senk-ju heute ca. 5 Minuten später

Why is my train late? A toy simulation of one busy rail corridor — Köln to Mainz along the Rhine — showing how small hiccups grow into big delays when fast, slow and freight trains share the same track.

ICE per hour RE per hour Freight per hour Timetable buffer Bad luck Dispatching Incident Where From Minutes

Day 1

The line, live

Punctual stops

–

passenger arrivals less than 6 min late (DB definition)

Average delay at Mainz

–

passenger trains

Initial hiccups

–

per passenger train: late start, long stops, slow running

Extra waiting at red signals

–

all trains, beyond what the timetable planned

Trains today

–

Every train of the day

Time runs left to right, distance top to bottom. Each line is one train; steeper is slower, flat is standing. The thin grey line behind is the timetable. Hover a train for details, click to set the map's clock.

Show from

When does it tip over?

Same settings, but freight per hour goes from 0 to 12. Each point is the average of 20 random days. Watch how slowly things get worse — until suddenly they don't.

Punctual stops

Minutes per passenger train

Table view

All trains of this day (table)