I now commute almost weekly with Deutsche Bahn from Frankfurt am Main to Zurich and back. Unfortunately, this means I’m experiencing Deutsche Bahn’s bad reputation firsthand. That’s why I’ve decided to introduce a category for shorter posts about my experiences with Deutsche Bahn: Rail-nanas.

Let’s get straight to today’s incident. The trip there is hardly worth mentioning, even though I left Frankfurt 60 minutes late. At least the train managed to reduce this delay to 30 minutes, and the good connections of the SBB limited the final delay to 20 minutes. Sure, I had to lead my first meeting from the tram in Zurich because of it, but there are worse things.

For example, the nice notification from the DB Navigator app: Your connection is cancelled. I usually take an IC from Zurich to Basel SBB and change there to an ICE to Frankfurt. But since the ICE was delayed on its way here, the final stop, Basel SBB, was simply cancelled. The last stop, or rather departure, of the ICE was therefore Basel Bad. Bhf. about three kilometers away. Thanks to the delay and, once again, the Swiss Federal Railways, I was able to switch between the stations with a regional train. No real stress, the connection was visible in both the DB Navigator and the SBB app.

At least for those who know their way around and can independently search for connecting services. The Deutsche Bahn app was completely useless in this regard. It showed nothing but “Stop cancelled.” Why isn’t the app suggesting this connection to me? Or at least offering a search right away? If you’re already too incompetent to stick to the schedule, you should at least equip the app with features that make re-planning easier when such failures occur. But I guess Deutsche Bahn can’t do IT either.