Germany’s creaking railways will make travelling Euro 2024 fans feel at home

England and Germany fans at Euro 2024 will join in suffering the country's crumbling rail system

Credit: Rick Findler/Story Picture Agency

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.”

Uefa’s sustainability strategy for Euro 2024 specifically encourages fans to use public transport to get to matches. Under normal circumstances,the quickest way for those coming from England to travel to Sunday’s match would be to fly to Dusseldorf and then catch a train to Gelsenkirchen.

England’s next two Group C matches,against Denmark and Slovenia,would then require onward travel to Frankfurt and Cologne.

Scotland fans following their team around Germany must also trek from Cologne to Stuttgart for their final Group A game against Hungary.

Engineering works

Mr Neuss’s warnings are backed up by official statistics published by the state-owned Deutsche Bahn in January.

They showed that just 64 per cent of long-distance trains reached their destination on time – meaning less than six minutes late – last year,even fewer than the 65.2 per cent in 2022.

Engineering works were blamed which,worryingly,are expected to ramp up this year.

“The infrastructure is very bad and we had to repair the whole train system,” said Mr Neuss,who accused the government of failing to invest enough money for improvements to be carried out more quickly.