The deteriorating state of German intercity trains, that are even less punctual than Britain’s worst operator, has been laid bare in new analysis.
It comes after German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, last week dismissed suggestions that the country’s network should be privatised and mockingly said it would “end as badly as in England, where nothing works any more”.
Deutsche Bahn, the German state-owned rail group is however – according to new figures from the Financial Times – consistently delivering one of the least reliable services in central Europe and in comparison to UK railways.
The research states that approximately 72 per cent of Deutsche Bahn’s intercity trains arrived within a 10-minute window of their scheduled arrival time in 12 months to January, compared with 78 per cent of British long-distance trains.
Punctuality also reportedly affects long-distance train travel across central Europe.
The analysis tracks some 1.9 billion arrivals at stations, as shown by websites Bahn-Vorhersage and Zugfinder, from February 2024 until the end of January 2025.
It also revealed that roughly 20 per cent of intercity trains in Germany were delayed by more than 15 minutes in the 12-month period – almost twice the amount that Avanti West Coast experiences and 10 times as much as all the services in the UK.
The UK’s most punctual trains
Office of Rail and Road figures from April to June 2024 showed how punctual trains were last year.
In the timeframe covered, 70.1 per cent of recorded station stops in Great Britain (14.4 million out of 20.5 million) had arrived at on time.
Top five trains by On Time percentages:
Greater Anglia: 87.2 per cent
Elizabeth Line: 83.1 per cent
Chiltern Railways: 82 per cent
c2c: 81.4 per cent
Heathrow Express: 75.9 per cent
Bottom five trains by On Time percentages:
Avanti West Coast: 41.2 per cent
Grand Central: 48.4 per cent
CrossCountry: 51.3 per cent
TransPennine Express: 53 per cent
Hull Trains: 56.3 per cent
