Working in Cologne while living in Düsseldorf

Hi all,

is anyone here living in Düsseldorf but working in Köln? How is it driving everyday with the highway? Stressful? I guess
with the train might be slightly faster but the timing is often unreliable, and the transport connection might be harder when it's outside
of center area?

Car better? or train better?

I would say car is better as you are more felxible and the car is reliable

Düsseldorf is just 40KM from Köln. Get yourself a motorcycle and say goodbye to congestion and parking problems forever!

remember to count in depreciation, maintence, interest payments, and gas expenses to your commuting costs
otherwise, get yourself a nice BMW M5 and enjoy the Autobahns
relying on DieBahn is fustrating, especially if you take the RE which is stuffed to the max with the great unwashed
on the other hand, you can pay a supplement (50€/month??) and take the IC, which used to be the Inter Regio

Best solution: get a job in Düsseldorf, the shopping is better, the city is cleaner, the airport is more international, etc.

Or move to Cologne, which is just better!

/gets coat

You should commute go via train.

Deutsche Bahn is really reliabe compared to Amtrak in the US.

As Villager said, commuting on the RE can be VERY frustrating. There are often delays and the trains are packed to the brim. I commute from Aachen to Köln and the RE is significantly delayed (30 mins+) at least once a week, and marginally delayed (10-15 mins) at least twice a week. The Köln HBF is very busy and there are often train traffic jams, switch problems, last minute track changes, etc. Hopefully the RE line between Köln and Düsseldorf is slightly better. If possible, I would suggest trying the train out for a week or two. You'll be able to see for yourself if the commute is hellish or not.

I live in refrath.. its 11 minutes from Cologne by car 27 minutes by train and that short commute to work in holwiede 5 km is actually pretty frustrating at times. If you want to work in cologne why not simply move to cologne..

Thanks for all your replies!

Actually I need to go to Mönchengladbach daily and there's only RB/RE/Sbahn from Düsseldorf, and my husband goes to work in Köln. So we settle kind of in the middle point : Düsseldorf. I got to agree with you all about the DB, it's a nightmare!!! And apartments in Köln are kind of expensive for such a tiny ugly space, found a nice apartment in Düsseldorf, so that's the whole story.

We are planning to cut the travel cost, and see if it's possible to take public transport (without going crazy!). His office is somewhere around Ikea Köln, anyone working there? Maybe we could arrange a mitfahrt or something like that.

If his office is around Ikea Cologne - I guess you mean Godorf ? That is not a particularly easy place to get to by Public Transport.

yeah Ikea areas are all not easily accessible by Public transport.

Yeah, and the office is located between the U-Bahn stations of Godorf and Sürth

car seems to make more sense...

How is your german ? You could always try the following car sharing places car sharing , Mitfahrzentrale

I used Mitfahrzentrale a few times as a driver..worked out quite well.