> It is twenty minutes late. I consider this early.
The one good thing about frequent long-distance delays is that you might be lucky and catch an earlier delayed train and actually arrive a bit earlier than planned ;)
(also JFC, does the author like to whine about nothing - I'm travelling frequently with DB for about 25 years now, and while shit happens from time time, most of it is merely a slight inconvenience).
I travel from Basel to Hannover and back every two weeks on DB. Trains south are almost always late, trains north usually late. Frequently the train is already late in Hannover having come from Hamburg. The worst was when I was kicked out in Frankfurt and had to stay in a hotel. The delays were so bad there were no more trains left that could connect me to the last train out of Basel.
Things have been getting better for the past couple of months I think though.
Many are cancelled without a decent reason being given. I rarely take British trains now they are so expensive and unreliable. Only long distance maybe because buses are unpleasant.
My biggest gripe with DB is not that it's late, but that it quite often cancels the trains. If you decided to go by regional trains with 1-2 hops instead of direct (bc you can go much cheaper with Deutschlandticket), there's a high chance that at least one of your trains get cancelled and things will not go according the plan.
Recently while driving an hour journey turned into a three hour journey, and not because my car broke down. I've never experienced any delay anywhere near that significant on British trains.