Germany’s trains are running late. It’s become a national crisis.

When Martin Seck left Germany 20 years ago, the country’s rail service was a global symbol of efficiency and punctuality. The words “German train” were a gold standard.

Standing in Berlin’s central station now, Mr. Seck wonders what happened.

His train to Cologne is delayed by only 22 minutes, but during his month back from the United States, his disillusionment has grown with every delay. He even does the unthinkable, suggesting that a recent train trip from New York to Los Angeles on Amtrak was better managed.

“It’s hard to understand what’s going on” in Germany, he says, adding with a smile, “It certainly doesn’t fit the German stereotype, does it?”

More than the German reputation is at stake. For a nation accustomed to competence from its government, the railway crisis is a pivotal test. February’s election showed that voters are losing faith in mainstream political parties. The new government’s primary task is to show it can get things done. And among the top items on the to-do list is fixing Germany’s railways.

The picture has never been gloomier. One-third of long-distance trains run late, and in 2024, Germany’s federal railway operator, Deutsche Bahn, or DB, paid customers a record €197 million in compensation for delayed trains. DB runs a deficit of about €5 million a day, with total debt at €34 billion.

Years of underinvestment have been compounded by multiple levels of bureaucracy, both internal and external. The government has shown some appetite to address the first problem, not the second. That raises the question of whether more money will help or merely disappear into a pit.

Over all these concerns is one that typifies Germany’s current challenge more broadly: All agree this is a moment to be bold, but not all are sure Germany is ready to embrace the boldness required.

“The new federal government doesn’t have a plan,” says Andreas Knie, a lead researcher at the Berlin Social Science Center, by email. “We need a ‘railway reform 2.0,’ but no one wants to tackle it right now.”

In the ultimate indignity, the ultraefficient Swiss railway system has stopped waiting for German trains. If a German train arrives in Switzerland more than a few minutes late, all passengers must disembark and get on an (on time) Swiss train so as not to throw the Swiss timetables into chaos.

The problems began in Germany’s “rail reform 1.0” after reunification in 1989. DB was created from the two federal railway operations in West and East – a public-private hybrid that could be sold and privatized. This plan worked for German telecom and postal services. It did not with DB.

Early on, DB made several decisions to make itself more attractive to potential buyers, such as becoming involved in rail operations abroad and cutting costs at home – terminating some lines and trimming maintenance expenses. But DB was never successful enough to sell.

To make matters more complex, the responsibility for German railways is shared between DB and states. The result is a system where key infrastructure has become dilapidated – run by partners who often act independently of one another rather than working together.

“No state has any interest in a single, unified railway,” says Mr. Knie. “The railway is, so to speak, caught in the federalism trap.”

Money is needed, and some is on the way. The previous government passed a plan for €30 billion through 2029. The estimated shortfall is €45 billion.

Some railway advocates are hopeful. They note that Switzerland spends an average of €450 per person on its railways, while Germany spends €114.

Building on the investments of the previous government, the new government “is well positioned to ... get Germany’s railway system back on track,” says Dirk Flege, managing director of the nonprofit Pro-Rail Alliance, in an email.

Others aren’t so sure. The DB says the system is “too old, too broken, too full.” But that leaves out perhaps the biggest problem: DB itself, says Felix Berschin, who recently published a study on DB finances. His conclusion was that “Germany has forgotten how to operate railways,” he says in an email interview.

Among the challenges is “the unwillingness to take risks,” he says. “In Germany, everything has to be ‘watertight,’ so it becomes too expensive and too complicated.”

The number of regulations has exploded in the past 20 years, he says. “Any obstruction can be justified under the label of safety,” he adds, to a degree “that would be unthinkable in road or air traffic.”

His report notes “excessive planning requirements” such as construction noise reports for every mini-construction site, landscape management plans for temporary construction sites, and groundwater measurements for the installation of a single signal pole.

Alexandra Pfeiffer knows the effects of all these problems firsthand. Like Mr. Seck, her train from Berlin to Cologne has also been delayed. But she remains optimistic. Trains are still her preferred way to travel, and fixing things takes time. “The punctuality is not great,” she acknowledges. “But they have to renovate, and they can’t do it from one day to the other.”