How German trains became the shame of a nation

When the 10pm service of Berlin’s U2 metro line failed to set off from the station, its frazzled driver finally snapped.

“Get away from the doors!” he bellowed, leaping out to berate a young woman as she pawed at the broken, flashing-red buttons on the side of the train. “Don’t touch the doors!”

Unbeknownst to the driver, who seemed to think the woman’s button-mashing had caused the breakdown, Germany’s entire rail system had just been crippled by a software glitch.


For the next two hours, hundreds of thousands of Germans were left stranded on platforms or sweltering in packed carriages as the metro, intercity and commuter networks all failed at once on Tuesday.

In some regions the delays lasted even longer, with passengers forced to seek out hotel rooms or sleep on benches in the train station.

You might think that travel chaos on this scale in Germany, a nation famed for its love of efficiency and punctuality, is unusual – but you would be sorely mistaken.

After decades of underinvestment, Germany’s crumbling rail network has become a source of national humiliation for a country that was once the gold standard in engineering.

Last year, some 40 per cent of all long-distance trains in Germany were delayed, as cancellations, overcrowding and full-on breakdowns risked becoming the norm in Europe’s wealthiest economy.

Astonishingly, the Germans’ punctuality record is now even worse than Britain’s: 72 per cent of intercity trains ran on time in Germany in 2025, compared to 78 per cent of British long-distance trains.

The situation has become so dire that, in neighbouring Switzerland, late German trains are simply turned away at the border as they will otherwise create knock-on delays in Vienna.

Railway campaigners say the root cause is a stubborn refusal over decades to invest in public transport, owing to the country’s strong aversion to taking on debt.

But they also blame issues with recruitment, mountains of bureaucracy and a general sense of defeatism at the upper level of Deutsche Bahn, the national rail provider.

“There was a time when we made small talk about the weather in Germany,” Michael Koch, the deputy chairman of Pro Bahn, a group that campaigns on behalf of passengers, told The Telegraph. “Now we talk about the trains.”

Germany’s railway infrastructure has become “encrusted” with bureaucracy that can make even fairly unambitious renewal projects drag on for years, he said.

“So much of the infrastructure is at a standstill and too little has been invested,” he added, noting that some Germans do not even bother with reservations for a connecting train any more as they assume they will miss it.

Friedrich Merz, Germany’s centre-Right chancellor, has announced a €500bn (£431bn) “special fund” to rebuild the train system, but Pro Bahn has stressed that much more work needs to be done.

“It is not just about money, we need to create a structure with a clear plan, where you can move forward and hire more staff, and there needs to be real political will in the government to strengthen the rail service,” said Mr Koch.

At Berlin’s central train station on Friday, the air was sweltering, the platforms were heaving and the announcement board showed that eight trains were already running late.

Hannelore Huth, a 63-year-old pensioner waiting on platform four, laughed when asked if such shoddy engineering had become the norm in the nation that gave the world Bosch dishwashers and BMWs.

“I once had an issue where doors on the train wouldn’t close and I got stuck for 50 minutes,” she said while waiting for a train to Dresden with her friend Gudrun Baresel, 62.

“I had to get on a second train to the airport, and the only reason I didn’t miss the flight was because I left so early. No, we are not proud of the trains.”

On platform seven, The Telegraph found Can Pugliese, 28, sitting on the floor of the platform wondering if there was much chance of getting to Hanover by the end of the day.

“The train we wanted to take isn’t coming, so now we are waiting for the next one. It is also delayed,” he said, with impressive good humour for a man stranded and sweltering in 35C heat.

“I don’t remember it being as much of a problem when I was a child. Nowadays, I try to avoid taking the train at all costs,” he added, reflecting a fairly widespread travel strategy in Germany.

That in itself is deeply ironic: under the previous government, which included the Green party, Germany imposed strict travel rules that punished citizens for flying instead of taking the train.

In May 2024, the price of domestic flights surged when Olaf Scholz’s Ampel [traffic light] coalition raised aviation taxes, in the hope it would encourage Germans to take more environmentally friendly modes of transport.

The policy backfired horribly: it not only drew more attention to the state of the trains, but became a key campaign issue for the hard-Right Alternative for Germany [AfD] party as it cried foul on elitism.

Since then, the AfD has become the second-largest political party in Germany and is currently leading the polls, while the Scholz-era aviation taxes have been reversed.

As for Tuesday evening’s nationwide railway crisis, there was one more twist to the tale which made the situation only more farcical.

When the trains failed, many speculated about what kind of force majeure could be behind it.

Was it a power cut? The heatwave? Or perhaps even a Russian cyber-attack?

In fact, Deutsche Bahn explained, the culprit was one of their own engineers – who accidentally shut down the entire communications network during pre-planned maintenance.

So yesterday was "a near normal service, with some minor changes"?

GWR website has following information under the banner headline


Then goes onto say

Isn't that a bit having your cake and eating it, planning changes, then claiming near normal.   Anyone else think this is close to unreasonable

https://www.gwr.com/weather

On Saturday 27 June we expect to operate the vast majority of trains across the network, however there will be some localised, planned changes in London and the Thames Valley, to Oxford, and to some services between Bristol and Salisbury. Customers should check before they travel.

Ticket easements do not apply on Saturday 27 June as we expect to run a near normal service, with some minor changes.

