Originally Posted by
Tyrwhitt
I'm a relative newbie here so I'm not sure of the etiquette of linking to other forums. So I won't link, just summarize: a German recently reported on Rick Steves (don't yawn disparagingly just yet!) that German trains are attempting to privatize and are therefore stretching out maintenance schedules to save money. The German government, rightly unimpressed, is beefing up inspections and sidelining lots of rail cars. The scuttlebutt is that this is causing lots of delays. Copied from that post:
"Now we're experiencing the same with ICE bullet trains. At the moment only 50% of ICE trains operate at all and on most lines trains are shortened significantly due to lack of operable equipment. Result: A friend of mine just called from the 3.55pm Cologne to Frankfurt ICE telling me that even though he paid for a seat allocation the carriage his seat was supposed to be simply doesn't exist on that train. The train is packed with angry people who are all looking forward to standing in the aisle for their journey to Frankfurt, Stuttgart or even Munich...
It's expected that the situation with DB ICE trains is about to last until fall of 2010. Happy travels - in your rental cars ;-)"
A lot of chatter followed this post about whether the guy was right or wrong. I have no way to verify the reliability of it, but you might want to dig around a bit. May not happen to you, or it may just increase your probability enough to make you worry about your connection. But if the train originates in Italy, maybe it's Trenitalia rolling stock and this does not apply. Just more rumors to chase down...
The German railways have been having problems with the tilting mechanism in some series of regional trains; axles on the latest versions of the ICE trains; and wheels, axles and axle journals on the newest S-Bahn trains in Berlin. This has been going on for years, and once a problem is fixed (on all these trains) a new one - or the same one - pops up. The regional trains show no prospect of improvement, the ICE trains will take a long time for all axles to be replaced, and the S-Bahn trains are supposed (ha!) to be fixed later this year. Some commentators have claimed that the German government's requirement that the DB be sold off on the stock market has led it to scrimp on everything, including maintenance, in order to raise profitability. In fact the DB now requires suppliers to take on full responsibility for the running of cars and engines they supply without any time to break them in, as was the case in earlier years, and has also put the suppliers under great price pressure. Thus untested cars and components have gone into service - and promptly broken down. The DB has closed some shops in Berlin and initially lengthened the inspection intervals in the ICE trains. The German federal government doesn't seem to worry much about the trains' reliability, but some state governments, which finance local and regional trains, have started to curtail payments to DB because of the mess. In any case, the IPO has been indefinitely postponed, due to the stock-market collapse and lowered prospect of profitability of the DB. The DB has also agreed to reopen one S-Bahn shop in Berlin and to hire more mechanics, so maybe things will look up soon.
All standard train cars, including sleepers and all trains from Italy are not affected by these technical problems.