The German Review

The German Review

The demise of German punctuality

Some 45,000 trains that didn’t even make it out of the depot between the summer of 2020 and summer 2022.

Jörg Luyken's avatar
Jörg Luyken
Jan 26, 2023
∙ Paid
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Photo by Christian Lue on Unsplash

The Story

According to older members of German society, you used to be able to set your watch by the trains. The timeliness of trains was one of the strengths of a country that placed such a high value on organisation and punctuality.

But those days are long gone.

State-owned rail company Deutsche Bahn is rarely out of th…

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