That was either the best joke ever, or you haven't used German S-Bahn yet. (The "S" is supposed to be short for the German word for "city" but we jokingly refer to them as "standing still-train" instead of "city-train")

'Stand-Bahn'? Never heard that, although haven't lived in Berlin since before the 'meltdown' in 2008. Traditionally the S-Bahn is Berlin's favorite transit system (you can look out the window!), the most far-reaching, and the most interesting historically.

Although it has so many problems it's still my favourite method to get from A to B. Yes, windows, Internet, well spread out network. That's nice.

Actually I don't think it is 100% known what the "S" stands for. I think "Stadtschnellbahn" is most likely. The "Stadtbahn" only refers to the east-west route.

Good to know, because many towns have that I thought it's really Stadt-Bahn. Didn't know S5/7/75 have that special name.

maybe its like SOS and stands for nothing, at least at the beginning. It was used because it was easy to morse and not used ;)

You should travel more. You would never complain again. Berlin public transport is amazingly consistent compared to anywhere else I have lived (bar Singapore).

At least when I was in Berlin this September the U-Bahn worked perfectly.

even if they're running late it should be fairly accurate; there are no express trains here in Berlin so it's never very long since a train has been in a station for a positional fix.

Thats funny because I feel like I waited less time for trains to arrive in Berlin than I do in NYC (including express trains...)

Trains run every five minutes during normal business hours. It's great. Ten minutes at night, weekends, etc.