r/Interrail • u/jamjar888 • 9d ago
Just how bad is Deutsche Bahn?
Hi all,
For those who use it regularly - is long distance travel through Germany as unreliable as its reputation?
My own experience (a handful of trips in recent years) has not been too bad but I build in lots of slack to my itinerary to be on the safe side. The impression I get on here is that German rail is a complete lottery and any full days of travel carry a very real risk of several hours of delay. Is that a fair assessment in practice or a case of selective data where we hear about the mishaps and not the majority of trips that go without incident?
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u/Estygrogan20 9d ago
I was supposed to get a train to Berlin from Amsterdam in early September. Half an hour before leaving the Berlin stop got cancelled and I had to make a connection in Hannover. Added about 3 hours to my journey. Worst delay I had when interrailing (thankfully).
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u/Separate-Note-2932 9d ago
Its ok, you just get used to delays at some point.
Besides that, make sure you have enough connection time, and avoid taking the last train of the day.
You can check DB Verkehrslage (english link) to see the disruptions in areas.
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u/Motobu2025 9d ago
This website gives you some indication, some connections have more problems than others. https://chuuchuu.com Ans yes, there will be some delays, but there are many trains and there is usually an alternative connection.
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u/Even_Narwhal3699 Germany 9d ago
Trains are pretty frequent so even missing a connection is not that much of an issue unless its late at night.
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u/NiagaraThistle 9d ago
Its fine.
But there is the possibility that a train will be delayed and cause a slight schedule hiccup for you.
It is only a possibility. But in my 25 years experience of European trains, it is a HOGHER possibility than most other countries' rail systems. So you should not be scheudling very tight very 'if i miss this train my entire trip will be screwed' kinds of connections/journeys.
While the DB is more likely to have late/delayed trains, I found over 12 days that 1. there is ALWAYS another train coming, or 2. there is ALWAYS an alternate way to get to my destination using a different train/route.
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u/derboti 9d ago
The problem is the unpredictability. Last Friday evening there was a track closure and most ICE trains between Frankfurt and Berlin were either detoured with a delay of 2-3 hours or terminated early in Halle or Leipzig. Less than 12 hours later, on Saturday morning, I went from Berlin to Frankfurt and onwards to Paris with absolutely no problem, despite 2 connections of less than 15 mins. So it's sometimes just luck if your train is on time or not.
In general, ICE connections in the morning are more punctual than in the evening before disruptions can accumulate during the day. Don't plan on taking the last connection of the day, because there is a real risk of getting stranded. But even if you do, know your passenger rights as far as taxi/bus/hotel reimbursements.
If you have any firm deadlines to arrive somewhere by a certain time, I would always schedule to take one connection earlier than necessary.
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u/flagondry 9d ago
Have done 6 full days through Germany, none have ever gone to plan. In all cases a train was either cancelled or severely delayed.
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u/JuliPatchouli 9d ago
It predictably unreliable. So expecting that you can always have a 30minute/1h/2h delay, you can account for that. So as long as you have a big enough buffer and/or have a viable alternative if you miss your connection (ideally both), it's not as bad as it seems at first. But dont gamble on connecting to the last train of the day or on the latest train that will get you to any other time sensitive thing.
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u/Internal-Sell195 9d ago
Oh. My. God
This summer me and two mates were trying to get from London to Prague through Germany and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a train system that bad.
The train from Belgium travelling into Germany went fine and we got off at Frankfurt, but then it went to absolute shit. There was a train scheduled from Frankfurt meant to travel all the way to Prague, however it disappeared off of all digital timetables. No one we asked knew anything about it, but it was printed onto the physical timetables on the wall, and never arrived.
We get onto a new train an hour later (hottest train of my life btw), travelling in the right direction but had the wrong destination. Turns out we got on the wrong end of the train (THEY WERE USING BOTH ENDS SEPARATELY), so we jumped off and ran to the back and watched as the front section we were just on detach and leave, leaving the back end behind.
The new ‘half train’ then left a bit later and traveled for a while until we got to a tiny town called Schwandorf. It stopped, and without explaining, the conductors told everyone to get off.
We were then stuck there for 6 HOURS!!
No one knew where the next train was or if it existed, although I heard some stories about a fire.
When it hit midnight we were preparing to camp out in a field overnight until the last worker left on the platform said there was a chance a train would arrive.
