German Railways - Learn EVERYTHING About Them!
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- čas přidán 13. 11. 2021
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- As there were so many requests by our viewers, today's video topic is a comprehensive review of the German railway system.
Although it was ranked fourth among national European rail systems during a survey European Railways Performance Index in 2017, this railway system is definitely among the most interesting in Europe and the world.
Namely, it had quite turbulent history and development, and still has an amazing rail network and rail industry, a bunch of different companies on the market, a well-developed system of passenger services, and much, much, more. We really hope you’ll enjoy this video as much as we enjoyed preparing it!
In this episode, the Railways Explained team tried to present, in a comprehensive way, the brief and turbulent history of the German railway system, its development, (successful?) rail reform that was carried out in two phases, main railway companies on the German rail market (and there are many!), the main aspects of this infrastructure, freight and passenger traffic performance supported with many figures, etc.
We left the story about the German high-speed rail system and the development and genesis of German ICE trains, for the next two videos on Railways Explained.
Enjoy!
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#Germany #DB #ICE
Trains that get canceled fall out of the punctuality statistics from DB, so if all trains were canceled, DB would be 100% punctual :)
Oh god xD
@@randomdude2026 unfortunately it actually happens. So they fuck something up and instead of letting you wait the time for the late train they cancel it completely and you have to wait for the next regular train which arrives usually an hour later.
Statistics standarts quote that trains are only late, if they are more than 6 minutes past the planned time and as mentioned from "undercoverneunzehn" not counted if they are cancelled. (Though if you are waiting for one, you will lose 15min to 1h till the next one arrives)
DB stands for DoucheBags
@@immis.8134 In Germany a known meme is DB=DaheimBleiben witch is German for "stay home"
I think the most important thing to mention with DB is that they're severely underfunded.
Norway invests about 250€ per year per person into rail, Switzerland is closer to 400€.
Germany only invests about 80€ per year per person, which imo. reflects the prioritisation of cars by the government.
Thus, the rail system substantially lacks capacity, leading to delays etc.
As of recent, Deutschlandtakt has been launched, an attempt to run more trains on the existing network, with shorter headways. You can see that as an attempt to create missing capacity without building new tracks, because they don't get the money for that.
People inside the DB also say that privatisation may have been a failure like in the UK, because non profitable lines went out of service. And those were mainly lines in rural, undeserved areas. Even though the rail lines may have been of incredible value to the rural communities.
I absolutely agree that the railways are severely underfunded, the nodal share of barely 10% is depressing. However, this goes for all infrastructure in Germany, the Autobahnen are just as mismanaged and in need of repair and they don't get more money than the railways, whch many people often assume.
@@MTobias We have a severe lack of public investment in general, compared to other European countries at least
@@purplebrick131
Well i think we have to be realistic here....
Norway and Switzerland are not a good comparison for 2 quite obvious reasons. Firstly they are substantially more wealthier than Germany, don't forget that, so having more money to spend. And second they have challenging geography, which makes railway construction naturally much more expensive.
I am not so sure about what countries you mean with "compared to other European countries", but i would say if we do an actual fair comparison we don't look too bad.
I agree that we should invest more in rail infrastructure but i am not sure if that it the primary problem, i would also say the incredibly strong NIMBY groups in Germany hinder anything significant to be done.... (Rheintalbahn....biggest joke ever)
But the issues of underfunded Railways are in no way unique to Germany and are common across Europe.
It is somewhat typical German to look at Switzerland and be disappointed, but ignore the fact the 3/4 of Europe have worse railways than we have...
We should not try to punch above our weight and then cry in a corner because we can't match everybody....I sometimes get a bit frustrated with the general negative outlook so common here in this country.
Germany has a total different topography and is much denser populated. Switzerland an Norway have higher prices/wages and need more tunnels. So it is not 100% right to compare the bare figures. So in Germany you can do more rail transport with less money compared to Norway or Switzerland. But I support your point that the Bund could spend more money on rail infrastructure.
@@DerVersteherPlus yep that's my point. The figure also holds up for the Netherlands tho
DB is a bit of a joke here in Germany, but having traveled with their long distance trains several times, it was very fast and very comfortable.
fast, yes. IF on time.
comfortable, yes. IF AC isnt broken for the 2562th time.
Many of the ICEs I took when I was in Germany were slower than I thought (~140km/h between Amsterdam-Cologne-Munich/Berlin) though they had better sound insulation that UK's similarly-fast HSTs
@@zakiNBG if not satisfied with AC - you may like this song including video: czcams.com/video/wXjhszy2f9w/video.html
"Das Leben in vollen Zügen genießen"
can be translated as: "enjoying life to the fullest", but also as "enjoying life in full trains"
if we speak about DB the second meaning is much closer to reality for short range trains tho'
DB doesn't need further privatization/decentralization, it needs to become state-owned again. Since the initial privatization, ticket prices have increased while service quality has become considerably worse. The railway lines have not been expanded as promised, but were reduced so that there are even less connections now. The whole privatization was a massive blunder and DB is more concerned about selling property and increasing road logistics (!) than about creating a form of mass passenger transportation fit for the future. Public transportation is, like other public goods/services (like healthcare, water supply, etc.) inherently deficitary. The point is not to make a profit, but to provide cheap, high quality and ecologically sensible services to the public.
yes!!! Same opinion. And DB is completely underfunded. It´s a shame what they did to the railway system. Lets hope our new "greenish" government can do something against this
One could suspect that the defunding of the Cargo-Train system was a means to "support" the automotive / truck sector.
This development now comes to bite "us" in the ass as the Autobahnen and Bundesstraßen are more and more overcrowded with freight-trucks which could be transported eco-friendly by train through most of Europe.
I also hope that our Green Party can and will influence policies which will reenact the cargo-train system and also expand passenger-friendly meassures.
Fingers crossed!
Just making the DB state owned again won't solve the problems automatically. Japan, which is always lauded as the best Railway nation besides Switzerland, has a completely privatized railway system.
@@Ruhrpottpatriot Just mentioning Japan being a perfect example of a working system doesn't fix the System, too. I'd go as far as to say it's ignorant.
The Japanese situation is vastly different than the German Situation. The Japanese Working Class is extremely dependent on Train Connections, specifically Tokyo. In Germany, it is practically the opposite. Trains in Germany are rarely a good alternative to the Car. Specifically this Problem is the reason for the Decline of Trains, very much so in dense cities, where hundreds of people could be transported quickly and efficiently, however the Train system is simply not good enough; not on time, not available, too expensive for most, etc.
A Privitisation would ensure that competitive markets would not fall on the feet of German Users. Tho, considering the laughably shit situation mass transportation is at in Germany right now, Privitisation could become the savior of the those who want to get somewhere without wasting money on Gas, there is a lot of room for a win-win situation for the sake of the Railway-Network and the German People, as well as the Climate. Tho, as many things with Germany not enshrined into Law, money talks.
@@niku4154 You completely missed the point and then made another weak and totally unrelated.
Germany has a good public transit system, but -- as in Japan -- you'll find it in cities, not the countryside. Even in Japan there exist trains schedules with only 4 trains a day, which usually gets totally left out in a discussion about railway systems.
The problem and reason why you can't simply point towards Switzerland (as an example for a state owned system) or Japan (as an example for a private system) is far more complex.
Even today Germany has a vastly denser network in m/km² than Switzerland or Japan, in fact the US has a denser network than Switzerland! Germany also has a bigger network than Japan based on the raw length, but with similar nation size in km², and Germany's network was cut by more than 20000km from it's high water mark in 1912 (which was 58297km).
Therefore by raw network capacity Germany is already at the top.
No, the problems with the German railway are far more complex.
For example: Where Japan had to build a completely new network for their Shinkansen (because the rest of their network is narrow gauge) and slamming down one line from south-west to north-east will give you a fast connection between all major cities, Germany couldn't do so.
Yes you could build one ring railway to connect Cologne, the Ruhrgebiet, Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden, Munich ,Stuttgart and Frankfurt, but this would be hugely inefficient and result in massive time losses. So Germany has to build multiple tracks to even be somewhat competitive against planes.
