>>1244097>I've heard lots of people complain about Deutsche BahnIt's not Deutsche Bahn on its own, but the German Railway as an entirety. Decades long neglection of necessary investments for modernization and expansion of capacities are showing now. Commuters are annoyed and enraged that railway lines get closed down for construction works on a regular basis, leading to lots of delays, detours or change to rail replacement busses. It's not rare that some lines get closed for months in order to basically rebuild them as a whole (ground works, changing rails and catenary, new signal systems, rebuilding structures etc). So this issue alone already requires a lot of patience if you want to travel through Germany. But there's more.
During the last 20-25 years the system went through drastic changes. A former government organized state monopole turned into an open market with a semi-commercial system. The government only has a direct influence over rail infrastructure. High-speed services are all organized on the own economical efforts of respective companies, 95% of it by DB. They're the typical IC/EC/ICE and a handful of others you see everywhere. The real problems are the commuter/regional services and freight services. The number of regional train services "exploded" in crucial areas, when the responsibility went from the country to each indiviual state, giving them the opportunity to order and organize services as they wish (the states are each represented by several transport authorities). On top of that regional railway services habe to be tendered now, leading to many new private competitors entering the business. DB is still operating on many commuter lines, but on a decline since they're constantly losing these tenders or not even interested in them. These companies are calculating with a sharp pencil in order to remain pro-profit, but still underbid their competitors, leading to many more smaller problems.
