Train troubles in Europe expose transits fatal flaw contempt for riders

When I traveled to Europe last month for a summer rail adventure, I knew to allow plenty of time for delays.I learned that lesson two years ago on a similar journey, when one of my trips on the state-owned German railroad Deutsche Bahn was hours late.What I wasn’t expecting was a DB train that didn’t run at all — with no warning and zero customer support.The hypocritical message: We want you to take the train instead of driving or flying, but we’ll make you miserable in the process. During my previous trip, in 2024, a four-hour ride from Cologne to Hamburg turned into a meandering seven-hour journey beset with unexplained detours.

 That experience mirrored statistics: Only 60% of DB’s long-distance trains run on time.“Deutsche Bahn now underperforms even the worst British train operator,” the Financial Times found last year. Why? Because, much like New York’s 2017 “summer of hell,” decades of poor decision-making have caught up with the transit system. But in Germany, it’s been years of hell.The country neglected its rail network as social-service spending grew.

 Now it’s making $124 billion in investments — but upgrades are coming slowly. Fine, I told myself this time: Just don’t rely on same-day connections or anything else requiring punctuality.

 I wasn’t expecting trains that go nowhere. But that’s what happened on what should have been a two-hour fair-weather trip from Brussels to Cologne. The nominal explanation was unplanned track work after previous heat waves damaged rails and wires.  But it’s not breaking news that heat harms infrastructure.

 The issue is poor communication — and a lack of fair compensation.  DB knew this track would be out of commission for days; a competing French-run service, Eurostar, told its customers that trains wouldn’t run on that stretch for at least the rest of that week.  Yet DB continued to sell tickets for trains it knew wouldn’t go anywhere, and issued misleading...