Also as I have been told by a friend of mine, who is Japanese, the cost of travelling by public transport is higher in Japan than it is in Germany.Yes if you go and buy single tickets every time, you're paying a lot, but who does that? For around 190EUR a month I can travel on (almost) all public transport systems in my state. If I only need to commute inside a city, I only pay 80EUR a month. Compare that to the 200EUR I need to pay for a parking spot alone.
It is worth to notice the busiest Station in Germany is Hamburg Hauptbahnhof with 537.000 Passengers daily in 2019. Second is Frankfurt (493.000), then Munich (413.000) and Berlin (333.000)
Yes. And in the entire Hamburg main station (local and long-distance transport, not metro) there are, generously estimated, almost 100 seats, which do not immediately oblige you to buy anything. Yes, there could be more, but then you would have to do without all the beautiful billboards. And honestly, who wants to sit and wait for their late train when they can stare at colorful advertisements?
@@tygattyche2545 but many of those occupying these seats did actually buy something to consume: heroin. Drug addicts are a nuisance for travellers in and - more prevalent - just outside Hamburg Hauptbahnhof (especially when you take the wrong exit to the Sankt Georg neighbourhood) Frankfurt/Hbf used to be a drug hotspot - they cleaned it up a bit but it looks, they're returning. Frankfurt was the home of Three Cup Touts ("Hütchenspieler") moslesting commuters and travellers just outside the station (before the were offered jobs in banking :-) )
@@becconvideo
I've never been in Frankfurt. But i never meet those within Hamburg main station, especially not on the platforms.
@@tygattyche2545 I'd lived in the Sankt Georg neighbourhood for six years and my walk way to the office in the city centre went past the main station. Of course at the platforms there is DB security - in theory in the main concourse as well but in shady places drug addicts hide doing their business. It is nuts just in front of the station.
@@becconvideo
I have no doubt that there are many ehh... "strange" people around the station. I just remembered a religiuos weirdo in front of the police station.
But my original point were the offered seats within the station. Otherwise i also could have suggest visit a play in the near Ohnsorg Theatre to reduce the waiting time..
A Main Point for the dissatisfaction of the regional trains of the DB is that their trains are often overcrowded and not well maintained. The private companies also have overcrowded trains but at least the air conditioning works. For DB Long distance the trains, especially the ICEs, are very well maintained most of the time , which makes the ride much more enjoyable.
100% confirmed. Being stuck on an ICE for an hour because of an incident ahead will pass with ease. The same happening in a crowded commuter train will feel like an eternity. Same goes for train stations: An ICE train station will have cafés and other sheltered waiting opportunities. Getting stuck on a regional train station during winter on the other hand, will reliably inform you about the quality-level of your outdoor outfit and layering strategy.
The problem with this is that the states order the regional services from the DB and other providers, and the providers then drive the amount of trains and the amount of coaches in each train that the state ordered and paid for. This means it's up to the states to manage passenger numbers and order the correct amount, and it's hard to change this during an ongoing contract. So, if it turns out later that it wasn't enough, there isn't much anyone can do, and trains get overcrowded.
The advantage of this system is that ticket prices are lower as the states cover part of the cost, incentivizing commuters to use trains rather than cars. But it would definitely be great if there were more ways to adjust the services if necessary, which would give states the possibility to address issues at an additional cost.
Then again, for all I know this is already possible but states don't want to pay extra to avoid overcrowding... I don't have the exact information on this.
ICEs can be overcrowded too. I regularly use them between Hamburg and Basel, and on Weekends IT is normal to spend the entire 7 Hour Journey Standing. In extreme Cases, People may even be unable to board the Train because there is no Space left.
Yeah... ICE's are fun and game until your are stuck in an overcrowded one with broken AC and you can't sit because someone took you reserved seat and you got no way to remove that person.
@@Genius_at_Work Sounds like a highly profitable leg.
As a German my biggest problem wirh the DB is their infrastructure financing model. They have to pay for their own infrastructur except it breaks or its a big prestige project like stuttgart 21, so thats the only things that get build. So the db discards any improvements or maintance to tracks so they break and the goverment pays for the replacement. The biggest victim of that is the part of the genua-rotterdam corridor that runs though germany, which should have been increased from 2 to 4 tracks for like over 20 years and current estimates says this will happen in 2035 and only with 3 tracks which is useless
This is not true. DB has to pay for maintenance of the infrastructure, however virtually all big construction projects (including the much maligned Genua-Rotterdam corridor) are paid for by the government. Unfortunately Germany is utterly shit at planning and building any new infrastructure nowadays -.-
@@MTobias It's true the DB has to pay for maintenance, but not for replacements - so they save money on maintenance, but wait until the track needs a replacement. With this financial model the tracks are in a worse condition than they could be, some tracks are limited in speed (because of the bad condition) which leads to delays.
On the other hand a ministry lead by someone like Mr Scheuer is incapable of proper planning and building new tracks, and the Nimby problem has increased extensive the last decades, which is additionally crippling the country's ability for building new tracks or roads
@@simonm1447 I Agree.
@@MTobias flughafen berlin :/
but DB is owned by the government. So it is the same no? It's not that there is a difference in paying, is it just very bad planning.
I guess it should have worked like a self sufficient company, instead of run by the government, but the government still owns DB, so when something is out of DB budget the government covers it. No?
Am I the only one that really loves the look of these ICEs?
no
certainly not, these are gorgeous masterpieces of enginieering
best looking ICEs are ICE 3 of class 403 and 406.
@@uncinarynin I totally agree. I personally really don't like the ICE 4. The design feels like a step back in every way except capacity.
Siemens velaro after some time became very boring :[
Another thing to point out in contrast to rail service in the US: most railroad tracks are shared use tracks where you see both passenger trains and freight trains running on the very same tracks. In fact you'll often see anything from the lowest category of passenger trains to the highest categories of passenger trains all run on the same tracks, alongside with freight trains. It does work to wrap the freight trains around the schedule of the thousands of passenger trains of different speed and different amount of stops.
Also a thing worth to mention: these passenger trains don't serve only the largest cities and medium size towns, but also tiny villages in the rural area between. Take 2 major cities 1 hour apart from each other: the inter city express (ICE) will go directly from Central Station to Central Station without a stop in between. An inter city (IC) train on the same route might stop once in between, at the largest town half-way between both cities. A regional express (RE) train will stop a couple of times, like at the 4 largest towns and villages. A regional train or commuter train will stop at every single tiny station in every village along the track, which might add up to 20 stations between both cities.
With all the different categories of trains it serves both people which cover longer distances between larger cities, and those living in the rural area between the cities. They're still connected to public transit. Many of the smaller stations will have park + ride parking lots so people commuting into either city can simply drive to their local station and take the train into the city instead of heading for rush hour traffic jams; Also the small stations in the rural area might serve as rural bus service hub which connects the entire surrounding area to that rather small station.
High speed lines are the exception, being either for long distance passenger trains only or having freight trains at night.
@@uncinarynin Often they also carry regional express trains, which tend to be fast enough to fit between the high-speed trains.
@@KaiHenningsen In the case of München - Nürnberg that required repurposed Intercity trains or later specially built airtight doubledeck trains.
This is a video about Germany, not the US
@@sublivion5024 so?
As an input for your German HSR follow-up video, because I missed it here and it's really important to understand the German approach:
With the exception of China (which basically leap-frogged), all other notable HSR nations (e.g. Japan, France, Italy, Spain) started off with an existing 1.5/3KV DC electrification. Spain's unique Iberian gauge and Japan's narrow gauge network added an additional challenge for those nations. Unlike Germany, all of these nations had to adopt 25KV AC on their HSR lines to run them with decent efficiency. Japan had no other choice but separating their HSR lines from the rest of the network because HSR in not viable on narrow gauge. Spain opted for standard gauge to create a compatible network with the rest of Europe and only uses dual-gauge trains to serve branch lines and temporarily Galicia. In France and Italy mixed traffic can be found around larger historic stations and on some branch lines.
