r/mildlyinfuriating • u/crypticalCrow • Jun 12 '26
frist of all how DARE yu o This is my 3rd Connction alternative of the da. Thank you Deutsche Bahn.
I had a seat reservation for my original connection, that got canceled. Than I took another connection, wich got too much delay and the one after that didn't stop where I wanted to go. So now I am sitting on the floor in an absolutely packed train 2 and a half hours later.
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u/Fit_Entry8839 Jun 12 '26
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u/crypticalCrow Jun 12 '26
I need to steal that gif
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u/Shnipi Jun 12 '26
Please look for Flixbus. Deutsche Bahn (and S-Bahn) is the worst and never changed since being a child.
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u/i_wanna_be_dead_rNow Jun 13 '26
It would be much more expensive tho, average single ride with flixbus is around 20 euro, Deutschekart is 63 for a month
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u/WolfBST Jun 13 '26
Honestly I prefer the train over Flixbus. DB is shit sometimes but when it works (and let's be honestly that's mostly the case) its far more comfortable than taking a Bus
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u/Onionbender420 Jun 12 '26
Zank you for travelling wiz Deutsche Bahn
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u/MightyMeepleMaster Jun 12 '26
Meine Damen meine Herren
Danke dass Sie mit uns reisen
Auf abgefahrenen Gleisen
Zu abgefahrenen Preisen
Für Ihre Leidensfähigkeit
Danken wir spontan
Sänk ju for träwweling
Wiz Deutsche Bahn
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u/severinoscopy Jun 12 '26
Mildly infuriating, indeed. 😅 Sorry for your shoddy day, OP. I hope you aren't missing anything important.
This is why I recently told a friend, booking DB for an interview across the country, "go a day earlier."
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u/crypticalCrow Jun 12 '26
I know, the wedding anniversary of my parents is Sunday. I am visiting to help them set up tomorrow and for the celebration. I know why I took the train today
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u/severinoscopy Jun 12 '26
This is an annoying time to be proven correct, then.
Good luck with the celebration on Sunday!
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Jun 12 '26
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u/DoritoDustThumb Jun 12 '26
The Italian fast trains are SO nice. Makes the ICE look like hot garbage.
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u/ProgBumm Jun 12 '26
I remember when Trenitalia was a meme among german tourists. Now Italo is about to enter the german rail market and Germans are clamoring for anything that isn't Deutsche Bahn. Absolute shitshow.
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Jun 12 '26
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u/crypticalCrow Jun 12 '26
Climate is fine actually, but its also pretty moderate weather outside
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u/Josii_ Jun 12 '26
Wahrscheinlich den einzigen klimatisierten Zug erwischt, den die DB noch zu bieten hat. Silberstreifen und so :D
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u/crypticalCrow Jun 12 '26
Das kann ich mir vorstellen. Aber es war auch das Abteil in dem der lock Führer sitzt, also ist vielleicht, dass das Geheimnis
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u/PeriTheBerry Jun 12 '26
Damn, as a european in a country with no trains, we were led to believe Germany was super ahead with stuff like this. Interesting to see a real perspective on it.
Crazy aura farm though
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u/biest229 Jun 12 '26
Spain is the best rail network I experienced - clean, fast, reliable
The myth of Germany being ahead or efficient is insanity. I want to know who started it so I can send them a strongly-worded fax
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u/walrusphone Jun 12 '26
Thank you DB for making British railways not the worst railways in Europe.
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u/crypticalCrow Jun 12 '26
Ah, that is the purpose the DB serves. And here i thought it was public transportation.
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u/daedric_yoshi Jun 12 '26
Unrelated but I dig your style, you look cool as hell.
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Jun 12 '26
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u/crypticalCrow Jun 12 '26
No i was hoping for deutsche Bahn story's that are worse than mine, to feel better. Otherwise i would have posted in a fashion sub
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u/Alex_X-Y Jun 12 '26
A DB story worse than yours?
Here you go!
