Before starting my record attempt between Kemijärvi, Finland and Lagos, Portugal, people told me over and over it would break down in Germany. So much so that I even tried to re-but (pre-but?) some of the likely critique.
Now, having made the trip, and none of the total
So… it’s fine for German trains to break down constantly and have knock on effects because there are many of them?
I agree: it’s great that there are that many trains in Germany and that overall they are reasonably priced. On the other hand,I hate that their high speed is so much lower than their neighboring countries’, 200km/h versus 300km/h. It makes crossing Germany an incredible slog. So much that I would like the source on the article statement that a lot of passenger traffic in Germany is through traffic. That seems like a dreadful idea to me.
And the likelihood of something going amiss is so high all the time. There were supposed to be works on the tracks, but I haven’t been following the matter the last couple of years so I don’t know the status. I doubt it has yet completely changed the situation.
The rail upgrades in Germany are ongoing and extensive. The problem is the sheer scale of the work. Germany has a massive rail network, and they’re about 70 years behind on rail maintenance.
It’ll just take time, and fixing sections doesn’t make those sections all fixed if other sections still have breakdowns that cascade over.
The stations are also undersized for the scale of passengers and trains. Those take even longer to fix, often because they decide to go for awesome architecture and non-disruptive tunneling instead of quick and disruptive options.
Germany will sort it out someday, but it’s a 20 year fix, not a two year one.