Two weeks in a row with almost no problems with Deutsche Bahn. I almost started to believe I was on a new lucky streak. Almost. There’s very little that’s lucky about the state of the railway. The austerity measures of the last few decades were now taking their revenge - on me.

One of the first things I do after getting up in the middle of the night is check the Deutsche Bahn app for delays. Even though it’s insane to rely on the information, a 40-minute delay reduced the morning rush. Just to be safe, I was still at the station 20 minutes after the scheduled departure time. By then, the delay had grown to 70 minutes, and I was left to wait.

But the cause is even better: a train ahead was holding mine up. From Düsseldorf onwards, at least, my train had to stay behind another one. They could have just let the delayed train be overtaken. For that, you need switches. What does Deutsche Bahn do? That’s right, dismantle over 50% of the switches since 1997. Why not get rid of the tracks or stations while they’re at it? No further comment.

In return, I got to directly compare the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) with Deutsche Bahn (DB) that afternoon. In Basel, the ICE was supposed to depart from platform 11, according to the DB app. The SBB app, however, showed platform 9. An employee gave me some advice: “When in doubt, trust the SBB app; they’re almost always right.”

No sooner said than done. Our ICE was already waiting on platform 9. It just wasn’t showing up in the app, not even by the time we departed. How helpful. Listing the wrong platform saves weight and seats on the train. Then it can go faster. Just kidding!