Deutsche Bahn "joke" is no longer funny

A rail enthusiast recounts a 100-hour-plus record attempt between Kemijärvi, Finland and Lagos, Portugal that finished 125 hours 31 minutes after accruing 25 hours 22 minutes of delay - none of it caused by Germany (24 hours occurred in Sweden, the remainder in Portugal). The piece pushes back against easy jokes blaming Deutsche Bahn, noting stark contrasts: Mannheim sees multiple departures to Basel within an hour, while the Badajoz-Entroncamento link into Portugal runs just two afternoon services on a 1955 railbus with poor air conditioning, and northern Sweden north of Umeå depends on a single electrified track with very few trains. The core point is that passengers don’t complain about trains that effectively don’t exist; sparse networks simply make rail non-competitive in many regions.

The argument concedes that German rail has serious problems - an investment backlog, failing tracks, signals and bridges that degrade reliability - but stresses that Germany’s dense network means delays cascade and affect many passengers, which inflates visible complaints. Political choices are blamed, tracing roots to Gerhard Schröder’s Third Way and subsequent ministers including long CSU influence, with a note that Volker Wissing (FDP) was a relative improvement but current politics risk reverting. Other German infrastructure failures (Berlin-Brandenburg airport, cracking Autobahn bridges) are cited, yet a Siemens-built ICE3neo trip between Aachen and Liège is praised as smooth, quiet, well-staffed and on time.