> Trains from Switzerland are more punctual than trains from Bavaria. If you are in the southwest and need to go north (Hamburg, Hannover, Berlin, Ruhrgebiet), the ICEs that originated in Zürich or Interlaken are noticeably more often on-time than the ones that came up through Munich. Why this is so I cannot fully prove. Given a choice, pick the Swiss-origin train. The same applies, more weakly, to trains originating in Austria.

Besides them being from Switzerland, that is actually pretty easy to explain: International trains have priority over national ones and as such are less likely to get delay assigned by the scheduling administration.

> Reserve, even when you think you do not need to. A few euros for a Sitzplatzreservierung is the cheapest insurance in this entire system. On a delay-day, your reservation is the difference between a four-hour journey at a table with power and a four-hour journey standing in a vestibule next to the toilet.

Except when it is really crowded, reservations are revoked.