Based on travels mostly between summer 2009 and summer 2014 inclusive (4 occasions, namely 2009/11/12/14):
The main thing that was apparent to me on German railways was more integration, it seemed a more coherent system than the fragmented British one, with planned Takt-style connections. Even the small private operators (such as in Bavaria) seemed integrated into the general system, probably because they were Land-tendered routes. Furthermore, in Germany and neighbouring countries, even moderate sized places had an S-Bahn network of the sort that wouldn't exist in similar sized cities here. Heidelberg-Mannheim was one example, Freiburg another (IIRC), and over the border in Austria, Innsbruck and Salzburg.
(We can but dream of a Solent S-Bahn!)
There are also more small branch lines of the sort which would have long closed in the UK (again often operated by smaller operators).
Delays were comparable to those of the UK, as were engineering works at inconvenient times (such as weekends in mid-July on the Garmisch route, thankfully not affecting me directly as it was while I was staying there). I never encountered cancellations but doubtless they existed.
Another general observation was the "clockface between nodes, but different origin/destination points" setup which I've commented on before. Each segment connecting 2 nodes (let's say Frankfurt and Munich, via Nuremberg or via Stuttgart) would have a clockface service, but each service on that segment might have a different origin or destination point. A bit like Operation Princess, perhaps. I can't comment either way as to whether this had effects on reliability, but it was a perhaps nice combination of both regular interval clockface services and once-or-twice-a-day links between more far flung points.
The main thing that was apparent to me on German railways was more integration, it seemed a more coherent system than the fragmented British one, with planned Takt-style connections. Even the small private operators (such as in Bavaria) seemed integrated into the general system, probably because they were Land-tendered routes. Furthermore, in Germany and neighbouring countries, even moderate sized places had an S-Bahn network of the sort that wouldn't exist in similar sized cities here. Heidelberg-Mannheim was one example, Freiburg another (IIRC), and over the border in Austria, Innsbruck and Salzburg.
(We can but dream of a Solent S-Bahn!)
There are also more small branch lines of the sort which would have long closed in the UK (again often operated by smaller operators).
Delays were comparable to those of the UK, as were engineering works at inconvenient times (such as weekends in mid-July on the Garmisch route, thankfully not affecting me directly as it was while I was staying there). I never encountered cancellations but doubtless they existed.
Another general observation was the "clockface between nodes, but different origin/destination points" setup which I've commented on before. Each segment connecting 2 nodes (let's say Frankfurt and Munich, via Nuremberg or via Stuttgart) would have a clockface service, but each service on that segment might have a different origin or destination point. A bit like Operation Princess, perhaps. I can't comment either way as to whether this had effects on reliability, but it was a perhaps nice combination of both regular interval clockface services and once-or-twice-a-day links between more far flung points.
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