I was traveling Europe by train a couple months ago and iirc, only one train were+10 min late (Amsterdam -> Brussels). The rest were one or two minutes and in Spain were on clock all of them. Pretty good experience all around.
Try Germany if you want shitty train service.
The ones I took in Germany were Ok, 5 min late max. I really like that you don’t need to show your tickets on the entrance of the trains and the ticket guy was really cool, there was a girl without ticket close to us and he told her that she needs a ticket and please go down the nest station and didn’t made a fuss around that.
I took an ICE in Germany and spent half the trip standing; even though I’d booked a seat, some ass was in it and pretended not to speak English until the conductor heard out my complaint.
I have had that happen in China and Japan, but it was honest mistakes quickly resolved. What did they do after you showed your ticket?
Or Poland.
Either the train is or time, or just late by checks last few times 45 minutes to 3 hours.
It always depends to what you compare. I visited Germany twice for a total of about 15 days, taking trains mostly every day, and I don’t recall any major issues. I read online since my first visit in 2016 that it got much worse so I expected at least some issues when I went back in 2024, but it went well, either in RE trains or in ICE. Of course, it’s a very small sample and I’m Canadian, so anything more than five trains a day and not yielding to freight is just magical to me.
This is what we call an anecdotal fallacy. I’m glad the trains ran well for you. They do not on average. Have a gander online if you don’t believe me.
It’s not anecdotal fallacy if the study you linked to shows that Amsterdam -> Brussels would be a train between the 2nd and 3rd less delayed countries at 93-88% of trains on time.
And I don’t see Spain in that list which is the other country mentioned.
Germany is known to have a shit train system, which brings the European average down by a lot. That doesn’t mean that your European train will be delayed. If you don’t touch a German (and apparently, italian) train, your experience will be way better than the average.
Since we are going by our experience, I’ll tell you that I recently took a train from Stockholm to Copenhagen and it was nearly 30min late. Not only that but the conductor was short on time for stops and left several passengers stranded due to station overrun. I was one of them.
I don’t understand wanting to try to convince people that the trains are without fault and completely reliable. Not only is it untrue, it’s also a dangerous precedent to set. We should expect them to be on time more often. It’s a service that is paid for and the train lines don’t always hold up their end of the deal.
We are not going by our experience. I explicitly used the numbers that appear in the link you provided.
Gee, 136 years, that’s a lot. Let’s see:
The tech start-up “Chuuchuu” has analyzed more than 17.3 million train journeys in Europe for the year 2025. The result: the delays added up to a total waiting time of almost 136 years. Germany’s trains are at the bottom of the rankings.
Hang on…
17.3 million train journeys
136 years / 17.3 million journeys = 4.13 minutes per journey.
What is that fallacy called?
It varies a fair bit between countries afaik. Netherlands I’ve never had to wait for a delayed train, though I am sure it happens occasionally. In Sweden however I have never had a train be on time.
Western europe is pretty decent, but eastern europe is pretty much like this comic.
As a train driver, I manage correct timing all the time by extensively taking shortcuts. You’re welcome. /j
Ah, yes, I always love it when the train does Tokyo drift.
#whymangaisthebest
I read that in Germany they basically do this. If running late, they don’t stop in all the stations to save time. They skipped your station? Boohoo.
That’s because a canceled stop does not count for the “delayed” statistic, which they optimize for. It’s a great example of how a metric becoming a goal makes it a terrible metric!
Sounds like it’s related to or just Goodhart’s Law in a hat.
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure
In the 70s, a train in Chicago missed a stop. A passenger complained so they
70s : the original era of fuck around and find out. only without computers and AI
The company here in question is the Deutsche Bahn, without any doubt
Ladies and gentlemen, a mouse has sneezed on the tracks and we’ll need to shut down for the next hour.
A further delay will be incurred because on one section of the line we have encountered a brief spot of the wrong sort of rain. We are terribly sorry for the inconvenience.
“The train is cancelled because the wrong leaves are on the track”.
Same with busses.
Amtrak rail delay issues will always be funny to me because I know for a fact those CSX and BNSF freight trains would willingly blow through a building if it was built on the track lol.
With all these comments about lateness it’s no wonder America got rid of most of its trains. Though it’s not like their buses are any better, but driving certainly is.
trains can be on time?
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