Jonathan Vincent

In charts: drought risk as England faces driest year this century News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication

In charts: drought risk as England faces driest year this century 📊

https://www.ft.com/content/8e69c305-8f22-4052-817d-5397f107d8c8

15.05.2025 04:00 — 👍 22    🔁 5    💬 1    📌 0

UK delay data doesn't include cancelled trains, so I excluded them from the German data in our analysis.

The exact metrics for cancellations differ, but the ORR reports around 4% of trains fully and 2% part cancelled in GB. While Germany had 6.7% of stops cancelled in 2024. So it's broadly similar

19.02.2025 11:38 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Olaf Scholz mocked British railways over “broken tracks and bad trains”, claiming that "nothing works any more” in the UK. Turns out: Germany rail problems have become so bad that Deutsche Bahn long-distance service is less punctual than even the worst operator in Britain. www.ft.com/content/d3b6...

19.02.2025 06:32 — 👍 653    🔁 198    💬 48    📌 65

The root issue, according to Deutsche Bahn themselves, is the poor condition of their rail infrastructure, which will cost billions to replace at a time when future funding remains uncertain

19.02.2025 10:38 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

This causes issues across central Europe, with German delays spilling out into the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland and Austria

19.02.2025 10:38 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 1

Britain and Germany generally use different metrics to measure punctuality, but using data provided by bahnvorhersage.de, I was able to compare the two networks directly.

DB's intercity trains are now more delayed than even Avanti, Britain's worst performing operator

19.02.2025 10:38 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

My article comparing British and German rail punctuality in the
@financialtimes.com today with @olafstorbeck.ft.com

While British trains perform poorly, the German network suffers even more from delays, especially on intercity lines.

on.ft.com/4gKX4Sf

19.02.2025 10:38 — 👍 6    🔁 3    💬 1    📌 0

German trains are less punctual than Britain’s ‘broken’ railways [FREE TO READ] Olaf Scholz mocked UK trains. FT analysis of 1.9bn data points shows they are more reliable than Germany’s network

In a debate last week, Olaf Scholz argued that rail privatisation in Germany would “end as badly as in England, where nothing works any more”. 

But how does Deutsche Bahn really compare to UK trains? @jonathanvincent.bsky.social crunched a few billion datapoints to check: on.ft.com/4hFuxyX

19.02.2025 07:49 — 👍 27    🔁 14    💬 4    📌 5