In Germany however, there have never been technical challenges of that kind. With 15KV AC and standard gauge on the entire network, there was no technical incentive to build complete point-to-point HSR tracks between particular urban centers. Also, being a federal country with spread clusters of economy and population, there was no obvious point-to-point connection to begin with (unlike in France, Japan and Spain). Consequently, dedicated HSR tracks were built to fix the weak-points of the network, aiming for the highest return-of-investment for the network as a whole. Typically, those were mountainous regions with windy trunk lines on their capacity limit while in dead-flat North Germany the already straight lines from the 19th century were easy to upgrade to 200-230km/h. Therefore, dedicated HSR tracks are mostly found in mountainous Central and South Germany where several ICE lines intersect, sharing long sections of dedicated HSR tracks.
It's something that many seem to overlook when talking about the German railway network and wonder why it's such a patchwork and why there is so much mixed use on the network. Looking at the current plans, there will be a rather complete dedicated HSR network in about 20 years. Germany is just getting there with a strategy that could only really have worked under those unique conditions.
I hope this input was valuable :)
PS: Whenever I wrote "Germany", I could also include Austria and Switzerland, because with regards to long-distance trains it's basically one connected homogenous network, following the same strategy.
And with the "Deutschland Tackt" the German government will have to go on a HSR Building mania, and sometimes invest billions only to make up a few minutes in the schedule.
I'm especially excited about the prospect of the new line between Gellenausen and Fulda.
Generally so many high speed rail lines are planned for the Rhine-Main Region. Gellenhausen - Fulda, Hanau - Neuendorf and Frankfurt - Mannheim.
I hope they start construction in the next few years but this is a bit optimistic.
@@IamTheHolypumpkin "HSR building mania" is greatly exaggerated. Most of those projects are highly unimpressive, mostly very short lines ending in the middle of nowhere and often even low speeds. The fact that 4 hours is considered "acceptable" to compete with airlines and as such emberassingly slow lines like Berlin-Munich (with an average speed of about 130km/h) are seen as good enough is just sad. In Spain or France the trip would take half the time. Realistically, trips between all big cities in Germany except maybe Hamburg-Munich should take 3 hours or less, anything less ambitious is just half-assed.
@@MTobias I cannot follow you at all. The HSR lines that are currently being built or actively planned are all filling gaps in the core network along the corridors Frankfurt-Erfurt, Frankfurt-Basel, Munich-Stuttgart, Hamburg-Hannover and Hannover-Dortmund. Which HSR line are you thinking of that ends in the middle of nowhere?
Something that I would agree on is that Germany is lacking a good strategy to enable more sprinter trains between its largest urban centers to fully replace domestic air travel. Once the HSR core network is close to completion, a next step should be to build high-speed bypasses or passthroughs at less relevant stops.
Nevertheless, the situation will never be the same as in Spain and France. Germany's HSR network is a mash that effectively connects all the many urban centers with each other, a significant contrast to the situation in Spain and France. Their smaller population is spread out across fewer urban centers with larger distances in between them where many lines never meet or only in one point.
That's why the fastest AVE between Barcelona and Madrid bypasses Zaragoza but the ICE Sprinter from Berlin to Munich stops in Erfurt and Nurmberg. These stops are where the mash connects and numerous ICE lines meet, literally multiplying the amount of efficient end-to-end connections between the urban centers in Germany.
@@Chris_Taru yeah, the lines are nice, but they are half assed. Frankfurt-Berlin even with the new (emberassingly slow 230km/h planned) line will still go over painfully slow mixed traffic tracks between Frankfurt and Hanau, as well as through Thüringen until Erfurt. The now almost as completed seen line Berlin- Munich is still on slow and mixed tracks between the middle-of nowhere ending of VDE8 near Ebensfeld and Nuremberg as well as between Munich and Ingolstadt. At least the Ebensfeld-Nuremberg part will be upgraded, however it is just completely stupid not to simply run the 300km/h HSL all the way there. The Hamburg-Hannover project (Alpha-E) is a complete shitshow from beginning to end and entirely relies on vodoo magic to ever work out. An eniterely new line parallel to A7 would be necessary to archieve the needed capacities, as well as a 60min travel time for the Deuschlandtakt.
Frankfurt-Basel is ok, however with a finishing time of 2040+++ completely ridiculous.
Berlin-Cologne/Ruhr has some good projjects, however realistically a new line from Hannover to Bielefeld isn't enough, there should really be a line all the way to Dortmund and even a bypass of the Ruhr cities for services to/from Düsseldord/Cologne would be good.
I'm sorry, your arguments comparing to Spain/France are just excuses. There are no reasons why we couldn't have a proper HSR-network as well.
@@MTobias _Alpha-E_ For that, you can blame the NIMBYs exclusively. Nobody else wants that solution, but the NIMBYs are doing everything they can to block any sane solution.
When comparing statistics on how many trains are late its important to note that cancelled trains aren't accounted for.
The company structure of the DB is quite odd. It is fully owned by the government but acts like a private business. The company would have to pay for maintenence work, but the government pays for new projects. So it is in the companies best intrest to abandon the infrastucture until it is beyond repair, so that the government has to pay for it.
It's just embarassing how bad of a job the DB does, ever since the Quasi-privatization.
Even more so, considering our neighbours Autria and Switzerland are doing so much better with their rail lines ;-;
What's also very important:
Germany had one of the densest railway networks in the world.
After 1945 lot's of connections between east and west were cutted.
Because of a strong preference of the west German politicans for cars the Bundesbahn had to close a lot of branch lines. There were programs like "betriebswirtschaftlich optimiertes Netz" which killed the connections to the railway system in a lot of countrysides.
A big problem in Germany is the disequilibrium between streets and rails: railways have to be profitable while don't must be.
So the German Railway Network is shrinking and shrinking. The trains hace a lot of delays because there are no more turnout tracks. Another fail is the missing seperation of tracks for passenger ans cargo trains.
Statistics say: While try to build one kilometer railway in Germany there are finished 150km of new streets in the same time.
Lobbyism of the automotive sector is a very big problem in Germany and thwart a positive development of the railway as missing acceptance for new tracks in the population.
You are just repeating lots of mythhs.
Railways don't have to be profitable, only the operations cost of long distance and freight trains must be covered. Track maintenance must be covered by track fees of the trains operating on them. Everything else, including regional services is subsidized by the government. Nowadays the rail network is growing again, as old lines get reactivated and (far too few) new lines get built. However we need to build a lot more new lines and greatly exapand existing infrastructure, of course.
The problem is not the "car lobby", that is just a lazy talking point that just sounds reasonable enough so it gets repeated ad infinitum. If the car lobby was that powerful, at least car infrastructure in Germany would be good. However, it is in a just as dismal state as the railways. Nowadays the split in public funds between roads and railways is pretty much 50:50, so it's not like cars get preferred there.
Germany has an infrustructure problem in general. For a long time infrastructure was getting completely underfundet. While it's getting better, it's still not nearly enough. However, the problem goes much deeper than that. All the planning laws and procedures, as well as the amount of power NIMBYs have need to be radically changed if we want to see any significant improvement in less than a whole generation.
@@MTobias If you are telling something about "network must not been profitable" you ignore the organization of the Deutsche Bahn AG. The holding and also it's infrastructure daughters DB Netz AG, DB Station & Service AG and DB Energie GmbH are organized as privat enterprise capital companys.
The reason for that were some European topics like policys like 91/440/EWG or Richtlinie 2001/14/EG.
But the main reason was the doctrine of privatisation. It was the time where governments reduced their influence in sectors like Post, telecommunication and infrastructure. Therefore the Kohl government decided and the Schröder administration focused on the privatisation of Deutsche Bahn. The goal was to bring the company to the stock market. And to make it profitable (a goal that Deutsche Bundesbahn and the GDR DR never reached) the DB under the CEO Hartmut Mehdorn made hard decisions. E.g. They shrinked the network (what also happened since WWII) extremly, restored rail switches and resigned railway sidings with the MORA-C program. Last one was a important reason for companys to relocate their transports on streets - they had nomore an alternative.
In 2009 the Merkel administration decided rightly to stop the stock market launch of DB. But they also haf no vision for the company. Also the structure of a profitable organized company was never changed. Rüdiger Grube as successor of Mehdorn focused more on expansion. But not on German tracks. He bought the British Arriva and growth up DB Engineering and Consulting.