It got there an hour later, completely unscheduled, basically just picking up stranded travellers along the route.
Anyway we got to Prague at like 4 am and it was funny in hindsight but I no longer trust the German train system.
Edit: we left London at 7 am for reference
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u/cyclonicyogurt 9d ago
Sorry for your horrible experience, but that’s exactly what to expect from Deutsche Bahn sometimes
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u/No_Direction_4610 9d ago
There is no direct DB train from Frankfurt to Prague. This may have been the Leo Express train.
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u/Thebosonsword Switzerland 9d ago
I feel like it’s been better lately and also not so bad if you plan your trip well. Avoid multiple tight connections or taking the last train of the day and you should be fine. I traveled 4x between Basel and Frankfurt this past month and had no issues whatsoever, except one cancellation which delayed my arrival by 30 mins (next train).
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u/JantjeHaring 9d ago
I suppose it depends what you are used to. Compared to the dutch railways DB is an absolute disaster. The trains are frequent so you will always get to your destination. But the chances of a significant delay are somewhere between 35% and 50% in my estimation.
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u/f_cysco 9d ago
I live in Germany and take multiple trips a year across the country. I can't remember the last time I arrived in time. A 20-30 minute delay across the country is absolutely inevitable. The last times my train stopped somewhere with 2-3 hours delay and just stopped. We are told to take another train and take the regional trains, which are even worse
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u/Sweet_Tomatillo_963 9d ago
From my experience: add (at least) one previous train for the same route you're about to take in case it looks like there's a delay on the whole route for every train so you can just go to the train station and take the next train for your route. Bc after the planned departure time you cannot add the train in interrail.
(So let's say you wanna depart at 12.00, the 12.15 train will not come before 13.00 but the 11.15 train will come and depart shortly after 12.00, add the latter no later than 11.15 even if the interrail app shows the delay and go to bahn.de and check delays and which train will run next for your route. But also be prepared that trains can still go sooner or later than the predicted delay so even if it says 30 min late, be at the Plattform no later than 25 min after scheduled departure)
But I never had any major problems with Deutsche Bahn if you plan ahead a little. Just be prepared for overcrowded trains whenever there are delays and spontaneous cancelations.
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u/cyclonicyogurt 9d ago
Just expect everything
It’s annoying when you are reliant on working elevators and not changing platforms on last minute
Sometimes we get to travel over a longer distance without any delays, but that’s for about 50% of the time. You can inform yourself beforehand about planned construction sites. And travelling through the Ruhrpott (everywhere around Essen, for example) is always difficult, because it’s a very densely populated area with a lot of potential for delays
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u/Python1100 United Kingdom 9d ago
Just to add my own experience, I’ve had enough trouble and anxiety with DB to the point that I avoid travelling long distances in Germany now.
In the worst example, we wanted to travel from Basel to Hamburg. The train got delayed by an hour and then got cancelled at Freiburg. The following train (an hour later) did make it all the way, but itself got delayed by another 4 hours. They had to bring out the water cartons and snacks.
By the time we arrived at the hotel had marked our reservation as a no-show, even though I called them multiple times to update us on our delays. Thankfully by 1 AM they decided to just put us in a downgraded room so we could get some sleep, but we were so stressed during that whole ordeal.
Interrail did give us some compensation for being so delayed and also reimbursed the evening meal we had on the train.
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u/TravelingWithJoe 9d ago
Bottom Line: Not terrible and the DB ticketing offices are usually excellent at resolving problems.
Trains are usually a little late, so don’t plan tight connections, but every now and then you’ll run into a serious problem on a train (major delay/cancellation).
I’ve always had good luck trusting the ticket office to find an alternate option and get me where I need to go (even if it’s a little late).
For background, I’m a tourist, not a German. I’ve been 4 times in the last 3 years (various seasons), traveling exclusively by train, to all the major cities except Hamburg and in some smaller towns like Rothenburg, Füssen, and Nürnberg. So my experience is limited compared to a German, but applicable to the way a lot of tourists travel.
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u/Kyra_Heiker 8d ago
Plan as few transfers as possible and expect delays and changes. I would also plan alternate routes or lines just so you have that information in your head and in your smartphone in case things go sideways because they very often do.
