Lies they tell us about Europe - installment 3

The trains run on time in Germany.

Lie. Pure and simple. On my first train trip through Germany I had 9 minutes to make a connection in Cologne. At the exact time my next train was supposed to be leaving, we were stopped dead a few hundred meters from the station waiting for who knows what. But it worked out okay because my connecting train was half an hour late leaving. To make up time, they skipped a station. Tough luck if you were waiting for the train there. But while we were standing on the platform in Cologne waiting, they did come around with free snacks and drinks to help us pass the wait.

Belgian trains, on the other hand, almost always run right on time, which is a little surprising if you know much about Belgium. The older stations have those clocks like we had in school back in the day, where the minute ticks backwards just a tiny bit before leaping forward to the next minute. In Belgium, the conductor blows his whistle on the backtick, the doors close, and the train pulls out as soon as the minute jumps forward.