After Paris 2015 the Merkel government had ideas for the railway. They need it to reach the climate goals of Germany. But the pent-up investments of the infrastructure is a main problem which can't finance DB alone. Therefore the administration created the "Leistungs- und Finanzierungsvereinbarung" to help DB to modernize the infrastructure. Main reason for the debts are the self financing of it's infrastructure.
Today the network is at it's limit. To much trains on less tracks. No capacitys. Old infrastructure with old trains.
DB will need 80 Mrd. Euro for a general modernization.
And yes, Germany has an problem with the car lobby. The car industry is always interested to sell cars. For example: less punishment in the diesel gate, cash for clunkers or the extreme easy method to build new streets. Public investments in streets always higher than in railways. And the "Autobahnen" don't have to earn money.
Also on a lot of old railways were build streets or railways and their bridged were dismantled for bigger streets.
Especially on the countryside it's a big problem: There exists no more an sustainable alternative to the land sealing streets. You need a car when you are living there - it's a scandal.
As comitted Eisenbahner and employee of the DB I am happy to take part on the comeback of railway and Germany.
We should not forget that over the entire time of the German division, the western Bundesbahn mounted up huge debt with its unprofitable operations that became unbearable in the late 80ies. Railway transport is profitable for long haul freight and short distance travel within metropolitan areas (commuters, S-Bahn) But the government invested heavily into long distance passenger - including the ICE system. This did not pay off - even though intermunicipal busses were banned in Germany until some ten years ago to force customers into the ailing government train system. Deutsche Bahn jokes are popular among frequent travellers for many years - delays, cancelled services, travellers with their luggage rushing from track 1 to 10 because DB announced the change of track 2min before departure - the DB has four arch enemies (spring, summer, autumn and winter) and so on. The reform of the Bahn was necessary to include and upgrade the eastern ("Reichsbahn") network which was completely run down and depleted. While they brought some nice modern and electric locomotives as well as powerful russian Diesel electrics - the rest of the infrastructure was just crap. In the context of the early 90ies (when the Bundesbank was still in place and heavy money printing was not an option) there had to be something to cover the losses the system produced everyday. (remeber the high cost of unification including the ailing welfare system) So a more marke oriented approch was the focus. Unfortunately it was watered down - and high executive salaries now the most visible effect. Euroean cooperation (not always bad) brought some competition in freight and (subsidized) passenger services. But still - on any mayor Autobahn you still see a line of lorries - like a string of pearls - 24h, 6 days a week. Most of them go across Europe - something the EU could address with building a propper freight network as the US have and India is about to build. But as always, they utterly fail and go after our cars and holiday flights instead.
@@dr.medwurst4547 I agree with mo of what you said, however again, there is not more money available forbuilding streets, the amount is the same. there is also no "easy" way to build streets, the proceres are just as tupid and complicatas with railways. Undortunately for the countride, there ino viable alteativeto the car - anywere in the world. There are just not enough passengers there to justify building new railroads. The only options are cycling and buses until you get to the rest railway staion.
The Netherlands has thé densest rail way network in Europe.
as for punctuality of regional and long distance passenger rail services one thing should be mentioned: when you go on a trip and need to change trains one or several times: a connecting long distance train might wait some time for another delayed long distance train, but it won't wait for a delayed regional train; regional trains wait for a delayed regional train or a delayed long distance train, at least when the delay isn't too long.
Thus a train which would have been on time might have a delay due to waiting for another train and its passengers which want to change trains
Literally experienced this system today xD
Transfers must be maintained
@@qjtvaddict nice to have, but they don't have to; If a delay is too much, then the connecting train might as well leave. Also at some stations it simply wouldn't work to let the connecting train wait for the delayed train.
Train crews usually try to arrange transfers from delayed trains, but it's not always possible or wouldn't always make sense
@@EnjoyFirefighting yeah this is only fixed by not having any delayed train. delaying a long distance train would create many problems and backlash. (when the delay isnt a couple of minutes)
This is actually wrong. No long distance train waits for another random long distance train here. In fact, the only case where a train here waits is a designated „Anschlusszug“, so a connection train, which are only certain regional trains that usually start/end at the station the delayed ICE stops. An example would be small branch railways that will wait some minutes for a delayed Regional or intercity train, as those usually provide these branch lines with passengers. But IC/ICE trains will close to never wait for another IC/ICE train nor Regional train. They are exceptions, when big events take place and lots of people have to make a connection (>100), the coordinators in Frankfurt will sometimes check that and hold the connection train.
It should be noted that, while the Deutsche Bahn ist technically a joint stock company, it is still 100% in federal ownership and shares cannot be bought. As a result, it is de facto a state run company, even though it's technically private (this is also referred to as "Teilprivatisierung", i.e. partial privatization).
While the DB was supposed to enter the stock market in 2008, the financial crisis ruined this. A side effect of this is that no money could be gathered from private investors, drastically increasing the amount of money the federal government has had to invest into the railway. The fact that the DB had been saving money where possible leading up to 2008 to become as profitable as possible for the stock market launch isn't helping with this.
Concerning your follow up video concerning the intercity network in germany: One of the main problems is actually not that the high speed trains don't have separate tracks, even though that is the most obvious difference to countries like France or Spain. Looking at countries like Denmark, Netherlands, Austria or Switzerland you realize that they are really punctual even with mixed traffic. What causes these delays is mostly the limited track capacity in train stations. This leads to trains having to wait for other trains to leave the station before it can enter. That is why DB is planning on building a new underground station for the ICE traffic in Frankfurt and a new underground station for regional traffic in Hamburg, two of the most congested stations in Germany.
Same plan has Prague to built underground railway station for regional S-trains under Prague main train station and tunels under Prague - called ""Metro "S" (not compatibile to all Prague metro lines /A,B,C,D/- just for regional trains)
According to statistics - Czech train operators are surprisingly way more punctual than train operatosrs in Germany..
These plans also include Stutgart 21 which is a behemoth undertaking .
@@johnnygomez7063 that’s only surprising to people who haven’t lived in Germany for the last decade or so
@@mark9294 Why do you think so.. Do you have any proof that DE spent more per capita in recent years. I have read in comments that DE spent only 80 EUR per capita per year... The amount has been increasing every year,.. The amount per capita in CZ will also rise up significantly since 2O25 with construction of first parts of high speed lines containing 20km and 26 km long tunels..
@@johnnygomez7063 I think you misunderstood my comment
17:03 You are right. Sometimes you will miss the connecting train because of 6min. Some trains are waiting for switching people but, normally they don't. So a small delay can lead to you showing up at work an hour later.
As a person that travels with the DB alot i can tell you all.
- 1/3 of the german trains are dealyed
- 1/5 of the german trains are canceled
--> shownin 16:20 as you see DB tells the punctionality is over 70/90 percent. If a train is not on point it just simply gets canceled so it does not count as delayed...
- the prices are so high that travelling by car costs less. For example in citys like Berlin you pay 3€ for a drive between 1 and 120mins. If you drive from one side of Berlin to the other you need more than 120mins so you need to pay again. Also crossing the Boarder of Berlin with Bus or S-Bahn costs extra cuz it is a different tariff area.
- every part of germany has a different system with local trains
It is much less then 1/5 getting canceled it is something like 5% for ICE, 3% for IC and 2% for EC. Is it too often absolutly, but not nearly 20%.
Es stimmt auf jeden Fall, dass die Tarife und Verkehrsverbünde ziemlich schlecht und unübersichtlich sind, aber das mit den Verzögerungen und Ausfällen kommt denke ich eher auf die Strecke/Route an, ich fahre jeden Tag von Bremen Hbf zwar nur eine (DB) bzw. drei Stationen (NWB), aber innerhalb der letzten paar Monate ist nur ein einziger Zug ausgefallen und maximal vllt 2 oder 3 mal in der Woche verspätet gewesen, wo fährst du mit der DB?
