Why are Deutsche Bahn trains always delayed?

Delayed Deutsche Bahn trains have become so normal that they feel like an inevitable fact of life. But it wasn’t always this bad. Where did it all go wrong? And what hope is there for the future?

Every day, another Deutsche Bahn delay

Deutsche Bahn’s long-distance and regional trains being significantly delayed across Germany has become a thorn in the side of the 2,4 million people who use the national rail service daily.

In the early 1990s, around 85 percent of Deutsche Bahn’s long-distance trains ran on time, meaning they arrived no more than six minutes after the scheduled arrival time. Punctuality fluctuated during the 2000s and began to decline significantly in the 2010s.

Through it all, Germany somehow managed to keep its global reputation for efficiency, technology and precision. That was until the mask slipped fully in 2024; the federal republic hosted the Euros, and millions of football fans spread the word across the continent about nightmarish Deutsche Bahn services.

In 2024, over a third of Deutsche Bahn trains were delayed, and in July 2025, only 56,1 percent were on time. In September 2025, the rail company was accused of cancelling trains which were delayed but already running in order to fudge overall punctuality statistics. According to Deutsche Bahn’s own reports, punctuality has now reached an “all-time low”. How did it come to all this Bahnsinn?

Deutsche Bahn: Where did it all go wrong?

In 1994, five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, West Germany’s state-owned Deutsche Bundesbahn and East Germany's Deutsche Reichsbahn were merged to form the Deutsche Bahn Corporation (AG). 

In the 1994 company report, Chairman of the Board Heinz Dürr outlined Deutsche Bahn’s mottos for the future: “attractive services, comfortable trains, the highest product quality both for passenger and goods traffic, and thinking and action which is totally customer-oriented”.

All but one motto fell by the wayside. Deutsche Bahn’s directors soon began selling off assets to fund its expansion as an international logistics company. Running efficient passenger services dropped down the list of boardroom priorities.

“Instead of reinforcing its core mission [of providing quality passenger services], DB weakened itself from within, trading long-term resilience for short-term financial gain,” Christian Böttger, a professor in industrial engineering and a Deutsche Bahn expert who has previously advised the German government, told Monocle.

“Years of neglect, asset-stripping and poor governance eventually caught up with the company, leaving behind a sprawling, inefficient organisation that now struggles with the fundamentals of providing reliable passenger rail.”

The Bahn is running on empty

A significant part of the “poor governance” Böttger refers to is the substantial decline in government funding allocated to Deutsche Bahn following the merger of the former state railways into a corporation.

According to Deutsche Bahn’s 30 Years of the Rail Reform report, public funding declined most drastically in the first 10 years after privatisation. “In the following years, from around 2005, there was initially a slight increase in federal support, followed by a renewed decline until 2014. By that time, the funding had roughly halved from its 1994 level.”

Bear in mind that in 1994, Deutsche Bahn’s long-distance and regional trains served 1,507 million passengers, compared to the 2,429 million passengers who used the services in 2024.

With the company starved of investment for decades, the Deutschlandticket was both the final nail in the coffin and the renaissance of Deutsche Bahn. When Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine sent gas prices skyrocketing, the German government offset households’ costs by introducing heavily subsidised public transport tickets. 

Since 2023, Deutschlandticket holders have been able to use unlimited public and regional transport across the country for just 49 euros per month. Passenger records were broken as a result, and inflation eased. More people than ever were using the train, but the creaking network couldn’t take the pressure.

What’s more, fed up with working on a deteriorated track at a dysfunctional company, many of Deutsche Bahn’s train drivers are leaving or voting for regular strike action to improve their conditions. Strikes disrupt services further, and DB board members point the finger at drivers while three fingers point back at them. Even when working conditions improve, Germany’s worker shortage means it is difficult for the company to fill jobs, and so the train continues in its vicious circle.

Will German trains ever be punctual again?

In the past years, German politicians and Deutsche Bahn board members have made promise after promise that train services will improve now - no… by Christmas - no... by 2029. So, is there hope that we will all live to see the day when the train can be relied upon, or even just when “My train is delayed” means delayed by 20 minutes and not by two hours?

The German government is finally coughing up the money that has been denied to Deutsche Bahn for so long. In June 2025, Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil (SPD) said 10,5 billion euros of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s 500-billion-euro infrastructure fund would be used to improve Deutsche Bahn services this year alone.

Merz announced that Deutsche Bahn management would be restructured. In August, Transport Minister Patrick Schnieder (CDU) dismissed Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz and the German Train Drivers’ Union (GDL) breathed a sigh of relief at “ministers’ clear will to confront acute problems [...] after years of mismanagement.”

In September, Evelyn Palla filled the CEO position, and Schnieder announced that a new Deutsche Bahn goal had been set for 70 percent of long-distance trains to arrive on time by 2029. Everyone can try to forget that this goal was actually less ambitious than an existing government goal of 80 percent punctuality in the immediate future and a long-term goal of 90 percent punctuality.

According to Böttger, 10,5 billion in funding and a new CEO are all well and good, but the German government and Deutsche Bahn still need to do much more if they are going to bring the transport network back up to scratch. 

“The state must take clearer ownership of its role,” Böttger told Monocle. Outdated technologies and management structures need to be overhauled, and with the worker shortage only expected to get worse, “we need to talk about who’s going to do the work”.