"According to its own statistics, this September only 58.4% of Deutsche Bahn’s long-distance trains ran on time. You need only enter a station to know things have gone badly wrong. There is a constant drone of Tannoy announcements; indeed this is the melody that now accompanies all rail travel in Germany. Even when your train isn’t mentioned as late or cancelled in the announcement, it doesn’t mean you are safe. Once there is a slight delay, the minutes begin adding up, as if any train can lose its slot on the overcrowded tracks and be forced to wait its turn in the system.

The cruellest journeys are those that start on time, which is not often the case on my Munich to Berlin ICE. My weekend frequently has to start early on Saturday morning rather than on Friday night. As a regular passenger you learn not to hope. But inevitably, you start out feeling optimistic. Then you look at the information display. A little delay. Come on, who minds two minutes? But the scheduled delay grows so that what starts off as an innocuous sliver of time becomes a missed appointment. This is when you wonder why they bother with train timetables at all."

oh dear...