The 120 minutes are sufficient for 99% of trips you can make within Berlin. I just looked up some of the worst cases (Hottengrund near the Potsdam border and on "the wrong side of the Havel" to either Ahrensfelde or Neu-Venedig near Erkner) and they can be done in just under 2 hours. And those are pretty exotic connections.....
@@rubenschillingDelmenhorst?
@@mark9294 ne Kirchweyhe
In germany, the punctuality of the DB is a kind of meme, because it feels like, a very large share of trains get cancled or run 10-30 Minutes late. Especially strikes are nervwrecking for many people (extra3 ,a german satire series, made a great sketch about it)
Viewer from Germany here. In general, Germans are appalled by the fact that their long distance trains are delayed, which happens quite often. The delays are fine in most cases in my view, it will get you there in the end. I'd say the rail system in Germany is pretty good, certain things can and should be improved, but it is a functional system,
I'm, sure other countries are worse. Here in Ireland the buses are sometimes pretty unreliable too and if there is a big sports match on telly the driver may stay in the depot to watch instead of drivin out. They defo need some Irish relaxedness ;-)
Länderbahnen (Saxon State Railway, Prussian State Railway, ...) before 1920 are a completely different thing from "Die Länderbahn", which is a "Privatbahn", a railway not owned by the german state, just like Abellio, Railpool, Press, ...
3:12 That map is incomplete. A track between Neukieritzsch and Pegau, opened 1910, is missing.
7:31 Worst thing to ever happen to German Railways; half the tracks and locos of east germany were put out of service.
Another thing worth mentioning: The most build locomotive is the german class 52 with over 7000 units. It was build during the second world war as a cheaper version of the class 50, of which about 5000 were build.
2:40 definitely not a German train
2:49 Funny, that logo "Die Länderbahn" was used by a private railway group including Regentalbahn and Vogtlandbahn, which was bought in 2004 by British Arriva. When Deutsche Bahn acquired Arriva in 2010, Länderbahn had to be sold and is now owned by Netinera, a subsidiary of Italian Ferrovie dello Stato (an Italian state-owned corporation). The name "Länderbahnen", as described correctly in the video, had been used for the railways of the different German states between 1920.
4:16 A bit of anachronism here, that picture does not fit in at the end of the first world war. It shows locomotives class 52.80 which were originally built during the second world war as "war locomotives" and after the war remained in East Germany where they were significantly rebuilt and modernized, allowing them to last until the end of the steam era. Their numberplates with check digits indicate that the photo was taken after 1970.
5:46 These pictures were actually taken in München, west Germany, though the show pre-war types of electric locomotives also used by the DR east.
Berlin was a special case. Though it had sectors of all four occupying forces and the British, French and American sectors formed West Berlin, which by West Germans was seen as part of the Federal Republic of Germany, a status not recognized by East Germany, the allied forces permitted the DR to operate the railways in all of Berlin, a status that led to boycott of the S-Bahn system and its neglect and near-closure in the western part of the city. I guess that would be worth a video of its own ...
Länderbahnen (Saxon State Railway, Prussian State Railway, ...) before 1920 are a completely different thing from "Die Länderbahn", which is a "Privatbahn" (11:34), a railway not owned by the german state, just like Abellio, Railpool, Press, ...
"Die Länderbahn" is a name given to a company in 2015, the company was founded some time between 1990 and 2015 depending on how you look at it.
@@vornamenachname727 The oldest part of "Die Länderbahn" is the "Localbahn Gotteszell - Viechtach" of 1889 and that's back in the Länderbahn era.
4:40 are we going to ignore the soviet cold war T-55 on the trains when talking about WWII germany
Wow, thank you for making my wish a reality! 😍 love the channel, please keep it up
Glad you enjoy it!
Small addition about the strikes from the GDL in August and September: Aside from the usual payment and working hour issues it was and is also about legitimacy. GDL is a niche union, only for the lok drivers; and they are fighting tooth and claw to not be integrated with the much bigger and less specialized DAG, who claim governance over lok drivers; while GLD argues as a niche union they can get better contracts for their members. Its a long ongoing conflict.
Die GDL ist nicht nur für Lokfuhrer, sondern umfasst die meisten Berufsbereiche bei der Bahn. Früher war es mal eine reine Lokführer Gewerkschaft, heute nicht mehr .
Love this channel! Much better than television!
Well as an Italian man living in Germany who previusly lived in Switzerland I have to say that in Italy we always complain a lot for our trains but in the end I have to say the same about German trains... Specially on long haul distances journeys I always had delayed in DEU. I was very surprised of that, probably German trains have more maintenance compating to the italian ones but in terms of efficiency on hight speed well.. I would prefer taking Frecciarossa.
In Switzerland I have to say it was a different story... best train system in Europe I think.
You can really see how the narrator has literally NO idea about german railway system. A german here, let me get some facts straight:
- German Railways are very old, not in a good shape, poorly maintained
- German Railway Service don't exist. Most of the time you won't get your money back, customer service is terrible, a lot of FRICKING LONG DELAYS 40+ min. or they cancel it right away
- Tickets are expensive as fuck and it get's worse with every year
- With the first snowflakes in the winter it is very likely the railway shuts down completely (poor maintaining service), because you know, it's not like we have winter EVERY year
- Due to the common delays you probably won't get to the next train in time, if you have to switch between trains during your trip
- Driving with the train in Germany is more of a challenge than a relaxing trip
auf welcher Strecke fährst du?
well.... he is not lying.
First of all he isn't wrong.
You're just narrow minded.
Stop acting as if you are the only one who has the experience.
People have different experiences with DB.
Some Good some Bad.
It doesn't make his videos wrong at all.
He never got any of them wrong.
Also it isn't facts, just your opinion.
Also the trains and railways aren't old.
Plus some of what you said, they're working on it and some are just bs.
Was laberst du?.
I think the biggest problem with german railways is not covered in this video: they are overpricing. While I don't know the exact reasons for this (my guess is the lack of funding by the government).
A train ride in germany is often not able to compete with a car ride, especially if u want to arrive somewhere at a specific time. If you are flexible and book well in advance (e.g. tourists, students) you may find a good deal, but if you're not flexible it starts getting very hard.
E.g.: A ride from munich to berlin or hamburg booked only or 1 or 2 days in advance to your travel and at convenient buisness hours can cost well between 90€-140€. In comparison you can make those journeys by car for much cheaper (about 40-80€ depending on car, insurance, gaz prizes, etc.) or to similar prices but much faster by plane.
Excellent Video!
Glancing at the comment section, I am actually really surprised, that it hasn't already developed into a raging war zone of germans, arguing how bad DB really is (btw, it's bad). Somehow this video must not have been discovered by the YT algorithm here in Germany. Maybe the two following videos will change that. At least I hope so.
Interesting and good video!
A word on the DB "profits": When the company was privatised in 1994, the government still agreed to continue to pay massive annual investments into the companies infrastructure, with no recompensation (credits or increase of shares owned). This number has been just below 8 billion € in 2019, making the 680 million € of "profit" much less impressive. Indeed, when looking at the overall profitability since privatisation from the government perspective, we now have a company that is costing just as much as it did in the early 1990s, but wich provides a significantly reduced service, specifically in rural areas where a lot of non-profitable lines have been shut down.
Really good video, however I think the Länderbahn logo is not the old fashion Länder Bahn you want to mention.
Yes, it's a mistake...
Super interesting! Thanks a lot and greetings from Cologne.
My experience with DB goes a bit like this.
They privatised it partially and to nobody's surprise, passenger numbers dropped as connections were cut and prices exploded. It took until 2018 ti get the numbers of 1996 or thereabout .
The long distance satisfaction.... (I often use the ICE from Munich to Cologne) is BAD. Like, more expensive than driving in my car all alone with dysfunctional WiFi bad. And that is with a 25% rebate card and ticket purchase half a month in advance.
So: Delays all the time, high price, no connectivity in 2021 and hostile, incomprehensive pricing model. I only use it because the train allows me to almost sleep while travelling and bc I don't like burning so much fuel just for myself on a 1400km round trip by car.
16:45 I think your guess was on point. If your train is late every 20th time and you miss your connection, you're gonna be annoyed. I think what you also should have looked at is the actual duration of delays. Because what often happens, is that a train doesn't come for significant amount of time or is cancelled completely, which doesn't show up in your statisic.
