
I fly to germany when I can, or take any other operator's train. I am way, way more familiar with Karlsruhe than I would like to be.
jamil7 2y ago
It’s also gotten so expensive and unreliable that some people I’ve spoken to are just driving again instead whereas years ago they would have always gone by train. I can’t help but feel that the weird ownership model contributes to this and the whole company should just be properly nationalised.
- tetris11 2y ago
  Hell I used to bike 20km to work to avoid it
panick21_ 2y ago
DB is a gigantic organization. Do you think it is reasonable for them not not make progress or advancement in anything as long as the ICE delays are not fixed? They can never change a train interior, improve the food menu, or 1000s of other things? This is a totally unreasonable suggestion. The reason for DB reliability problem is 50+ years of infrastructure neglect, fixing it will not be improved by shutting down every other group at DB. Personally having traveled threw Germany many times, its a mostly amazing. Yes sometimes trains are late sometimes, but the trains themselves are great and travel in them is a joy. I think what Germans don't understand is how good they have it compared to many places in the world.
- tetris11 2y ago
  But they had it better only a few years ago. DB has really crumbled.
- probably_wrong 2y ago
  Someone turned on the DB signal[1] so here I am. > sometimes trains are late sometimes, but the trains themselves are great and travel in them is a joy. "Sometimes"? Let me tell you about my friends in the German area of NRW. The one that commutes far away regularly gets stranded on the way because the trains arrive so late that there's no connection home till the next day and because, of the two lines that take her home, one is closed. The second one commutes within the city and has decided to buy a car because the SBahn was closed for over a year with a repair that took longer than planned. The other two don't even consider trains in their daily life. My GF at the time had a year-long line closure, we moved to a place with a year-long train closure and I'm living now in an area where my regular train won't run until November (assuming no delay). Yes, DB trains are pretty nice on the inside. Quiet, too. But what good is a nice train that doesn't take me to where I need to go, or at all? If anything, I think those that don't rely on the trains daily fail to realize how bad the situation is. Ten minutes delay on the one ICE trip on holidays? Sure, whatever, it's fine. Ten minutes delay on a five minutes connection to work? Enjoy wasting half an hour of your life every other day, like I did during my studies. Switzerland has cut DB off [2] and Scottish fans received warnings [3] about how unreliable German trains are. It is bad. [1] The DB signal is like the bat signal for comments downplaying DBs issues, but you often don't see it because there's a "Signalstörung" and it shows up an hour later. They usually apologize for the inconvenience. [2] https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/deutsche-bahn-services-cut-swiss-rail-due-repeated-delays https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/deutsch... [3] https://www.indonewyork.com/m/science/european-football-championship-dont-arrive-until-halftime-scottish-h111593.html https://www.indonewyork.com/m/science/european-football-cham...
  - panick21_ 2y ago
    Look I understand all that. And Im all for fixing it. But its still objectivly better then in many other places. Rail overall in Germany is great. ICE are the weakness for sure. But its still much better then many other places in the world.
mschuster91 2y ago
> While the tech described probably has merits, anyone who has been near DB lately would instinctively go: why are you doing this when you cannot get the basics right? DB is facing the problem that the network needs substantial overhaul - the problem is that when you do a large-scale renovation, you gotta adhere to current code, not late 19th century code (which is when quite a few of the railways had been built). And that means noise protection anywhere where the tracks are adjacent to residential areas, but NIMBYs will launch intensive protests if they get presented with a massive wall of steel in their backyard - understandably so, these things are an eyesore. So, it's a prerequisite for DB to tackle its problems... because most of them are caused by the aged infrastructure. Right next to Munich, on the route to Mühldorf, there are still mechanical switches in place, built around 1900 [1]. [1] https://www.merkur.de/lokales/erding/der-bahnausbau-nach-muehldorf-ist-eine-endlos-geschichte-sob-muenchen-muehldorf-93073614.html https://www.merkur.de/lokales/erding/der-bahnausbau-nach-mue...
- iggldiggl 2y ago
  > And that means noise protection anywhere where the tracks are adjacent to residential areas, but NIMBYs will launch intensive protests if they get presented with a massive wall of steel in their backyard - understandably so, these things are an eyesore. Though to some extent people got themselves into that situation of their own fault by constantly screaming about noise and nothing else – politicians listened and tightened up the rules for noise protection, with the result that legally noise protection is now weighted 100 % and visual aesthetics 0 %. Whereas to my knowledge the Swiss still take a somewhat more balanced approach, and don't completely disregard the visual impact of noise protection barriers.
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    > Though to some extent people got themselves into that situation of their own fault by constantly screaming about noise and nothing else It's not like they don't have a point... a lot of former switchyards were converted to residential use in the early 90s and ever since then, but of course the rail tracks that these yards were laid adjacent to still kept operating, and freight trains make an awful lot of noise. Silent-brake requirements (basically, composite brake pads instead of the old metal-on-metal pads) have eased the noise emissions quite a bit, but damages in the wheels ("flat spots") or in axles still cause persistent and annoying noise. Unfortunately, 99.999% of freight cars are still dumb as fuck and have no sensorics on-board to detect issues, so it takes a loooong time until such cars are taken out of service. Maybe with the adoption of the new automated couplers ("DAK") that are in research at the moment, this will change as all cars have to be retrofit with electricity and smart components anyway so it is cheap to install monitoring on wheels and axles, but that will take another few years. Additionally, the tracks themselves can cause ungodly amounts of noise due to neglected maintenance. Where rails aren't (properly!) welded together, they cause a bump noise, switches need to be properly lubricated and the wheels need lubrication as well to prevent those horrible screeches... but DB hasn't had the money to properly take care of that for decades now. > Whereas to my knowledge the Swiss still take a somewhat more balanced approach, and don't completely disregard the visual impact of noise protection barriers. The Swiss have more silent rail in the first place. Lots of rail-side detectors to check for damages on passing rail cars (an absolute necessity due to the high amount of tunnels, you do not want a train de-railing due to an axle or wheel issue inside a tunnel and catching fire) and about 5-6x the amount per capita invested into their rail system every year. On top of that, Germany has to deal with rail cars (and trucks) from across the entirety of Europe passing through it - basically all transport from the Dutch and German sea ports towards Eastern and South Eastern Europe goes through Germany, the Swiss have to deal with far less traffic than we do.
jonp888 2y ago
No other railway has to deal with with so much traffic on infrastructure that is so old and out of step with the demands placed on it. People tend to obsess over DB and it's management, but they only control maintenance. All decisions about renovations are made by the government. So what do you want? - Wait years for large renovation projects on all major routes, including lengthy closures for work(the current strategy) - Cancel 25-50%% of all trains permanently, if then people can't travel because it's impossible to get through the door, tough The latter one is the French solution - just run very few trains, regardless of demand. The last time I wanted to travel by train in France, I simply couldn't because all trains on the route for the entire day were 100% sold out. Then there's Spain. The last time I wanted to travel there, I didn't because the first(!) train of the day left at lunchtime and arrived mid-afternoon.

