25T07 DB: Deutsche Bahn, Delayed Bahn

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E06, C03-B01.

Sometimes it’s best not to tempt fate.

For my trip from Cologne to Berlin, I booked many weeks in advance a seat on a morning IntercCity Express ICE train. I’ve travelled on this route enough to know it’s generally full, which is why I absorbed the cost of a 1st-class fare. For the scheduled 4.7-hour trip, the extra space and quiet (fewer total people in an individual car) is worth the reduced stress. (IC and ICE trains are not included in the Deutschland-Ticket.)

I tempted fate when I reckoned I could reach Berlin by 3pm: sounds simple. But as I write, the express has become a slow march.

With a failure in the overhead power about a third of the way along the route, the train is diverted onto regional tracks rated for a lower travel speed, and the expected duration has ballooned to 6.3 hours. Welp, people here talk poorly about the once-timely Deutsche Bahn, but many years of funding cuts to infrastructure and development have naturally led to something like this, and at an alarming frequency.

After many hours in a train seat, I feel as tired as having been on a plane. Barely awake in Berlin, I head straight to my accommodations, followed by a quick jaunt to the mall nearby to stock the small shelves and refrigerator in the apartment.

The Berlin experiment of 2025 can begin tomorrow. That is, after I go pick up an extra roll of paper towels and a small bottle of dishwashing soap.

The planned stop in Bielefeld is cancelled because of the failure in the overhead power lines in that area. To reach Hannover, our express train ICE 557 has diverted to the east onto regional tracks rated for lower travel speeds.
Arrival: Hannover central station, 95 minutes late.
Expected arrival time at Berlin Hbf (central station).
Screenshot DB mobile iOS App. Total train time 6 hr and total travel time 7 hr: ach sowas! But to reach my final accommodations, I have a couple of short train-segments and a final bus-segment.

I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 14 May 2025. I received neither request nor compensation for this content. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.

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