The days train travel schedule was an ICE train to Berne. Then Swiss trains from Berne to Visp then Visp to Zermatt. Scheduled arrival just after 3pm.
ICE left Frankfurt on time and all was well until just before Karlsruhe when the driver announced something in German and everyone started shaking their heads, mumbling and making phone calls.
We managed to get assistance with interpretation by locals. The news was that due to unfinished weekend track work the train to Berne is cancelled and we are all to detrain at Karlsruhe.
Very little information on what our options were and rail staff to help were scarce.
I constantly checked for options on the excellent DB Navigator app and found a few connections to Berne and onwards in the next few hours. Finally locating a staff member I asked for confirmation they would run. He said there was no guarantee.
While waiting for the first option a local and I started a conversation and he explained to me that the Swiss do not let any train enter if it is over 20 minutes late. Guess they have their reputation for being on time to uphold. He suggested to just get the first train to Basel as we would then be in Switzerland and train punctuality and customer service would be much better.
Great advice and after 4 more trains and lots of running between platforms dragging luggage we finally arrived at Zermatt very tired and over two and a half hours late.
By the way. I still enjoyed the journey very much.