Wang Xixi still remembers her first experience with Germany’s trains 21 years ago. It left her with a question: how could a railway be so empty, clean and punctual, and still make money?
The carriages were bright, the toilets almost spotless and the fittings modern. During four years as a student in Bavaria, travelling on a regional rail pass, she barely remembers a delay.
At the time, China’s high-speed railway network was just getting started, while Germany was a major exporter of the technology. Siemens sold China 60 trains capable of 300km/h (186mph) in 2005.
Wang never expected that, years later, delays would become routine on Germany’s railways – sometimes minutes, sometimes hours. The reasons run the gamut: a train ahead blocking the track, faulty points, signal failures, speed restrictions imposed where tracks have worn out. Most point back to an ageing and overloaded network.