Actually, every train I've even taken in Italy has been ontime and clean. Every train I've even taken in Germany has been late and dirty. Go figure. The worst example was the "high speed" DB train for Frankfurt to Amsterdam that began its journey in a very jaunty spurt of stopping and starting before even reaching its first stop, then spent about 90 minutes putting around parts of Koln that I don't really ever want to see again. Final arrival was over 2 hours late. No announcements, no apology, no reason given, just late.

Now, the online booking sites.

Trenitalia is a wonderment of problems, bad links, sometimes working, sometimes not.

The DB site, on the other hand, gives you instructions for 7 (yes, SEVEN) ways to book your tickets.