The European country where trains are even less punctual than the UK’s

Sign up to Simon Calder’s free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calder’s Travel email Get Simon Calder’s Travel email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. However, analysis of railway data by the Financial Times found that Germany’s state-owned rail operator Deutsche Bahn, which runs around 95 per cent of all long-distance trains in the country, delivers one of the least reliable services in central Europe, even when compared to the state of the UK’s rail services. Around 72 per cent of Deutsche Bahn’s intercity trains arrived within 10 minutes of their scheduled arrival time in 12 months to January, compared with 78 per cent of British long-distance trains, the Financial Times research states. The analysis is based on more than 1.9bn arrivals at stations tracked by websites Bahn-Vorhersage and Zugfinder from February 2024 until the end of January 2025. open image in gallery ICE trains are parked near the central train station in Frankfurt, Germany Just 39 per cent of German long-distance trains arrived with a delay of less than 60 seconds. Deutsche Bahn did also point to some services that have proven to have a higher punctuality rate, such as the new high-speed track between Berlin and Munich, where 82.5 per cent of all trains in 2024 arrived within 10 minutes of their schedule, the Financial Times reported.