Ludwigsbahn & Potato Pancakes

We're late every single day.

There's a train line directly beside my son's nursery, and a train that goes past at five minutes past the hour.
 
At dropoff and pickup, he stands there waiting for it like it's the main event of his day, and watching his face when it rumbles past brings back a fascination I thought I'd outgrown years ago.
 
This arrangement is both wonderful and stressful. Wonderful for the obvious reasons. Stressful because this particular train is neither reliable nor consistent, and a busy morning gets compounded into something worse when it doesn't show. 
 
There's also the deeper flaw in the system.
 
Five past the hour means we're already five minutes late, and the German in me does not exactly take that in stride.
 
A few years back, I had the pleasure of experiencing the German rail network first-hand. The word “pleasure” is doing some heavy lifting there.
 
Turns out, trains are cancelled and delayed with regularity in Germany too, just noticeably less often than here in the UK and at drastically kinder prices.
 
As mass transportation goes, it was about as pleasant as it gets. But somewhere between the model train set in my parents' basement and the platform announcements of adulthood, the fascination has worn off.
 
My son is currently restoring it, one nursery dropoff at a time.
 
All that fence-side waiting had me curious about where German rail actually began. The short answer is 1835 with exactly two stops, and the king it was named after would rather have had a canal. History has a sense of humour about how that turned out.
 
→ The Ludwigsbahn, Germany's first railway
 
Train timetables aren't the only schedules under scrutiny in my life.
 
When my wife asks when dinner will be ready, the answer becomes a binding contract (at least on my side). If I'm even two minutes past the stated time, the meal might as well be burned to a crisp for all the good the effort did. I try not to be dramatic about it. 
 
At least not outwardly.
 
Which is why I've developed a fondness for food that isn't a mad dash to the finish. Potato pancakes are the obvious example. They can be made ahead, kept warm in the oven, and arrive at the table precisely on time and crisp as promised.
 
Mind you, Germany can't agree on what to call them. There are at least five names depending on the region, and just as many opinions about what belongs on top.
 
→ German Potato Pancakes, the Reibekuchen recipe
 
If I'm going to one-up the Deutsche Bahn on timekeeping, pancakes seem a reasonable place to start.
 
P.S. Today's nursery train was four minutes late, and my son couldn't have been happier about the extra wait. One of us clearly has the right attitude.