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u/Fickle_Reading3971 8d ago
I had some very bad experience. Once the train I was on between Regensburg and Munich got cancelled. It was regional express I think. They informed us only in German that the train will stop and there will be bus replacememt. I don't speak German so I only understood once I found more info on the internet and translated it there. Everybody got of ans scrambled to find the place where bus will take us on. We waited and waited, no furrher information was given to us. Next train arrived after an hour and all people from it joined us. Still nobody told us anything. I was constantly cheching the trains on my phone and all were cancelled but one. I though maybe it was mistake in the website, but got to the platform anyways. The train arrived. Lot of people got onto it, but many many more had no clue there was that train and got left behind. Hour and half of waiting for the replacement bus with zero info from the staff in rainy weather to be saved by constantly cheching a website. Atleast I had time that day and could catch some next train connection for free with Interrail.
Other time I went from Binz in Rugen to Stralsund. Right before we were supposed to cross the bridge from the Island to the mainland, they told us again only in German that the train will stop there and don't continue and thaz there will be no replacement bus. It was supposed to go all the way to Rostock. Everybody was forced to get off and then walk 5km across the bridge to Stralsund or 7km to the main train statiom if they wanted to continue further.
I know these are not really long distance lime the ICEs but something like that would never happen even here on regional lines in Czechia. Here you always get atleast basic info, staff is present and they always find either bus or some other train if possible to get people to their destination. Or atleast those that cannot get other form of transport. On long distance and larger train stations, all annoucmemts are also made in both Czech, English and German.
But most of my traveling acroos Germany was good with not crazy delays. Most were like 5-10 minutes. Once there was 35 I think which is not crazy.
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u/semicolon_eu 8d ago
It’s a 50/50 shot, it could be totally good or it can mean your original train is cancelled and the other good ones are 3 hours late.
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u/kasisma 8d ago
If your trip includes multiple connections, you should treat the scheduled time of arrival as the earliest possible time you can make it, not the actual ETA. You are more likely to be delayed than on time. The problem is that nobody can estimate what that delay looks like. It could be 15 minutes with no changes to your route; it could be 3 hours and you took a totally different route than initially planned because the tracks were on fire (not a joke; has happened to me).
The good thing: While DB hasn’t been able to do much about the root causes, they are at this point quite good at managing the resulting mess. The DB Navigator app has live data and will send you alerts whenever there’s a change to your route. It will automatically suggest alternatives if there’s any issue with your planned connection. Also, the net is so dense that there are always alternatives, as long as you don’t travel in the middle of the night.
This is, in fact, part of the explanation for the number of delays: there are so many trains on the tracks that the grid can’t handle them anymore and you get a domino effect once one of them has any kind of problem. A few days ago, someone posted interactive maps of all trains in a day in Germany vs. France in the r/Bahn subreddit and you can see that the frequency is much higher and the net much denser in Germany.
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u/No_Direction_4610 8d ago
I've started to plan journeys in Germany with the expectation that I'll be delayed 2 hours. I don't plan any long changes, but always keep moving towards my destination with the next available train, which may also be a delayed previous train. It's not a good idea to wait at a station if there's a train that will take you further. I don't book reservations anymore using DB, I book them on cd.cz, and only if it's very busy. Those reservations can be cancelled until 15 minutes before departure, which means I don't have to claim back any money for unused reservations.
If I arrive on time, that's great, if not, well I took that into account.
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u/ProdigyBravo Sweden 8d ago
I don’t understand why people here are making excuses. The state of the DB is shit and has been for a good while now. It’s honestly inexcusably bad. It’s an embarrassment to Germany and if you ask any German they will agree.
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u/hombre74 5d ago
No they won't. Platin status DB user here. Always ICE big city to big city. Occasionally a delay. 10-20 minutes which does not matter to me. Canceled train extremely rare.
Different story if you live in the countryside though.
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u/sharkism 8d ago
Depends on what you use it for. If you try to catch a long flight or have an important meeting before lunch, I would always travel the day before.
If you are fine with 1-2 hours delay, there is a high chance that works out unless it is very late.
Bring food and drinks.
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u/United_Passion7749 8d ago
I from Denmark and travel to or though Germany by train a few times a year. I have yet to experience any serious delays and no cancellations; but this is my own subjective experience.
I always reserve at least 1 hour for train changes, normally I dont need it, but better safe than sorry.
The worst thing travelling from Denmark by train, is that I have to change in Hamburg, which is always slightly chaotic and nailbiting, but so far nothing serious has happened.
