England and Scotland football fans planning to travel by train at this summer’s European Championship are being warned to expect a familiar problem: major delays.
Having once put Britain’s creaking railways to shame, Germany’s own network has been plunged into similar chaos in what is an embarrassing blow to the country’s reputation for efficiency.
UK police are expecting a record 350,000 England fans to travel out for Euro 2024, while there were an estimated 150,000 Scotland followers in Munich for their opening fixture alone.
Detleff Neuss, chair of Germany’s rail passenger lobby group Pro Bahn, warned such a mass influx would simply lead to “more problems with delayed trains and trains cancelled”.
Ordeal
With the majority of England fans attending the side’s Euro 2024 opener against Serbia on Sunday still to arrive ahead of the game in Gelsenkirchen, they are about to find out just how much of an ordeal German rail travel has become.
Scotland supporters recovering from their country’s 5-1 defeat to the tournament hosts in Munich on Friday could also be in for another rude awakening if they go by train to Cologne for their second game against Switzerland.
Mr Neuss told the Telegraph: “I would say if you want to visit a football game, you take [a train] one or two trains before [the scheduled train] to be on time.”
Admitting Germany’s railways had become a source of national embarrassment, he added: “Many years ago, the German train system was a very good system. But, just now, the German train system is very bad.”