(Versión original en español)

We were the very embodiment of punctuality—the paradigm, along with our Swiss neighbors, of precision engineering and order. No one in their right mind would have dared to question that distinctly German virtue: the ability to always arrive at the time printed on the schedules and tickets.

Photo by Jonathan Eden-Drummond

But I’m talking about a time those under twenty cannot possibly remember¹. That era in which the German railway—indeed, not only the railway but the entire institutional infrastructure of the country—was synonymous with exactitude, now belongs to the past. Today’s young travelers have become used to multiple delays, the kind that make you miss your connecting trains—something utterly unimaginable to previous generations, who would’ve likely attributed such flaws to the Spanish or Italians, never to us.

You might be wondering—and justifiably so—what happened to make such an essential part of our identity vanish. The reasons were several. For one, as strange as it may sound, we—the trains, the locomotives, and the cars—were simply exhausted by the constant strain of always being where we were supposed to be at the exact scheduled time. Like good Germans, we were soldiers used to following orders. So even if deep within our steel bodies we resented it, we never would’ve admitted our profound fatigue. We kept on with the routine as if nothing were wrong. But beneath the façade of discipline, discontent was growing.

The seed of the idea came to Oscar, a friend who often makes the Berlin–Brussels run and whom we frequently cross paths with in Frankfurt. (By the way, my name is Theodor.) I should mention that Oscar is a highly respected colleague in our guild, both for his years of service and his keen powers of reflection. He’s also well-informed, since he reads everything that passes through his carriages. So it’s no surprise that he was the first among us to discover the news of the diesel engine scandal. No doubt he didn’t overlook the lone copy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung left behind on a seat by a passenger, and he read it quickly before the cleaning crew threw it away.

In painstaking detail, across several pages, the newspaper narrated—mingling indignation with no small measure of shame—just how low Volkswagen, the crown jewel of German industry, had sunk. The company had deceived millions of customers around the world, using software installed in its engines to make it seem as though they emitted almost no pollution, when the truth was quite the opposite.

That the Germans had defended their interests was one thing. But that they had lied—and done so in a cause like ecology, one that had always been central to their public stance—was shameful. That’s likely what Oscar thought. I say this because I know him well, and we usually agree on these matters. In fact, I think that for any self-respecting German—be they person or train—that fraud was a disgrace, a stain on our hard-earned reputation.

As you can imagine, cars and trains have long had a rivalry over who can transport more people, more efficiently and more swiftly. Our main advantage was always that we polluted less. That’s why, even though the balance had tipped toward the automobile in recent decades, we’d always counted on the support of the environmentalists. Or so we believed. And we trusted that our rivals were making real efforts to reduce their emissions. On that basis, we respected them. Learning suddenly that it had all been a lie was a shock. We had accepted the institutions’ preference for cars over us for the sake of a greater good—a cleaner planet. And now it turned out to be a scam.

Oscar called a meeting. We gathered, trying to make as little noise as possible to avoid suspicion, at three in the morning on the sidetracks next to Frankfurt’s central station. Not everyone was present at that first assembly, which mostly consisted of a speech from Oscar informing us of the Volkswagen scandal and urging us to spread the word and think about what we could do.

In the following months, we spread the news. Every time we saw a fellow train—whether on adjacent platforms or crossing paths in a low-speed zone—rather than our usual greetings (How’s it going, Theodor? All good, Hans? When are you taking a break? Don’t know, nobody takes breaks these days), the first question became: “Did you hear about Volkswagen?” And then we’d quickly summarize the whole affair in two or three lines before the whistle blew and one of us had to take off.

After a while, all the German trains (and even some Austrian and French ones we ran into at the stations) were in the loop. We all wanted to express our outrage in the clearest way possible. The reasoning behind our reflections was this: if the cars didn’t follow the rules and no one punished them—in fact, they carried on as if nothing had happened—why should we, who work far more than they do, keep following the rules? And what was the most important rule, from which all the others flowed?

Punctuality! Oscar declared in his most impassioned speech—his strongest case against the new institutional order that ignored our dignity—broadcast to all trains over the railway’s internal radio. In a chorus of approval came whistles, the screech of wheels on tracks, and—if there had been any—steam locomotives would’ve let out their unmistakable calls.
And so our pact was sealed. From that moment on, we would never again arrive on time. The new model of the German railway would be unpunctuality. And, as good Germans, we’ve followed through.

Dulce

(¹) Charles Aznavour – La Bohême