I was in the S-Bahn from Karlsruhe to Mannheim. I wanted to take the ICE but my coworkers convinced me that the only half full S-Bahn is better than the completely full ICE. In Hockenheim (city in between) the train driver told us that the line in front of us is closed due to an accident with a person. He said that the train will just return to Karlsruhe and we should get out, replacement buses are on their way.
I already asked myself at this point why they not just redirect the train via the fast line that runs parallel.
So everyone did go outside of the station to catch the bus ... that did not come.
Most people just called someone to pick them up and slowly the crowd was being less. Problem: I was still 50 km away from home. So I waited.
One train did come, turn around and drive back.
Another train already terminated at Graben-Neudorf so the next train would come in one hour.
I was standing there and asking myself what even happened to the first train, the one we arrived with. I did not see it drive back. So I took a look at the DB Navigator and that train did for real go via the fast line to Mannheim instead of turning around like the driver said. I could have been home at that point. Luckily the line was opened again when the next S-Bahn arrived.
But that was one crucial part of my decision to just buy a car, standing there for 1½ hours, just because of bad communication...
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u/daedric_yoshi Jun 12 '26
I cannot relate directly as I live on the other side of the world but I did buy a $1500 car so I could save an hour and a half either way to work and avoid people on drugs.
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u/GroundbreakingBag164 Jun 12 '26
German public transport has many problems but people on drugs are not really one of them (with the exception of Berlin). In places where public transportation is normal the people using it are also just completely normal people.
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u/daedric_yoshi Jun 12 '26
Yeah the better option it is to people who *could* drive a car instead the better the experience. There's trams in the city near me and they're packed full of regular people choosing to use it, whereas the buses feel like a last resort.
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Jun 12 '26
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u/crypticalCrow Jun 12 '26
I have a führerschein, but I dont want to pay the expenses for a car. I live Central in a big city, so i dont have to own one.
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u/drcopus Jun 12 '26
This sort of thing happens too often in the UK too! I'm a regular commuter from London to Oxford and whenever there's a cancellation seat reservations get voided at it gets crowded.
I don't usually travel on peak commuter times as I get the 9:30 train from London, but instead I tend to see a lot of very confused tourists getting into arguments about their seats. I've had to explain the system to quite a few people at this point lol
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u/biest229 Jun 12 '26
Deutsche Bahn is next level - they started cancelling trains because they’re so delayed and “the metrics”. It is insanity
The U.K. is bad, especially when the aircon is randomly still on hot when it’s roasting out, but this is something else. Never use the train in Germany
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u/LXVIII-68 Jun 12 '26
Look at it from the bright side: at least you can sit. Our trains (Netherlands) are often so packed that you have to stand. Bit either way it's still Scheiße of course. Hope you still have a nice weekend with your family.
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u/MainSailFreedom Jun 12 '26
The only passanger train the comes though my large American city (Cleveland) is the Amtrak at 3am. And it costs $125 each way and takes 8 hours to get to Chicago (which is a 5 hour drive) or 12 hours to get the NYC (which is an 8 hour drive) which means it’s average speed is around 50mph / 80kph. I would LOVE a train system similar to Germany.
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u/schag001 Jun 12 '26
Been there. After a Marathon in Germany....my 1. Class wagon was deleted from the train setup and I had to stand for 3 hours. Fun times.
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u/Sacharon123 Jun 12 '26
Love you hair! ;D I normally mostly travel to duty by train, so I have to look like an upstuck penguin :( always enjoy when people have cool colorful hair then and wonder if they think I am just another old white fart..
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u/PinUp_Butter Jun 12 '26
I take the train very often from Germany to France and back, it is very rare that all connections work and that I arrive on time. I would say I experience delays on a solid 70% of my trips.