I got home yesterday after the most awful train journey. Many trains were cancelled from Newton Abbott and passengers piled on to my train. Luckily reservations still applied, so I got my seat before they were cancelled.  Every aisle was packed with standing people, including the loos. Because of numbers getting on and then struggling to push their way off the train got later and later, so over an hour behind schedule. No air conditioning, so it got hotter and hotter. After my first sitting passengers got off, I got a young couple going to Nottingham to be DJs. I was contemplating getting a taxi home from Derby where my ticket terminated. They were also contemplating a taxi, but sooner, from Tamworth because they felt they just had to get off. They invited me to join them. So we left the train, they got an Uber and dropped me off in Long Eaton and I got a taxi from there, after I had contributed half the Uber cost, although they said I didn't need to. I was exhausted, didn't even unpack and get the washer on, as I usually did.

Similarly it is now 12 hours since the red area expired, so why are they still not using certain points during normal summer temperatures in Thames valley.  When there use was suspended should have been a plan to restore within hours of red weather ending.

Certainly you would think the number of short notice cancellations should be reduced.  However I suspect there is a backlog of units stopped in depots with faults which developed over the last few days and still require fixing. 

Indeed - I get that it's still going to be hot in the London/Thames Valley area today but a large proportion of today's cancellations are citing "severe weather" in areas where there are no "severe weather" issues, crew shortage and "More trains than usual needing repairs at the same time"

I realise thread header is 24-26 June, and today is 27 June

But GWR are continuing the cancellations on all routes banner on their website this morning

The front page of this site is showing
122 cancellations
67 part route
17 reformed

Not great as few days ago message was defer your journey to Friday onwards, so should be expecting both normal Saturday passengers AND some of the deferred passengers.   So if anything should be boosting services, not cancelling them.

Cancellations to services between Par and Newquay
Due to severe weather between Par and Newquay fewer trains are able to run.

The temperature in Newquay is 18 degrees

Cancellations to services between Truro and Falmouth Docks
Due to severe weather between Truro and Falmouth Docks fewer trains are able to run on some lines.

We are running an amended service during the severe heat event in line with the Met Office red weather warning.

The temperature in Truro is 18 degrees and expected to rise to 22-23 degrees today. There is no weather warning in place.

Lecce - Brindisi - Bari - Barletta - Foggia - Termoli - Pescara - Ancona - Pesaro - Rimini - Bologna - Modena - Milano.  The train I am on is calling at this catalogue of Italian cities - not that I have time to see any of them as we stop for a few seconds only. It is, perhaps, a typical long distancce express, with only a sprinking of passengers on board when I joined it at Brindisi, but now as we approach Ancona it's "every seat taken".  I knew that would be the case, as it's a "reservations only" train and the reserved seat plan had meagre pickings when I booked 48 hours ago. Staying on all the way to Milan and thinking of interesting comparisons to Cross Country trains in the UK.   We avoid Rome, just like the UK's Cross Country services avoid London.

Lecce - Ancona - 596 kms; Ancona - Bologna - another 202 kms; Bologna - Milano - another 215 kms; Total 1013 kms - virtually the same as London to Ullapool (port for the Outer Hebrides, well beyond Inverness).   Haven't been to Milan for - err - 21 days doubt it has changed.  Seriously, a city in which I have never left the station and even this time it's just overnight and a couple of hundred yards from the station.

That wouldn't happen here I'd guess because operators would rather use the space to cram in more seats.

Have mentioned this elsewhere, but it's worth noting that a lot of the "more trains than usual needing repair" excuse would appear to be due to insufficient aircon in drivers' cabs.

...and then went on the forum.   

I could/should have worked from home today, but I had to do that for the other 2 days I was supposed to be in the office this week (not due to weather), so felt I should show my face.

Pretty bad day for anyone needing to (rather than choosing to) travel

It would have been helpful if public-facing information systems had given a fullsummary of the cancellations planned.

For example, all the Bristol-Salisbury services seem to be planned cancellations, but they don't appear on gwr.com or Journeycheck.com (or at least, not where I've searched for them.

Oh yeah, it's covered by "cancellations on all routes". Not very helpful and, one might observe, not all routes are equal when cancellations are decided.

The indestructible train network that has made Britain famous since the days of Empire has finally been undone by today’s terrible heat.

The UK’s ever-reliable rail infrastructure and punctual rolling stock, which since Queen Victoria’s day has not lost so much as a second’s time in a century, has at last succumbed to the punishing temperature blanketing the country.

Commuter Martin Bishop said: “Mark this day, for at last we see the end of Britain’s era as a world power. The sun has set upon our greatness. The trains are late.

“Indeed, some are not only late but cancelled. For the first time in memory and the annals of history, a passenger may arrive at the station to find his service not running at all.

“Climate change we may disregard. The true tragedy here is that the last bastion of British prestige has crumbled. With no incumbent James Bond, Doctor Who or prime minister, our stalwart trains were all we had left.”

Fellow passenger Nikki Hollis said: “This is an omen comparable to the ravens leaving the Tower of London. If our dependable rail networks have fallen then it’s only a matter of time before these isles sink beneath the waves of the Atlantic.

“I know you’re thinking surely not Southern Rail? Surely their stalwart lines are still running with their renowned clockwork efficiency? Sadly, despite offering excellent value for money, even them.”

Essential travel only on Wednesday 24 and Thursday 25 June into, through, or out of the red warning area.