The thing is its not every 20th train atleast for the Sbahn its a guaranteed 2 times a week where a train is either severeley to late or just dosent arrive at all. And in the winter/bad weather that number doubles.
Regarding late trains and the difference between long and short distances:
If you need to change trains on your travel (or change to other transportation) you have to arrive at the changing station on time in order to not miss your next train. On long distances there is most often quite a long time for changing trains, due to multiple reasons. I guess the most important ones are punctuality in combination with less frequent trains. It's a huge difference, if you miss a train that comes every two hours versus a train that comes every five to twenty minutes. But it's also important to have time to stretch your legs for a moment, grab something to eat and so on, so after sitting three hours in a train, it's completely fine to have to wait for 20-30 minutes for your next train you will sit in for another 3 hours as well.
On the other hand on short distances you often only have two minutes to change trains. Yes, the next one comes in just 10 minutes, but if you have to change two times on your way to work and miss two trains due to a late first train and maybe even have another delay on top of that your 30 minute commute can easily become a 60 minute commute. Nobody wants to lose 30 minutes every day just to make sure to not be late in case trains arrive late.
So while a 10 minute delay on long distances often results in just losing 10 minutes of leg stretching time while changing trains, it forces you to leave your house 15 minutes early every day on short distances.
It seems like the image of Deutsche Bahn is much better abroad than it is in Germany :D
here in germany, everbody complains about DB, rightfully so
Because you have such good service that even minor problems become major annoyances, in my city, the trainlines broke down or something and we had such little backup that service had to be shifted onto busses, that was nearly two months ago and taking a day train back into the central city was basically impossible.
Please make a video comparing the punctuality of train services in different major countries. Would be very interesting to see
The DB is a shame for our country..look at Austria, Swiss or Japan for good examples..
Most of the time it works, the times where it doesn't just make for better stories, but then again the train from/to Basel probably gets preferential treatment because Switzerland makes DB pay huge penalties for delays and most of my Bahn fails have been on other lines.
@@l.c.8475 One problem with DB is their staff sometimes treat the customers in a very bad way, even with correct tickets they treat customers like criminals if the passport (which is sometimes needed additionally because the tickets are personalized) has been forgotten, and I already experienced conductors who screamed at passengers who had bicycles with them.
This is a NoGo, they behaved like if they would work for the Tax office, and not for a public railway.
@@simonm1447 I don't doubt your experiences, I'm sure there are bad encounters, but I've never seen them be anything but accomodating and polite, even through language barriers.
@@l.c.8475 In this case you have been lucky ;-)
@@simonm1447 Well, in my opinion, it‘s pretty much your own fault if you forget your ID. How dumb can you be to purchase a ticket that requires one, and then not bring it? An about the friendliness: I travel long-distance regularly and only rarely see train crew beeing unfriendly.
The logo you used for the "Länderbahn" around 3:00 is the logo of a modern company called "Die Länderbahn" which operates several regional/commuter trains around Germany and the alex international train, but has no relation to the old Länderbahnen.
Yes, it's a mistake
Everyone who ever traveled with Deutsche Bahn: *starts breathing heavily in anger*
the problem is that the short distance trains are "on time" so the 3-4 minutes they are late make you miss your connection. When all trains are late 2-5 minutes it means you are almost guaranteed to miss your connection. It is so common that our ticket app lets you check a box so that you are routed with more than 10 minutes between connecting trains, this give you time to make up the delay and still run to your connecting train.
The electric locomotive you saw in the beginning is a Mehrstromlokomotive or Multivoltagelocomotive wich is a regular [insert traffic rating here] with multiple panthographs with tranformers to convert the electricity, because most railways have diffrent catinary voltage and so on...
I'm a german train enthusiast. As others have already mentioned, long-distance trains are usually way better maintained and cleaner when compared to regional trains. Since the 16 states have to give contracts for regional railway operation to the company that offers to be "most economic", I feel that smaller private railways sometimes bite a little more than they can chew which sometimes results in a shortage of staff resulting in cancellations. DB on the other hand is severely underfunded and can't always afford to buy a new set of trains and/or wagons. Some states, therefore, started to buy the rolling stock themselves, lending it to the company winning the contract for operation. While that's initially a good idea, they tend to "forget" replacing or decommission them once they turn old and rusty. A nice example of this is the "Hanse-Netz" (including Hanover - Hamburg / Bremen - Hamburg) in the state of Lower Saxony. Very early in the 2000s, the state bought a set of brand new double-decker wagons and modern BR 146 electric locomotives. They've been handed to "Metronom" for operation. As of today, Metronom still operates the "Hanse-Netz". They've won two contract renewals which still include the usage of the same rolling stock. In the early 2000s, people were excited about Metronom and couldn't stop praising the nice coaches. Today, the rolling stock belongs to the oldest and least comfy in the entire state. The contract for operation expires in 2033 and has been renewed in 2018. In 12 years, the coaches won't just be uncomfy and old I fear.
That´s interesting, wasn’t aware of that. Used to commute daily between Lüneburg and Hamburg on the Metronom before the pandemic and absolutely hated it. The trains are so incredibly outdated and dirty beyond belief, all the while being overcrowded and constantly late (not the operator´s fault, but the network is underdeveloped in that area). What’s more, some of the amenities that made the Metronom stand out earlier - namely the snack and coffee machines - were just decommissioned without replacement in 2018. Although I did once last year catch a Metronom that was completely new which gave me hope for the future, as it was much more comfortable and even had Wi-fi (wow! wifi on a train in 2021, way to go Germany). But as far as I heard, they aren’t planning on replacing all old running stock until 2040-ish, with some of the existing wagons being upgraded with „remodeled“ interiors (had one of these too and they are a disappointment)
Ah on the map at 3:12 you can see my home town bebra. Love it, because Bebra was important during the railroad Era
As a german I feel inclined to give some information regarding the state of DB is in.
So starting the DB is an AG, Aktien-Gesellschaft, or a Shareholder Companie, it is to the largest part owned by the BRD aka Germany.
Since it is in this way splitt off from the government, public opinion about the DB have little chance of influencing their policy in any way.
Maybe we call it germanys sidehuste.
The DB is by far the largest public transportation companie in germany, oters do exist, mostly in cities and paricular regions, some examples I know of are the UBB and the the BVG, the UBB exclusivly handels the resorts and islands at the baltic sea, and the BVG are literally die berliner Verkehrs Gesellschaften, so Berlin.
Now in the last 15 years ticket prices have increased from 2,40€ for a 2 hour ticket to 3,60€, 1/3.
While the DB is still financed with 500 million € on average each year by the government.
Trains usually arrive every 20 minutes if nothing goes wrong if you ride locally and every hour if you go for regional travel, the ICE is quick and on certain popular routes also cheap, berlin to hamburg costs you between 18€ and 22€ depending on time of departure.
Considering all this and the DB having bought up other public transportation companies like the ODEG in recent past, let's you hopefullly see, why it needs reform to become an alternative to cars, also a daily ticket is between 7€ and 8€ so not inexpensive, compared to gasoline.
The delays are worse than statistics say, because cancelled trains don't count at all. In addition, delays less than 6 minutes don't count.
Moreover, they count delayed stops and not delayed passenger trips. However:
- Delayed trains usually transport more passengers
- The first stops are usually without delay, but no one cares leaving the train at the first stop
- If you take several trains in a trip, a single delay is sufficient for a delay of the full trip
- Some trains are reported to be on time, but they are not
"DB Regional provides a highly punctual service"
You gotta be kidding me
13:50 The linke Pegnitztalbahn is either missing on this map, or it isn't visible due to the fact, that it runs parallel to the rechte Pegnitztalbahn only 2 miles apart. The towns along the Pegnitz all have two stations, so you can choose which of the two parallel services you take into the city.
in my experience trains (regio) are way more often delayed more than 6min. i dont have much experience with the long distance one but it isnt too unusual to arrive an hour late and possible you cant catch the next train you might need
As a german I can tell you that the DB is extremly unpopular amongst the population. For starters that a 6 min. delay is considered punctual is a joke and I actually can´t believe that 95% of regional trains are punctual. As a daily commuter I recently had 2 months were my train ran late 3 out of 4 times which is especially annoying if you have to reach a connecting train. But what is propably the biggest reason why DB is disliked in germany is the price. They raise prices practically every year and it´s already expensive for both reginal and long distance travel.
kpi.deutschebahn.com/en/strong-rail
On this website you can find statistics that we used for this video.
