German Trains No Longer Run On Time?

Elaine Meinel Supkis

The End of Times is here! German trains are no longer punctual. Germany practically invented the entire concept of being on time, they were the stop-watch culture. I am half German and before I went to Germany, I thought I was hyper-sensitive about time. I was a slacker! My parents were terrifically punctual and even they were left in the dust by the time-sensitive German conductors and engineers. I have an amusing story about all this, of course.

Aus Der Spiegel:

Why German Trains No Longer Run on Time

By David Crossland in Berlin

Say it ain't so, Sam! This is earth shattering news. What next? Trains running like in Rome? I have a lot of experience with trains because I love them so much. The physical freedom of a train! You can wander all over the place. There is lots of scenery to look at. You don't have to worry about crashing your car while gawking at the moon rising over a river. You can find romance on a train! You can play poker on a train with bored businessmen and win enough to pay for the return ticket! And a hotel room. Yes, trains were a lot of fun for me.

Off the rails: The road to privatization has made German trains less efficient.

The cliché that German trains always run on time is no longer true. Their reputation has been eroded, at least among German passengers, by a creeping increase in delays in recent years as national operator Deutsche Bahn sheds staff, rolling stock and equipment to shape up its accounts for privatization.
The deterioration is obvious to anyone who regularly travels on German trains, and one of the country's main passenger lobbies, Pro Bahn, regularly complains about it.

German rail services remain good overall -- the sleek red-and-white ICE high-speed inter-city trains are generally reliable, despite the delays -- and standards have a long way to slip before they reach the British experience of the 1980s and 1990s, when train cancellations, collapsing seats, blocked lavatories, general filth and ludicrous excuses (like "the wrong kind of snow" or "leaves on the line") were routine.

Germany used to be über-efficient! The horror of the Nazis was how they carefully scheduled and ran their hideous ethnic cleansing scheme. They transported their victims all over Europe using trains that ran on time no matter how many bombs were falling or how close to Germany the Soviet troops were shelling. The death trains were always on time. It is interesting to see Germany slowly becoming more and more like France, England, Spain and worse of all, Italy. Italian trains were notorious back in the sixties. One hoped to make the train arrive within two or three days of its scheduled arrival.

The US came nearly as badly, to this day, one is lucky if a train isn't 6 hours late. If one was picking up someone from the station, bringing a sleeping bag and a full meal was required. I have waited long for these trains to limp into the station. When I ride them, it is no suprise to end up parked next to a cattle feed lot in the pouring rain for six hours while freight trains roar past.

But back in the sixties, riding trains in Germany was fun. Often, the trains had compartments and these were pretty private! I loved them. These are the famous compartments we see in movies like 'Murder on the Orient Express.' Indeed, I rode in one of the last trips for that famous train.

I went to school in Germany in 1968. In between trying to overthrow governments, I went around Europe playing my cello. Her name was 'Flosshilde', one of Wagner's Rhein Maidens in the Ring Cycle. One day, in the dead of winter, I had to tak a local train from Tübingen to Donauschlingen which is where the great Danube wellsprings well up out of the meades at the foot of the Black Forest. This being winter, alongside the tracks were big hummocks of dirty snow. I was dressed up, of course, in miniskirt, long coat (a necessity when scantily clad) and real silk stockings.

In America, we wore those nylon stocking that I ripped all the time. No pair lasted even a week with my abuse. I just couldn't hack wearing them. When I arrived in Europe, ticked off that my nylons were running faster than a fastback running for a touchdown, I went to a store and learned all about silk stockings. They were a thousand times more comfortable than nylons. They felt sensual on the legs and ever-so-skanky to the touch. They were wonderfully durable and lasted forever. And they came from China.

Back then, because the Chinese were commies, we couldn't buy things from them. Today, the government is still commie and we buy everything from them but still, no silk stockings like I had in Europe. The continent was still partially in ruins from WWII yet the women had silk stockings!

Back to the trains in Germany: I had a purse, a suitcase and my cello. The train got slightly delayed due to the snow storm and we came into the station about 5 minutes late. I was at the door of the third car, waiting to disembark. The trains slowed down, put on the brakes slightly with a squeal and shudder, I began to step out when it took off again!