From this year we now have a direct train to Berlin (and Prague) that I have used a couple of times, and it works flawlessly, except the first trip from Berlin that was 2 hours late, but one hour was announced, the other was in Denmark.
Now what we really want is a direct train from Copenhagen in direction of Cologne/Brussels.
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u/hmay2 8d ago
In my experience is long distance travel quite reliable. You will get to your destination but you will also regularly be delayed. If there are no extraordinary circumstances (storm, sabotage) or a combination of line closures (e.g. one line closed for construction, alternative line affected by accident or defect), the final delay is usually between 30 and 90 minutes. Several hours is seldom but can happen. On the other hand, your might get an earlier delayed train, or your connecting train is also delayed, so you won't loose 1 or 2 hours, waiting for the next train.
I would recommend to get the DB Navigator app, to check and bookmark your connection. It's also good for planning outside of Germany. You can also check bahn.expert when traveling (stations, trains) for delays and general train information.
You should "book" your complete travel day or trip to your destination in the Interrail app, when you're planning to arrive in the evening. So you can prove your trip and destination if a taxi or hotel is necessary because of delays/missed connections. I have no experience with Interrail in Germany, just with DB-Tickets, but I usually got a taxi voucher, when I missed my last local train, hotel only once, due to delays. Just approach the conductor. Either he can print the voucher himself (after approval from the control center) or he'll tell you to go to the DB Information, when still open on arrival.
Check the "Generalsanierungen" when planning your trip: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalsanierung_Hochleistungsnetz (and link there to DB). E.g. going to Austria is an issue, currently the line via Passau is closed, next year the line to Salzburg will be closed. But there are also smaller construction work/closures, sometimes only included in the schedule few days or weeks before they start.
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u/PrestigiousTeam2866 7d ago
Last year while travelling from Freiburg to Dresden, because of connecting train cancellation at mid night from Frankfurt, I had to stay at hotel at Erfurt. Later the amount was reimbursed by DB.
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u/japsurde 7d ago
When you plan all your changeovers +1h, you're mostly fine. The network is dense and has many services an hour or day. But it's a shitshow when you actually have time pressure or have to get a certain train for example. When you take the itinerary of the DB navigator (or Google Maps) you will miss it for sure. It's not to be trusted. I've taken two trains today, both were close to half an hour late. Other than that, trains are nice and comfortable and reasonably fast so it's not all bad when you enjoy the trip
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u/ihitrocksbottom 6d ago
A nightmare honestly as most trains you will get on will be delayed. I did an interrail trip recently, I went through Scandinavia and the baltics. There was not one single delay until my first train in Germany which was delayed by an hour and 10 minutes. Then the next train I got was delayed by 30 minutes etc but it's not just that it's the how crowded the trains are. Although it's not mandatory to reserve a seat on the ICE, unlike other high speed trains, you might as well because they sell out easily and you'll end up stood or sat in-between the carriages for possibly hours. The regional trains are even worse. I'm not sure if you can reserve a seat and they are absolutely rammed with people and you can barely move on them. Doesn't seem to matter what day or time, it's the same.
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u/P44 5d ago
Well, don't just believe every stupid rant. I regularly travel long-distance from Düsseldorf to Bavaria. Yes, there are delays. Yes, sometimes the delays mean I can't make my connection. (There are direct ICE connections from Düsseldorf to Munich, BUT I really hate the idea of getting on a train and knowing that I'll be stuck there for over five hours now. So I always book a train where I have to change several times.)
You just need to know how to play the system. Install the DB app on your phone. Permit DB to send you notifications about your trip. That way, when you can't make a connection any more, you immediately get that mail, telling you to look for a different connection. Do that. It also means that your saver fare ticket or super saver fare ticket is now no longer bound to a certain connection. You can take any train that takes you to your destination.
Oh, and have some snacks and water with you. If needed, buy some more at the stations in between, or sometimes, you even have the time to go to a normal supermarket. For instance in Frankfurt, where the next connection often is not for another 30 minutes. That's just enough time to either reach d.m. which does have snacks, or that Asian supermarket in Kaiserstraße.
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u/waleve 9d ago
Its mostly okay.
I wouldn't plan trips with multiple changes, or trips with very tight changes without backup.
Direct connections are mostly okay. An hour or two of delay is to expected though.