European Railroad Discussion > On board ICE 370 18 July

On board ICE 370 traveling from Freiburg to Berlin.  Prior travels on this trip were Eurostar from London to Brussels and the next day taking DB from Brussels to Cologne for a change to the train for Freiburg.  All travel first class, but accommodations so tight, it feels like coach.  Track in SW Germany is rough by comparison with Eurostar and DB from Cologne south to Frankfurt airport and is relatively slow and feels like riding Amtrak om CSX A-line from Deland to Jacksonville.  You really feel it when the train goes through crossovers and turnouts.  As some commented several decades ago that you need to realign the track after a unit coal train goes through a turnout.
 
john

Train is over 30 minutes late after stop in Frankfurt and very slow travel heading towards Fulda and Kassel  Track in need of alighment at turnouts.

 

87 minutes down at Wolfsburg.

Train arrived at Berlin Hbf at 1915 hours local time (1:45 late),

It appeared that delays were the result of spending too much time at station stops , slow running (slow orders?) , and waiting for opposing traffic to clear.

John

I've seen comments on other sites, mainly YouTube, about the decline of Deutsche Bahn. Complaints about on-time performance, mainly.

colehour Wrote:
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> I've seen comments on other sites, mainly YouTube,
> about the decline of Deutsche Bahn. Complaints
> about on-time performance, mainly.

I have also seen many such comments, even to the point of it becoming a national joke. This is the first I have heard about track conditions being less than stellar, however.

Posted from iPhone



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/19/25 11:54 by czephyr17.

So much for the "they do it better in Europe" arguement...

colehour Wrote:
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> I've seen comments on other sites, mainly YouTube,
> about the decline of Deutsche Bahn. Complaints
> about on-time performance, mainly.

Indeed there are, I spent an hour and a half on Mainz Römisches Theater Bhf last Thursday and very few of the trains booked to stop were on time. On Friday we rode a Köln to Frankfurt train from Oberwesel to Mainz, it was five minutes late but running in front of the preceding train, which was 40 minutes late! Consequently it was rammed, as you can see.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/25 14:05 by 86235.

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PHall Wrote:
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> So much for the "they do it better in Europe"
> argument...

They very often do. But DB has serious problems right now, due to an very overstressed network - freight open access has been wildly successful, with huge traffic increases. Preceded by a period of infrastructure underinvestment. Due in part to politics, and in part to disinvestment in rail and diversion of resources to other things. Now they are playing serious catch-up.

Where have we seen that playbook - and the consequences thereof -  before? 

By comparison, on a long trip last fall, service in Switzerland, northern Italy on the high-density Milan - Venice corridor, and in Austria, was excellent. So be careful abut overgeneralizing from the situation in Germany right now. And to their credit, they are rather aggressively tackling the situation with heavy expenditures and lots of infrastructure projects underway. It will be a big mess for a while. But it is being dealt with.

MC 

DocJohn Wrote:
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> Train arrived at Berlin Hbf at 1915 hours local
> time (1:45 late),
>
> It appeared that delays were the result of
> spending too much time at station stops , slow
> running (slow orders?) , and waiting for opposing
> traffic to clear.


You're entitled to a partial refund because of the delay. The amount is dependent on what type of ticket you bought.