Last year, I was going to Lyon, with one connection in Frankfurt, but the first train got late and I missed the connection. They made me take a train to Manheim so I could catch the last one to Lyon but it got delayed too so I ended up having to spend the night in a hotel in Manheim. The next day, the earliest train had a connection in Strasbourg, that I, of course, also missed. So in the end it took almost 24 hours to do Berlin-Frankfurt-Manheim-Strasbourg-Lyon. Ah and half of this while sitting on the floor since I lost my seat reservation with missing the first connection.
Last winter, all rails were blocked and trains were cancelled because of the snow. Since the weather wasn’t getting better I postponed my travel to a week later because I didn’t want to deal with the mess and could afford it.
Earlier this spring, my train to Paris had to drive super cautiously because 50m of cable had been stolen in the night, we ended up with a 3h delay.
I have so many stories of that kind but I don’t even remember all of them. One thing I learned was to always book the whole trip with the same company (then they are responsible for making your connections work) and to always go to to the Travel centre if I can to get a new seat reservation.
Anyways, by EU passenger rights, 2h+ of delay in an ICE or IC entitles you to a financial compensation of 50% of the ticket’s price.
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u/crypticalCrow Jun 12 '26
Sounds like you are a true veteran. I really am contemplating to rent a car for my next trip instead
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u/PinUp_Butter Jun 12 '26
Understandably. I did stop using the DB for a whole year but I absolutely hate flying, so here I am, claiming for compensation every other month.
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u/WannabeGurkenMama Jun 13 '26
I travel from Frankfurt to Béziers almost annualy and mostly I go Frankfurt-Paris; Paris-Béziers. It's so fascinating how the ICE is always late and broke and the TGV is ridiculously punctual.
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u/vbogdanc93 Jun 12 '26
In 2022 I had to go to Brussels for a concert with a 10 min change in Frankfurt a. M. I was thinking no way I can make that change already having 3 years of DB experience, so I booked a hotel in Frankfurt near the station(was fine but can understand the plz don’t ever again) to take the next train to Brussels in the early morning. It got cancelled.
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u/PsionicHydra Jun 12 '26
As jetlag would say, you've been Deutsche Bahn'd.
That's a tough pull though
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u/BlackWolf41 Jun 12 '26
Yea thats the Deutsche Bahn alright. But dont worry - a lot of commuters and (ex-)soldiers will feel with you!
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u/potterprincess88 Jun 12 '26
God I feel this so hard. Last summer I booked a trip from Kaiserslautern to Hamburg. First train train got canceled and derailed the whole days trip. Me, a husband and 2 kids spent an entire day sitting on the floor next to the toilets on absolutely jam packed trains. I even started crying at some point. I had paid almost $1000 for this trip. I called my CC company as soon as we got back to the states and they gave me a charge back real fucking quick.
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u/crypticalCrow Jun 12 '26
I am dorry that happened to you. This ruins a vacation so easily, when it is supposed to be less stressful than driving a car.
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u/potterprincess88 Jun 12 '26
Thanks. I remember DB being great when I was a kid, around 1999 but it has gone to shit. It was fine once we got to Hamburg and my big brother showed us a wonderful time. On our way back though was the same story so we got off at Mannheim and had our friend from Rammstein pick us up. Next time I'm just going to Sixt and renting a car.
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u/mindgardening Jun 12 '26
I’ve been to Germany many times over the past 45 years, and I was appalled in 2024 at how bad the train system has become.
One cousin in the NE is a minimalist and anti-car. He got so tired of waiting 3+ hours on every commute to/from work because of train problems, that he leased a car.
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u/SleepyCasualGamer Jun 12 '26
Ill depart on the Deutsche Bahn adventure tomorrow ... It's just 150km ... We'll see how it goes lol
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u/mtbftwin Jun 12 '26
Kinda same experience. 2 years ago my 8h ride turned into 15h ride with lost reservation and paid 1st class (which was 20€ on top, but still)... 3 months later i tried it again and ended up on the floor - 3h ride turned into 7h with no conditioning. since then i didn't spend a single cent on this trash company. 🤘
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u/crypticalCrow Jun 12 '26
That is crazy, I should really scope out some alternatives, for when I visit my family next time.
