It‘s unfortunately not as great as it sounds… in 2022 about 40% of trains were delayed (with some cities probably well above that). In my hometown I would have delays almost every day, costing me about 10-30 minutes more time. Once every 2 months I would also be on a train coming to a full stop with no alternatives. Most the people I know from south Germany don’t trust trains to ever arrive on time and rather commute by car, because going by train you have to assume you’ll be late to whatever appointment you have. It is good to finally have affordable tickets, but there’s a lot to be done and invested to the infrastructure before I would consider it a worthy substitute for a car / bike.
Also: apparently the providers of public transportation are losing money on the discounted tickets - which could lead to fewer connections and more delays in the future…
I was taking the ICE from Berlin to Frankfurt and it broke down halfway, and they basically just left you there at the station to deal. I didn’t speak much, if any German, and I was alone tasked with figuring out how the heck to make it the rest of the 3 hour journey. To top it off, the next train we tried to get on wasn’t able to leave because another train had been cancelled, so everyone tried to hop on that one, and at triple capacity it wasn’t safe to depart. I ended up sitting on the floor of the train going 200km/h for two hours, plus the 45 minute transfer, trying to get to the airport. It was a shit show. I don’t trust German trains much anymore
Last time I was in Bavaria and needed to go to a town about an hour away from Cologne. I decided to take the ICE, mixed with some regional express trains to get there. Seemed fine.
First ICE was delayed and I missed the connection. Went to the Information Office and got a separate route. Sounded good as I only needed one change instead of two. Well, turned out, the train was late again and I missed my connection again. I was now about 2-3 hours late already, in a planned 5.5 hour journey.
Then I waited for the next train and it was cancelled. There was no train scheduled for another 1.5 hours so I went to the pub next to the train station to watch some of the World Cup football final that I missed because of this mess. Walked out again to the platform. No information at all but I just stayed waiting. No information coming in at all at the platform but I saw something online about a train coming in “soon”. That info disappeared again.
I had been waiting in 0°C weather for about 1.5 hours on the platform already and after the beers at the pub, I needed to take a leak. Went to go for a piss, come back to the train already at the platform, literally 3 minutes later, and I almost missed it.
In the end, I was at my final stop about 7 hours after the planned time. Never again. Plane would have cost less and I’d have been there a lot quicker.
If you leave work at 6pm and want to take the train at 6:15 to get home at 7, including one change of trains, and your train has 15 minutes delay, you miss the connection. Then you have to wait for the next train, which might be an hour wait. Then that train is delayed by 20 minutes and you get home at 8:30. That’s the real problem of the delays.
That doesn’t fix the issue. No food? Why not eat less.
I value my time and time with my family. By car my work commute (only one way) was 30min long. By train, if it would be on time 50min - in reality more like 1.15-1.45h, and like I said sometimes the trains would not go for an hour (especially on the way home). I am willing to make a sacrifice of 30 minutes but losing about 1-1.30 hours a day because of delays, I would rather drive by car if I really need to go to work. Thankfully I work Homeoffice most times now so I don’t need to take either one.
I would be more than happy to take public transportation more often again when needed, but like I mentioned - I think that Deutsche Bahn has a lot of work to put in.