Whats important to mention is the different definitions of train delays that are used when it comes to comparing Regio and Long distance. Another thing important to mention is that canceled trains are not counted as delayed and also we need to mention that often there is nothing between a train being punctual and 2 hours delayed. Which however is more unlikely than being 10 minutes late. Anyway my experience as a person using Trains frequently because if still live without a car, DB Regio Trains are punctual, cleaner and often much more comfortable than Long Distance Trains. Anyway. Except for the price, most time I enjoy to travel by train.
Poland has the third largest rail network in Europe? I'd love a video about it!
Of course! It's the crossroads of Europe.
@@Gnefitisis Well, many countries can claim to be the crossroad of Europe!
@@etbadaboum Except Poland's rail network is the junction between Southern Europe and across the Urals, north to the Baltics and Finland, and West of course.
@@Gnefitisis France is the junction between the British Isles, the Iberian Peninsula, the rest of Southern Europe, Central Europe and Northern Europe. It also opens up to the Atlantic, Mediterranean and the North Sea. Germany is the junction etc. Many countries can claim that fact.
@@etbadaboum I think you need to look at a rail network map.
How to make your punctuality seems good: Consider it is punctually even you have a five minutes delay.
This is normal in any transportation industry. DB isn‘t the only one having a 6 minute threshold.
i used to take the train on daily base to get to work and home again. In the morning there was no issue as the regional trains were frequent and mostly punctional. The issue was the ride home as often i did not catch my change train and had at some point almost daily (at least 60% in summer) an extra hour of travle time on my way home. I had weeks where NO train change was possible.
My best time was when during constuction a tunnle colapsed and buried their remote drilling equipment and that tracks were out of operation. All trains that were not on that route were 100% on time afterwards. That tells me that to many trains are on to few tracks.
17:00 I am from germany and people here are always complaining about the trains being late. I only once used a long distance train because they are super expensive (sometimes it is even cheaper to fly then to go by train) but I heard a lot of storys from my friends that their train was late or cancelled and for example they missed a job interview. So I am a little surprised that we are talking so positive about the german rail (but they are still doing a lot of stuff better then in other countries).
In the end, we are rail lovers, we are trying to keep possitive attitude towards railways :)
Good information about railway I love railway 👍👍👍
I'm late to this one again but thanks for the informative video. I've always thought that Germany's railways are pretty advanced and modern. In the UK, we need to catch up
Currently watching this on a DB train...
after 3 regional trains were cancelled...
and my first ICE...
Took me 6 hours to get from Darmstadt (right next to Frankfurt) to Cologne...
*sobbing uncontrollably*
Regarding the customer satisfaction: For satisfaction, punctuality isn't the only relevant factor. It's also influenced by the cleanliness of the train, the crowdedness, the conduct of the personnel and the other passengers, the stations, the travel experience in general. Especially commuter trains can be very crowded and you will have unpleasant encounters with other passengers more frequently there. Also, when a long distance train is late, regional trains are more likely to wait for them so connecting passengers are able to change. If a regional train runs late, long distance trains usually won't wait. That makes punctuality even more important in regional services while it isn't quite that relevant in long distance trains.
Great video. Next after talking about High Speed Railway in Germany, and development of ICE, how about talking the auto carrier on railway?
A pity that you didn't mention that DB still provides maintenance for steam locomotives as part of their Dampflokwerk Meiningen. 😍
And I hope that your videos about the ICE will also mention the ICE TD even though they weren't as successful as DB had hoped... 🤔
09:23 Is that TSW 2 Hamburg-Lubeck Promotional Material? (It Is.)
Very interesting.
I think the biggest problem for Germany is, that many tracks are shared by all kinds of trains, which makes many connections extremely vulnerable to congestion, accidents and maintenance, which can block all train traffic on a line. Last week I travelled from Mannheim to Freiburg, and because of a derailed train on the track no single train (!) could go futher and had to stop half way on the journey. So every local train, high speed train and freight train heading to Freiburg or futher into Switzerland or even Italy, had to wait for five hours until the track was cleared and then had to drive with snail speed due to congestion...
I just took local buses until a friend picked me up by car that day.
German here. You are much kinder to our rail network than we are. As a daily commuter from Augsburg to Munich, I experienced many many delays including being stuck in a train for multiple hours and other major incidents.
Most commuters hate the DB. And long distance travel where time is an issue should be planned with taking delays into consideration.
I am happy that Germany has a train network that vast, anyhow I am very annoyed by the way it is run. The prices are way too high and the frequencies lackluster, and it's getting worst every year. it became cheaper to drive alone for short distances, to carpool on mid and to fly for long distances almost 10 years ago. Now with the vast bus network (since an old law by Adolf Hitler which prioritized railways was retired) I see no reason, besides ideological concerns or flight phobia, to primarily use the rail network. But you can only see a certain number of empty or sparsely occupied trains driving by to see them as eco-friendly (as far as I remember all the CO2 math for transportation is done with a certain occupancy in mind)
The DB also did invest effort in the transrapid, not only the ICE.
I just wanna mention that in Germany, DB is a national Joke…
The main problem is, that most rail lines are mixed. Commuter, long distance and freight trains share the same tracks. And that freight trains made a strong comeback within the last 20 years. The plan after the Bahnreform was ,more or less, that there will be only long distance and commuter trains with just a small number of freight trains for bulk goods running. They expected that trucks will run most of the goods. But that never happend. There are more then 400 companies now, that run trains in the German network, most of them run freight. Which leads to the problem, that there are not enough slots for them, worsening the traffic jam. Especially if there is some major construction work or disruptions.
I dont know wether thats an international thing, but in Germany, trains that dont leave/arrive at all do NOT count in those statistics. So if you have 10 trains out of which 8 are out of service (driver sick, technical problems), one is late by 4min and one is on time, punctuality will be 100% - although only 2 of 10 trains actually moving!
One statistic is if 8 million passengers a day may not equal to 1 in 10 people of the population if you consider that most journeys must require a return journey later . So if each person on average makes two journeys a day . This could suggest that only 1 in 20 people take the train every day . I think these stats must be clarified to be sure .
About the punctuality and dissatisfaction at 17:00. Canceled trains don't count towards a late trains. So to keep the punctuality up all trains that have a delay of 30 minutes are canceled. This means for the customer that he has to wait up to 2 hours for the next train. So the dissatisfaction is understandable.
As a german, these punctuality figures are probably right, but that's only because if a train is 5 minutes late, he's not in the figures if these short unpunctualities would be listed, there would be probably only 30-40% of all trains punctual and these 30-40% would all be pretty much in the night or at 5 am.
During noon and some time after noon, 5 minutes late trains are the thing to expect.
Yes, transport authorities and operators often define such delay margin... Usually 5 min.
02:56 this is the logo of a modern private railway company, and as far as i am aware it is not affiliated with the historic railway companies of the states.
Yes, we made a mistake there
A huge part about DB Regios lower customer rating probably comes for the fact that DB Regio offers no service when compared to non DB Regio options.
The trains are usually overcrowded(even during the least busy hours of the day like Thursday after 8pm) because DB Regio apparently only considers filling of the train during the first and last station. Meaning a train that starts at Leipzig HB and ends in Cottbus HB will only be seen as half full in Leipzig end nearly empty in cottbus. Ignoring the fact that when the train leaves Leipzig, after having stopped in the different sections of the city, it will usually already be close to capacity. And most people leave this train in Torgau, Falkenberg and Calau, the last 4 stops of the journey meaning the train arrives with about half capacity in Cottbus.
So I and many others who enter the train after Leipzig will never receive a decent seat or any seat at all for two out of two and a half hours of our tripp.