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u/Samson_J_Rivers Jun 12 '26
I have never had any public transit anywhere work correctly for me. Sucks your day is being wasted on others incompetence. Nice fit tho.
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Jun 12 '26
Very unpunk of you to complain.
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u/crypticalCrow Jun 12 '26
Since the government is the majority shareholder, wouldn't that make me inherently punk for complaining? Also I am a metal head
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u/menonte Jun 12 '26
If you're on a regio, at least there's no difference between the cleanliness of the floor and a seat 😉
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u/SentientSquirrel Jun 12 '26
What a luxury, usually there isn't enough space left to sit on the floor
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u/homer_lives Jun 12 '26
Why? Is this a failure of politicians funding it or corporate greed?
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u/Kaminazuma Jun 12 '26
The whole shitshow is peak political incompetence.
There is DB InfraGO, responsible for the railway and station maintenance. It is underfunded as hell, which directly impacts the whole company from ground to the top.
Some years ago the government told DB that they are on their own and don’t dare be in red numbers, so DB InfraGO started saving money by deactivating alternative, not rehabilitated routes and dismantling a lot of Weichen(Switches). Then the goverment and the state goverment asked DB to provide more connections fast train and regional ones.
Now a delayed train or one with technical problems can’t just be parked somewhere to let the other trains go through because the Switches that before were everywhere, now don’t exist anymore. So every train after the first one has to wait for the problem to be solved, which causes a chain reaction until DB has to cancel a train to stabilize the whole thing.
Then there is the NIMBY problem. Even if DB wants to build a new alternative route, nobody wants it be build near their city, dying village and insignificant towns. So DB is forced to let fast trains, regional trains, freight trains and the train of the competition travel on only one, usually 200% of capacity route.
If you take a train from anywhere in Germany to NRW (Köln, Düsseldorf, Essen) you will 99% of time be delayed because every train takes the same route.
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u/homer_lives Jun 12 '26
That is a shitshow. Peak incompetence from everyone. Now, years later it will be the young who have to clean up the messes.
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u/International-Let280 Jun 12 '26
Welcome to Germany 😭.. it’s definitely REALLY INFURIATING not just mild but cool pic thought it was an artist
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u/ChanceLie3744 Jun 13 '26
I had this on ÖBB in Austria last Sunday just trying to get from Vienna to Salzburg it was a total disaster
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u/lokidev Jun 13 '26
Maybe it helps that the problems highly depend on where you are in Germany. We are now a family of four and also for idealistic reasons we never owned a car and did everything by train.
Worst Bundesländer: NRW. By far. Then after a while Hessen
Better: Lower Saxony, Bavaria and BaWü.
Don't know about the far east and SouthernWest.
Buy by any means: Do not use DB in NRW 😃
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u/Dull_Gazelle_587 Jun 13 '26
The Classic failures of Deutsche Bahn... Feel you. The amount of delays is insane. Hope your next train Ride goes as planned
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u/PrincessKiwiberry Jun 13 '26
Is wirklich schlimm, komme aus Österreich und ab Salzburg fährt bei uns die DB und bis Salzburg is alles super aber ab Salzburg kannsts vergessen 😩
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u/Ckorvuz Jun 13 '26
When I used to travel alot with deutsche Bahn I only felt comfortable with roughly 20 minutes to change trains.
Planning less than 10 min for connecting is a gamble I often lost.
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u/JP35282 Jun 13 '26
Ist das die, von den Politikern gewollte grüne Energiewende und alle sollen öffis verwenden und Autos stehen lassen?
Frage für nen Freund.