lukan 2y ago

Or basic information about when and where a train comes late or not at all. Sometimes the information is there and correct - sometimes not at all or is wrong and 100+ people waiting for a train that is never coming. Experienced that way too often. But hey, the Bahn management achieved all their self proclaimed targets (non of them related to reliable trains) so they surely deserved their fat bonus.

marsRoverDev 2y ago

I fly to germany when I can, or take any other operator's train. I am way, way more familiar with Karlsruhe than I would like to be.

jamil7 2y ago

It’s also gotten so expensive and unreliable that some people I’ve spoken to are just driving again instead whereas years ago they would have always gone by train. I can’t help but feel that the weird ownership model contributes to this and the whole company should just be properly nationalised.

tetris11 2y ago
Hell I used to bike 20km to work to avoid it

panick21_ 2y ago

DB is a gigantic organization. Do you think it is reasonable for them not not make progress or advancement in anything as long as the ICE delays are not fixed? They can never change a train interior, improve the food menu, or 1000s of other things? This is a totally unreasonable suggestion. The reason for DB reliability problem is 50+ years of infrastructure neglect, fixing it will not be improved by shutting down every other group at DB. Personally having traveled threw Germany many times, its a mostly amazing. Yes sometimes trains are late sometimes, but the trains themselves are great and travel in them is a joy. I think what Germans don't understand is how good they have it compared to many places in the world.

tetris11 2y ago
But they had it better only a few years ago. DB has really crumbled.
probably_wrong 2y ago
Someone turned on the DB signal[1] so here I am. > sometimes trains are late sometimes, but the trains themselves are great and travel in them is a joy. "Sometimes"? Let me tell you about my friends in the German area of NRW. The one that commutes far away regularly gets stranded on the way because the trains arrive so late that there's no connection home till the next day and because, of the two lines that take her home, one is closed. The second one commutes within the city and has decided to buy a car because the SBahn was closed for over a year with a repair that took longer than planned. The other two don't even consider trains in their daily life. My GF at the time had a year-long line closure, we moved to a place with a year-long train closure and I'm living now in an area where my regular train won't run until November (assuming no delay). Yes, DB trains are pretty nice on the inside. Quiet, too. But what good is a nice train that doesn't take me to where I need to go, or at all? If anything, I think those that don't rely on the trains daily fail to realize how bad the situation is. Ten minutes delay on the one ICE trip on holidays? Sure, whatever, it's fine. Ten minutes delay on a five minutes connection to work? Enjoy wasting half an hour of your life every other day, like I did during my studies. Switzerland has cut DB off [2] and Scottish fans received warnings [3] about how unreliable German trains are. It is bad. [1] The DB signal is like the bat signal for comments downplaying DBs issues, but you often don't see it because there's a "Signalstörung" and it shows up an hour later. They usually apologize for the inconvenience. [2] https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/deutsche-bahn-services-cut-swiss-rail-due-repeated-delays https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/deutsch... [3] https://www.indonewyork.com/m/science/european-football-championship-dont-arrive-until-halftime-scottish-h111593.html https://www.indonewyork.com/m/science/european-football-cham...
- panick21_ 2y ago
  Look I understand all that. And Im all for fixing it. But its still objectivly better then in many other places. Rail overall in Germany is great. ICE are the weakness for sure. But its still much better then many other places in the world.

