The sleek high-speed train is 10 minutes behind schedule when it slides into Cologne’s main station before continuing its journey north to Dortmund. The delay is now such a common occurrence that the train manager does not even both to mention it to disembarking passengers.
In late afternoon on an unremarkable weekday in this western German city, holidaymakers are hauling suitcases through the station, workers are commuting home, and the late arrival of Deutsche Bahn’s IC 118 from Innsbruck is no surprise.
It does cause annoyance, though: a glance at the departures and arrivals board prompts one middle-aged man carrying a backpack to swear loudly as he enters the station.
It’s hard to blame him: on the afternoon the Observer visited, the arrivals board showed that eight out of the next nine trains due into Cologne were behind schedule. The degree of lateness ranged from minutes to several hours, and a lengthy queue had formed at the entrance hall’s information desk.
“The situation has severely deteriorated in recent years,” said Detlef Neuss, chair of the passenger lobby group Pro Bahn, standing outside Cologne’s main station, in the shadow of the city’s gothic cathedral with its distinctive twin spires.
“They tried to keep the trains running on time, so some building projects were postponed,” Neuss continues. “That was a big mistake, and the rail network has been run even further into the ground.”
For travellers in the UK, this may sound familiar. Earlier this month, after weeks of speculation over the future of Britain’s planned HS2 high-speed rail link from Birmingham to Manchester, the prime minister finally announced that the northern leg was to be scrapped. But the UK’s train passengers are far from the only ones in Europe facing rail problems.
Germany’s railways, once a source of national pride, have become something of an embarrassment in a country with a reputation for efficiency and engineering prowess. And this comes amid a time of economic anxiety, with Europe’s largest economy stagnating amid weaker global growth.
Deutsche Bahn has been described as being in “permanent crisis” by Germany’s national audit office, the Bundesrechnungshof, which is usually known for its sober language.
In an excoriating special report published earlier this year, the public audit body did not mince its words as it sounded the alarm, warning that the company responsible for running the national rail network, its stations and signals, along with many long-distance and local trains, risked becoming a “bottomless pit” for taxpayer money.
It said debts at the company – which is wholly owned by Germany’s federal government – were growing at the rate of more than €5m (£4.3m) a day, and its total debt was now more than €30bn.
Worsening reliability, including delays, cancellations and lengthy closures of large sections of track during upgrade work, have become a popular topic of conversation across Germany. Meanwhile passengers in neighbouring Austria are complaining about the knock-on effect of hold-ups across the border, and Switzerland’s famously punctual railways have stopped waiting for the arrival of connections from Germany.
It was not always thus. Teacher Max Winter, 43, did not think twice about accepting a job at a school in the city of Wolfsburg, despite it being more than 140 miles from his home in Berlin, because Wolfsburg was on the line between the capital and Hanover, and there were regular rail services.
“I didn’t consider it a big distance,” he says. “At the start I never thought about it, or even considered moving to Wolfsburg.”
When he began his daily commute in January 2016, he had few problems with the hour-long journey on a high-speed intercity train, bookended by cycle rides. The trip would have taken three times as long by car.
“In the past few years it has really changed, and I can’t defend Deutsche Bahn any more,” he says.
Despite paying some €4,400 for an annual season ticket, in recent months Winter has had to put up with a weeks-long closure of the track between Wolfsburg and Berlin for upgrades, coupled with delays, cancelled trains and lack of staff. At one point, the father-of-one even had to temporarily rent a room in Wolfsburg to ensure he could make it to work.
Back in western Germany Birgit Schmitt-Janssen,