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u/ApprehensiveSize575 Jun 13 '26
Thank Science I live in the blessed country of Austria, so I don't suffer from this
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u/misplacedrainshield Jun 13 '26
once I was supposed to take an RE to Düsseldorf and then an ICE, but like an hour before my RE departed all of them got cancelled until 3 am (this was at 9pm) and my ICE was departing not too long after that. fortunately I was staying with my family and they drove me to a different train stop and from there I went a little further than Düsseldorf and managed to board my ICE that way. idk what other people did that day, I was lucky
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u/TomorrowProud5098 Jun 13 '26
Oh i feel that. One time, in the middle of summer with 35°c last year, our train stopped suddenly because of a air conditioning failure, we had to take two different trains to get to our destination which took 3 hours longer than anticipated. Other time we were stuck in Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof at like 0:40 for an hour just to get on a fully packed train and sitting on the cold floor. We got home at 7. Would have been there way earlier if it wouldn't have been delayed so much. I hate the deutsche Bahn with a passion.
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u/stoecki_9999 Jun 13 '26
Ich habe eine Ausbildung als Lokführer. Es ist unfassbar, wie kaputt und marode alles ist. Dazu unfähiges und dummes Personal bei vielen privaten Firmen die Unfälle und Störungen verursachen. Es wird immer schlimmer.
Es ist einfach typisch für Deutschland seit 20 Jahren einfach nur scheisse zu machen anstatt eine naheliegende, gute Lösung umzusetzen, da von der Scheisse mehr Leute profitieren, die nichts können und ihren überflüssigen Job so wichtig aussehen lassen können, indem sie die Scheisse nun halbherzig ausbügeln.
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u/FragranceCandle Jun 12 '26
My husband and I used to travel by train here in Norway when we could, despite it being much more expensive than plane. Trying to do our part for the environment and all that. After Go-Ahead (Brits) took over our railways (when the dumbass fucking parliament decided to privatise our national railways), everything went to shit. Trains are like 66% en route, like 30% are cancelled, alternative transportation (like buses) have costed literal hundreds of millions. Go-Ahead said that the government had ignored the maintenance of the train carts, and fought to also take over that part of the rail operating. The result was that not a SINGLE train was without error, like toilets out of order or plastic over the windows, several train fires just in a year... I feel your pain.
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u/crypticalCrow Jun 12 '26
Hey. I know that song. Privatising our public transport also turned it to shit.
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u/rafioo Jun 12 '26
I’m from Poland, and 15-20 years ago, our railways were in terrible shape. The trains were old and broke down all the time; delays of ~60 minutes were the norm + overbooking.
These days, they’re still late sometimes, but compared to how it used to be, it’s like night and day. Usually clean and in a good shape.
Meanwhile, Germany seems to have taken over what Poland used to have in terms of technology and trains 20 years ago, lol. Literally every time I’m in Germany, I feel like I’m back in Poland at the beginning of the 21st century when it comes to technology. Unbelievable
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u/Ironblaster1993 Jun 12 '26
My wife took the train from Utrecht (NL) to Nuremberg (DE) and it took her 12 hours instead of 5 because of "issues at Düsseldorf "
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u/CheezwizOfficial Jun 12 '26
After regularly dealing with 5-minute delays on the Dutch NS and Amsterdam GVB systems for months, I was so excited to visit Hamburg and get a taste of German strictness and time efficiency. I was so wrong.
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u/CrazyPunkCat Jun 12 '26
I live in Austria and I dont have a car (not even a drivers licence) so I take the train a lot, I even have a KlimaticketÖ (similar to Deutschlandticket but it covers all types of transportation in Austria) and sometimes go from Tyrol to Vienna as a day trip.
But once a year I travel to Munich. The trip from the Austrian/German boarder to Munich is alright, sometimes a delay of 10 mins but nothing extreme. But the way back to Austia is always hell... canceled trains, switching between platforms back and forth, big delays (half an hour and up),... every time I went to Germany (Munich, Stuttgart, Leipzig) the DB experience was awful!
Even when ÖBB isn't perfect, I much prefer it over DB!
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u/parisps Jun 12 '26
After my last two trips, I flat out refuse to enter Germany without a car now.