mschuster91 2y ago

> While the tech described probably has merits, anyone who has been near DB lately would instinctively go: why are you doing this when you cannot get the basics right? DB is facing the problem that the network needs substantial overhaul - the problem is that when you do a large-scale renovation, you gotta adhere to current code, not late 19th century code (which is when quite a few of the railways had been built). And that means noise protection anywhere where the tracks are adjacent to residential areas, but NIMBYs will launch intensive protests if they get presented with a massive wall of steel in their backyard - understandably so, these things are an eyesore. So, it's a prerequisite for DB to tackle its problems... because most of them are caused by the aged infrastructure. Right next to Munich, on the route to Mühldorf, there are still mechanical switches in place, built around 1900 [1]. [1] https://www.merkur.de/lokales/erding/der-bahnausbau-nach-muehldorf-ist-eine-endlos-geschichte-sob-muenchen-muehldorf-93073614.html https://www.merkur.de/lokales/erding/der-bahnausbau-nach-mue...

iggldiggl 2y ago
> And that means noise protection anywhere where the tracks are adjacent to residential areas, but NIMBYs will launch intensive protests if they get presented with a massive wall of steel in their backyard - understandably so, these things are an eyesore. Though to some extent people got themselves into that situation of their own fault by constantly screaming about noise and nothing else – politicians listened and tightened up the rules for noise protection, with the result that legally noise protection is now weighted 100 % and visual aesthetics 0 %. Whereas to my knowledge the Swiss still take a somewhat more balanced approach, and don't completely disregard the visual impact of noise protection barriers.
- mschuster91 2y ago
  > Though to some extent people got themselves into that situation of their own fault by constantly screaming about noise and nothing else It's not like they don't have a point... a lot of former switchyards were converted to residential use in the early 90s and ever since then, but of course the rail tracks that these yards were laid adjacent to still kept operating, and freight trains make an awful lot of noise. Silent-brake requirements (basically, composite brake pads instead of the old metal-on-metal pads) have eased the noise emissions quite a bit, but damages in the wheels ("flat spots") or in axles still cause persistent and annoying noise. Unfortunately, 99.999% of freight cars are still dumb as fuck and have no sensorics on-board to detect issues, so it takes a loooong time until such cars are taken out of service. Maybe with the adoption of the new automated couplers ("DAK") that are in research at the moment, this will change as all cars have to be retrofit with electricity and smart components anyway so it is cheap to install monitoring on wheels and axles, but that will take another few years. Additionally, the tracks themselves can cause ungodly amounts of noise due to neglected maintenance. Where rails aren't (properly!) welded together, they cause a bump noise, switches need to be properly lubricated and the wheels need lubrication as well to prevent those horrible screeches... but DB hasn't had the money to properly take care of that for decades now. > Whereas to my knowledge the Swiss still take a somewhat more balanced approach, and don't completely disregard the visual impact of noise protection barriers. The Swiss have more silent rail in the first place. Lots of rail-side detectors to check for damages on passing rail cars (an absolute necessity due to the high amount of tunnels, you do not want a train de-railing due to an axle or wheel issue inside a tunnel and catching fire) and about 5-6x the amount per capita invested into their rail system every year. On top of that, Germany has to deal with rail cars (and trucks) from across the entirety of Europe passing through it - basically all transport from the Dutch and German sea ports towards Eastern and South Eastern Europe goes through Germany, the Swiss have to deal with far less traffic than we do.

jonp888 2y ago

No other railway has to deal with with so much traffic on infrastructure that is so old and out of step with the demands placed on it. People tend to obsess over DB and it's management, but they only control maintenance. All decisions about renovations are made by the government. So what do you want? - Wait years for large renovation projects on all major routes, including lengthy closures for work(the current strategy) - Cancel 25-50%% of all trains permanently, if then people can't travel because it's impossible to get through the door, tough The latter one is the French solution - just run very few trains, regardless of demand. The last time I wanted to travel by train in France, I simply couldn't because all trains on the route for the entire day were 100% sold out. Then there's Spain. The last time I wanted to travel there, I didn't because the first(!) train of the day left at lunchtime and arrived mid-afternoon.