The Swiss are getting salty at their neighbor Germany over the latter’s inability to operate a punctual train system to their exacting standards. Last year, one out of three long-distance trains operated by Deutsche Bahn were late, the worst performance in a decade. The Swiss are livid; officials there are considering banning DB trains, as German delays are seen at risk of degrading the timeliness of Switzerland’s rail system, which has just a 7.5 percent late arrival rate. Any train that arrives from Germany more than 15 minutes late is stopped at the city of Basel, where passengers transfer to a Swiss train. This mostly will come as a shock to my fellow American readers who have managed to read this entire newsletter while waiting for a single R train to show up at Herald Square.
Humza Jilani, The Wall Street Journal