- If you can’t trust German trains to be on time, what can you trust?
If you need something done well and on time, you hire a German to do it. The central European nation is renowned for having exchanged its sense of any kind of humor for a knack for immaculate punctuality and efficiency.
Germany is a place where the trains run on time because having it any other way just wouldn’t be German enough.
Or so you would think. But look at the disastrous state of German railways and you have to question whether the country deserves its reputation.
In a nutshell, it’s a mess. Currently, a third of Germany’s trains are chronically late and things aren’t getting any better, despite billion-dollar investments in rail infrastructure.
The trains’ inability to stay on time has caused some Germans to experience what we can only call an existential crisis. That is, when they’re not justifiably furious at Deutsche Bahn (DB), the state-owned rail operator.
To placate irate passengers, DB is resorting to decidedly esoteric tactics. In addition to making self-deprecating jokes in public and trolling public figures on social media, they’re now wafting soothing scents into train cars to keep people calm.
Who knew essential oils were the solution to nightmarish infrastructure problems?
‘I Just Can’t Trust the Train’
But how bad is the situation actually? Is the German public going collectively apeshit over what are actually only minor delays?
After all, German children are taught that “punctuality is the politeness of kings.” You could see these people getting annoyed by the smallest of schedule slips.
Let’s take a look at a couple of examples, shall we?
The classes of Stefan Bonauer, a 34-year-old teacher from Munich, start at 8 a.m. The trip from his home to his school takes about 90 minutes.
So, he has started waking up at 4 a.m. to ensure he can catch the first possible train and maybe make it to work on time.
“I just can’t trust the train,” Bonauer told Wall Street Journal.
Vera Meinert, another Munich resident, was returning home by train from a vacation in neighboring Switzerland on July 19. However, congested rails forced her train to stop and the passengers were transferred into three buses that didn’t have enough seats for everyone on the train.
Meinert had to race hundreds of other passengers to get onto a bus. She did and finally arrived in Munich two hours late. The buses then turned around to get the rest of the passengers, who were forced to wait in 90-degree heat.
“[The train delay] is how I knew it — vacation’s over, I’m back in Germany,” Meinert quipped.
Well, others won’t have to deal with Meinert’s problem for long. Not because Germany has fixed its issues but because Switzerland no longer lets German trains into the country.
Passengers must change onto a Swiss train at the border to continue their journey. They just can’t trust German trains to not mess up the Swiss schedule as well.
So, yeah. It’s bad.
Nice Smells Fix Everything, Right?
It’s not like the German government is sitting completely idle, though. They have invested nearly $50 billion into upgrading the country’s railways, but it’s just not enough.
There are too many problems contributing to the nightmare on rails. Poor pay and constant overtime have led to staff shortages, which in turn resulted in a huge strike among rail workers earlier this year.
Add to that the crumbling infrastructure and train doors that are too small for the number of people trying to go through them, and you have a real mess.
For its part, DB is using increasingly bizarre methods to placate angry passengers. As we mentioned, the latest trick is aromatherapy.
The company is experimenting with pumping calming scents into the train cars to prevent passengers from rioting. Needless to say, the public isn’t particularly happy about the solution, which they have dubbed “scent doping.”
Staff on the train is getting just as fed up with the constant delays. Take, for example, an announcement a train conductor made on one train.
“The train driver has not yet arrived because of another delayed train. Unfortunately, we are currently blocking the track for his train. We are curious ourselves how this will be resolved,” the announcer said.
‘Cultural Crisis for the German People’
The seemingly never-ending train crisis has spawned another kind of crisis among Germans. They’re starting to question whether they’re Germans at all anymore.
This is an extremely punctual country where showing up fashionably late simply isn’t a thing. In Germany, yoo vill be on ze time or zere vill be consequences.
Andreas Knie, a professor of transport policy at the Berlin Social Science Center, summarized the general sentiment in the country. And he of course had to bring soccer into it, too.
“This is an embarrassment, it is a cultural crisis for the German people,” said Knie.
“We love to brag about how we are the best, we are the most efficient, but the late Deutsche Bahn, and our failing football team, are proof that we aren’t making great things anymore.”
Yet, perhaps the late trains are creating a new kind of German psyche. After all, it is giving all Germans something they can hate together, as compatriots.
“My most German habit is getting upset about the Deutsche Bahn,” one person wrote on social media.
One outlet the Germans have for their frustrations is, naturally, making internet memes. A popular one includes flipping the DB logo upside down.
When turned on its head, the train symbol looks a whole lot like a railway passenger screaming in despair.
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