Word Choice – When to Use ‘Arrive At’ vs. ‘Arrive In’

Reach is transitive when referring to a destination, meaning it needs a direct object. So you want to say

The boys are about to arrive.

Or, you could say

The boys are about to reach their destination.

Presumably the conductors are not scholars of English.

As you have observed, the normal English usage is:

• "We arrive at Bremen" -- we arrive at the station named "Bremen"
• "We arrive in Bremen" -- we arrive at the station in Bremen

A British conductor would normally use more words:

• "In five minutes we will be arriving at Birmingham New Street"

I imagine that someone at Deutche Bahn has come up with something which, although not correct English, is easy for non-English-speaking conductors to say, acceptably understandable to native English speakers, and easily understandable for people of all native languages with some small amount of English knowledge.