Then there is the punctuality thing.
These numbers are not realistic.
Because DB uses its own clocks. My phone clock tells me the train is 8minutes late. The clock in the train is says three minutes late.
Then there are trains that are always delayed. Two examples for that. The one I mentioned above is a train I used to take every week or more often for two years and during that time it was so consistently late (always around 10minutes) that my connecting train from a different company changed their schedule to accompany us passengers from the DB Regio train better. I still take this train from time to time (actually just three days ago and it was still 9minutes late so no change in the 7 years since I started using this line)
DB Regio stated that my particular train had a 98% punctuality ratio. So yea I call bullshit on that.
My other example is a from a friend of mine who used the Regio and IC lines of DB every week to get to his doctors appointments.
Long story short. His doctor now has changed their planer to allow people to attend in 15 minute intervals despite the fact that if done so he usually has less appointments overall because he needs around 30 minutes with each patient.
In my friends case the delay is usually 20 minutes.
Overall the DB seems to be consistent. But refuses to change expected arrival times. I believe poor state of railtrack is to blame for these consistent delays, as they are far to predictable as to be caused by strictly human interference.
16:08 The part which every viewer in Germany was waiting for.
I don't think people are satisfied with commuter rail services anywhere. It's something that people notice only when it's not working.
what I'm missing in the video is how the DB looking in comparison with other countries. Internally it's perceived as an awful mess, fallen victim to the car lobby, but it's hard to tell how bad it actually is
Historically, in addition to the Länderbahnen, there were also railroads held by companies. Here in Siegen NRW, for example, there was a private train that led to the ore mines. The tracks were simply laid on the road and horse-drawn vehicles had to avoid them. The corporation made high profits until the pits were closed. There were also other branches to the important companies here. The lines were later operated by the major railways, but a railway company remained, which collected general cargo and wagons and brought them to the main line. Bus traffic was also started. But many branch rails were cut off.
With the rail reform it was possible to expand the transport of goods again. Oh yes, the tracks on the road were dismantled, the last route in 2008. If you are not careful you could run into a freight train on the road.
It was not a tram but for goods. Only on one side of the road for both directions.
What works well is the local traffic that is ordered by the countries and cities. Only in rush hour it gets tight.
What works well are the fast ICE trains when they run on their own tracks.
Where it often gets stuck when ICE trains have to cross the tracks of regional trains and are delayed.
The trains in regional traffic are tightly packed; long-distance trains that have been postponed almost always lead to delays in the entire system.
At many train stations there is hardly any space for more tracks, and in the densely populated areas there is also no space for more tracks.
Large building projects like Stuttgart21 cost a lot, but they bring more space. Instead of a dead end station, a through station with tunnels and a new city district.
In 2020 it was decided that trains would continue to run even though they were almost empty. Operate a fast ICE for only a handful of travelers, as there are costs.
But also Lufthansa and other airlines have also suffered as a result in this time.
The tunnel construction work in Switzerland and the Fehmarnbelt tunnel (Denmark) will require the construction of the DB because the traffic does not stop at the border.
My experience with DB has been as such (I'm Danish so not an expert) - your train will be delayed thus missing your next connection, then the following train will be canceled, and finally when you make a connection you will marvel at how fast and clean the train is compared to the disgusting train stations. All in all a mixed bag but, like the autobahn, really fun when it's not under construction or delayed due to traffic.
DB is the only brand of high-speed train manufacturer that is vertically integrated for producing both rail and maglev trains making them the best candidate to secure contracts with.
The lower customer satisfaction in regional trains may be due to overcrowding and low frequency of trains during rush hour.
As you say it's mostly for commuters. In which case the waiting time at a train station may be vastly more important than any sort of delay.
Keep in mind that in Germany you don't typically take the car to the train station to switch to the train. You walk to the train station or use the bicycle/bus/tram. If you would use a car you wouldn't take the train anyway because it just doesn't make sense to wait for a train when you could just be driving to work directly.
Japan's rail system is such a big success in part because important lines have a train departing every couple minutes. In Germany the typical interval would be an hour. Which is absolutely terrible if for example your bus is too late and you miss your train. And then you are calling in at work and your boss tells you that you should just have planned to take the train one hour earlier because stuff like this can happen. Trust me, you are not having a good day that day and people around you will notice.
Outside of rush hour an interval of an hour is totally fine, trains are not full at that time anyway.
There are more situations where overcrowding occurs: carnival and football games.
Can you do the railways explaind sweden comprehetion
By privatisation and extremely strict anti-monopily guidelines... heavy found cuts and removing of rail infrastructure the country's rail situation has suffered extremely in the past 10 years... due to excessive lobbyism many cargo shipments successfully avoid transportation via Rail, because of the Car Lobby.
All this led to a massive decrease of QUALITY of the Services and Rolling stock.
Arriva has a new logo since a short while ago (or atleast in the netherlands)
There’s a green version of ICE3? I heard about the red one as default and blue one in China.
can you do italian railways(ferrovie dello stato italiano) next?
DB will be a huge player in the opening long distance European rail market: sure, FS will try to leverage its experience in dealing with Italo and to gain shares in the early phase, but DB con just afford to invest much more if they'll decide to care about long distance passenger.
Switzerland borders on Germany. We always have a reserve train ready in Basel, which can be threaded spontaneously, because the "Deutsche Bahn" is usually on the road with at least 20 min. delay ;)
The new ICE also comes with the slowest door movement I have ever seen... Not made for Swiss efficiency.
Surprised to see Finland ranked just before Germany, from my experience delays are more frequent in Finland (whatever the season, a force-majoure excuse is always there). Also, Finland doesn't have high speed rail at all. Well there are high speed Pendolino trains that could do 220km/h but the tracks are so bad that they can't drive that fast :D On the other hand, I often ride the ICE from Berlin to Munich and the experience is amazing, good trains, never had a major delay, and faster than driving flat out on the unrestricted A9.
Damn you are lucky, I am relayed on regional trains and they have like 3 delays per week
As a German I'd like to mention that the Deutsche Bahn might be better than many in the world but it's still not that well.
You'll quite often have delays as well as cancellations. This isn't something to happen sometimes but the norm.
A German dataminer named David Kriesel has used the db app to record all trains during a period in 2020.
He found out that on long distance trains the propability to have no delay or cancellation is roughly 70%. That means that as soon as you have to switch trains once during your journey the propability to have a smooth ride will be 0.7 * 0.7 = 0.49 and therefore lower than the chance of having an interruption.
This is the data that backs up the bad storys on the deutsche bahn me and everyone I know often tell each other about.
"Pünktlich, wie die Deutsche Bahen" (On time like a German train) has actually become something we say ironically.
Can you do a video about the Bulgarian railways? Although, I admit, it would be pretty embarrassing.
Do the passenger numbers of rail include light rail and trams?
Certainly not, as Metros and Trams and community-owned and have nothing to do with Deutsche Bahn or other railway companies.
I don't think Deutsche Bahn does the inner city trams(Stadtbahn/U-bahn). They are usually their own company or a regional traffic company.
The S-Bahn that brings traffic into the city from the big region around it is done quite a lot by DB Regio but can be given to other Private train company's too.
No as those are part of the local public transportation authorities... they run busses, trams, subway and light rail
I've heard that not paying for the trains is quite common and no one checks the ticket, is that true??
Shouldn't be the case that often, what do Germans say? We have recently traveled across Switzerland with SBB and indeed it happens that the train stuff doesn't reach out, however we assume that cultural aspect is what prevents people from avoiding paying tickets there..
In Germany checking the tickets works like this: in the trains controllers will at random ask passengers to show their tickets. If they don't have one the controller has the authority to issue a fine at once.
Will you make a video about Hungarian Railways? However we do not have high speed railways and 3/4 of the infrastructure are undermaintained, Hungary has the 5th longest network per land area, only in Switzerland, Germany, Czech Republic and Luxemburg is railway density larger :)
Super ..
I love it to watch content about Germany and read the comments from people that actually don't live here. Thru this perspective everything looks more exciting.
Could you make a video on the Austrian railway system?
10:41 this is the only db company i see everyday (arriva limburgliner)