'Halt!' I yelled. In a commanding voice, I ordered the conductor to stop the train. He shook his head and pointed to his big pocket watch. 'Es kann nicht halten,' he explained. I threw my luggage out as people int he station ran alongside the train. We left the station and I lifted my cello over my head and yelled, 'Geronimo!' and jumped from the train.

I landed on a snow bank and the cello was unharmed. People on the train applauded. People at the station came running over to see if I was alive.

My lovely silk stockings were torn and my legs were bleeding. I limped into the station with people shaking my hand and laughing. Heh. Never try to stop a German train behind schedule! At the concert, people got a good look at my bandaged knees clutching the cello.

Click here for modern map of German trains.

Trains are an important part of any civilzed nation's transportation systems. The parlorous state of the US train system is a scandal. I recently took the best train in America, the AMTRACK line from NYC to Albany. It limped along at a pokey pace a Chevette could outgun. It clacked along the rails as if this was pre-WWII. I am totally ashamed of our train system. We also don't have silk stockings. That's two strikes. One can lose civilization swiftly if one doesn't attend to things. Like good outdoor cafes or decent tenors in an opera.

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Comments

[m savoca]

A most interesting documentary on BBC channel 4 discusses the attempted coup against FDR by major US industrialists in response to the depression and FDR's new deal which the industrialists hated.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document.shtml

Presscott Bush, grandfather to the current president and many other super wealthy industrialists were members of a group, the liberty foundation, which supported bringing fascism to America and may have supported the coup attempt.

Considering the well documented relationship between the steel works of Nazi Germany and Prescott Bush via Brown Brothers Harriman company, the above story gains some traction.

[Kate Namous]

I will believe it's end times when the Swiss trains stop running on time... the Swiss are even more punctual than the Germans.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Oh, yes, Kate! They certainly are. I once visited France with a former Wehrmacht tank officer. He couldn't help himself. 'This place is so filthy. We should make them clean it up!'

And yes, I know about the Bush facist past, Savoca. It surprises other people but not me. My family has known them for years and years and years and...more years. They are johnny-come-latelys to the ruling elites. My family is old ruling elites.

As upstarts, they are enamored with fascism.

[JSmith]

"German trains are no longer punctual."

Probably a good thing. As we all know, trains that run on time are one of the ways you can tell you're in a Fascist Dictatorship.

Trains, however, are a 19th-centiry technology. If your transpost system depends on rail transport, and the rail union decides to go on strike, it can bring the whole economy to its knees. (I realize there are those who think that's a good thing, but I disagree that a nation should be held hostage to any group's latest set of non-negotiable demands.)

Mmmm. Miniskirts. Silk stockings. Mmmmm. I'm sure you were a real hottie in 1968!

[Tsion]

If you are impressed with German and Swiss trains then you should check out Buses in Sao Paulo - http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jun07/5139 and Geneva - remarkable - or think of criss crossing the vast stretches of the Sahara in a ... mini-bus.

If it is about moving "Anything" from A to B in a dependable regular fashion - there are soo many surprises all over the world.

[D.F. Facti]

great story, Elaine.

Were you in a quartet in 1968?

I use Amtrak between Chicago and Michigan all the time. The freight lines own the tracks, so the passenger trains must stand aside. I talk to the conductors about this frequently.

I love not fighting traffic on the Dan Ryan and on I-94.

I am another year older, by the way. ach!

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Happy Birthday, Facti! We all age. Nature of being alive. Better to age than to lie in eternal rest, I say.

And Smith, trains are old technology IN AMERICA. And as for strikes: ask the Teamsters and the Longshormen about this! My first husband was a Longshoreman. Their strikes were alway very short and extremely nasty.

[Bokonon]

Sacre Bleu!

Railroads and passenger transport 19th century technology, somebody had better tell the French, Germans, Japanese and Koreans etc. They are busy building trains that run at 180mph and apologising because they are rated to run at 200mph. Not only that, they are putting airlines out of business. http://www.travelindustrywire.com/article27223.html

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

300 miles per hour!

[JSmith]

Distances in Europe are short. Trains may provide an alternative for regional travel in the US, but I wouldn't want to go NY-LA on one.

[chill wine bag]

The issue of immigration is always tackled on almost any state. Probably just a tightening of security.