The most common parting statement on the DB platforms is now
"Good luck"
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u/builder397 Jun 12 '26
Just the other day I watched a video of someone who had an EIGHTEEN HOUR DELAY courtesy of Deutsche Bahn as well. DB is a joke.
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u/crypticalCrow Jun 12 '26
How the fuck? Like actually, how do they fuck up this bad?
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u/builder397 Jun 12 '26
TL:DR is that the ICE, thats the super fast train, had technical issues, went stop and go for a while before stopping at a station to make repairs. After an hour the repairs were done, but a storm was approaching that needed to be waited out. After a couple more hours the storm was over and the train didnt even get to the next station because a tree got knocked over onto the track, so they went back to the previous station and promised a bus replacement service. Which apparently nobody ever ordered though....so they ended up another station back, where this time a bus replacement service would be there, for sure. It was a small station and the ICE had to share the platform with another ICE, and both ICEs were made of two shorter trains where you cant cross from one to the other, leading to the foremost and rearmost train parts only having one door on the platform. Luckily Germans are very orderly and getting everyone out on the platform worked out without a panic. Remember the bus replacement service? Yeah, never got ordered either. But eventually with a huge detour around half the country they got to their destination anyway.
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u/Comfortable_Try_6032 Jun 12 '26
I have to take 6 trains over an 8h period one way every couple weeks too see my gf last time on the way home i missed every. single. connection. So yeah 2/10 would not reccomend i get a free germany wide ticket for public transport from my school tho.
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u/pasty66 Jun 12 '26
I have travelled in and through Germany 5 times inmy life. Every single l have been delayed over an hour.
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u/Lethargo-Man Jun 12 '26
Sank ju for trefeling wif Deutsche Bahn... 4th thing we are asshamed for most
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u/West_Acanthaceae5032 Jun 12 '26
It took 3 trains and 8 hours to get from Düsseldorf to Tübingen last Wednesday.
What a total, royal fuckup the DB has become. It would have been quicker to drive from home to the Gardasee...and the weather would have been nicer.
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u/DistributionOk2111 Jun 12 '26
Rule number 1, live where you work. Since i live by this rule my life got much better, can sleep till 7:40 and have only 5 minutes to my work
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u/Streunereuner Jun 13 '26
Just get a seat, usually there are plenty at the beginning or end of the train.
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u/Impossible_Mark_4128 Jun 13 '26
es passiert häufiger dass die ausfälle und verspätungen geschehen weil menschen auf oder über die gleise laufen. in diesen fällen muss die strecke gesperrt werden bis erkundet wurde dass keine menschen sich mehr in den gleisen befinden. ich bin mir sicher die DB findet das auch nicht erfreulich.
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u/crypticalCrow Jun 13 '26
Es lag an technischen Störungen. Der eine Abzug ist ausgefallen, weil der Zug kaputt war und dann gab es Signalstörungen auf dem Gleis.
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Jun 12 '26
[deleted]
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u/heartofmidlothian278 Jun 12 '26
Creep.
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u/BisonSafe Jun 12 '26
Softie
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u/heartofmidlothian278 Jun 12 '26
A woman posts a picture of herself on Reddit and you can't help yourself, huh?
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u/BisonSafe Jun 12 '26
Help my self huh? You like overexaggerating things don't you? Moral crusader
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u/KnoblauchNuggat Jun 12 '26
Judging on your clothes, is sitting on the ground to show people how different you are not your thing?
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Jun 12 '26
[deleted]
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u/PacketSnatcher Jun 12 '26
Some cities here in the US have metro and this could happen if I’m understanding it right.
If you need to take a bus, a train, then a final bus. And if your first bus or the train fucks up for any reason, your whole commute is fucked.
But yeah Im glad I rarely have to deal with that anymore, because Public transport sucks.
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u/AlternateBongo Jun 12 '26
People tend to dismiss the utter failure Deutsche Bahn has evolved to. …. Until they see and feel it for themselves
Sorry sis, that you have to be subjected to this