Comment by pm3003
1 month ago
I used to complain about the French SNCF, then I discovered DB and stopped complaining. I've been a Bahncard 1. Klasse holder for a few years.
Last time I took the train in Germany I was 30h late and had to spend a sunday between Cologne and Karlsruhe (not that I was really surprised).
The punctuality is a joke, ICEs are unpractical, train management comically incompetent (remember when the ICEs cars would never come in the announced order and there was luggage room for maybe 15% of passengers?).
The cars are very dirty, especially in 1st class where eating a full meal at your seat is encouraged but the cars are cleaned once every two days.
However, the train attendants are usually very arranging for every aspect of the trip on board.
Cheap tickets are cool, but have been there for so long (the regional ones) Germans take them for granted.
As a French I feel that the SNCF is pretty good. We like to complain about it but I have had a few minor problems (3 hours pause from locomotive breakdown, or 2 hours stop to allow cleaning after a suicide) but nothing too bad. There are on times and rarely canceled.
The major issues are with pricing and lack of investment outside of TGV but it's not too bad.