DB is continually the worst train experience I have in Europe. I have never been on a train in Germany that's on time or that stops at the right station. Several times I've had to find someone young (and who speaks English) and say, "I'm just going to follow you to the next train."
I've been told that the UK is worse, but I don't have much experience with it outside of Eurostar.
> DB is continually the worst train experience I have in Europe
Oh c’mon have you tried trains in Slovenia? The ICE from Budapest with a constant 230+ min delay, the regional one from Ljubljana to Celje where half the track is seemingly under perpetual construction (so transfer to a bus!), passenger trains delayed all the time waiting for freight trains, trains randomly going 20kph on some segments, and lately even vandals sabotaging the tracks. And don’t worry, they announce all of that exclusively in Slovene with no extra answers.
I’ve been on DB and it wasn’t that bad. It was expensive but at least the train didn’t max out at 80kph.
> Several times I've had to find someone young (and who speaks English) and say, "I'm just going to follow you to the next train."
I'm on the other side of this. I end up chaperoning lost tourists on my DB disaster trips with a regularity that I should be getting a paycheck from DB.
There're certain kinds of rewards to encourage traveling by rail in Europe. For example, a training course I attended refunded part of your travel expenses if you took a long-distance train. And there're people who believe in not flying for the sake of the planet.
But at this point, I'm convinced you should avoid any train in and around Germany. This includes Denmark as well. Just take a plane, but don't have a layover in Germany. The same could probably be said about France. My first train from Paris to Nancy stopped for about 2hrs in the middle of nowhere. As the machinist said: "The train is tired."
Other countries like Italy or Spain seem to actually have well-functioning rail though.
I regularly travel on DSB (2.5hr journeys, 4 times a month minimum), and only very rarely encounter issues. Staff have always been easy to deal with and on the rare occasion I've had to be refunded (the carriage with my reserved seat didn't show up) I've received it within days.
Nope, leave Italy off the well-functioning rail. I am a commuter, i use the train here since 2009 and it's terrible. We're going through the same experiences described in the post, but often even much worse. On December 1st, my train took 6 hours to travel 100km instead of 1 hour so we too felt like the post author.
And here I was annoyed that the train going half the route (as in schedule, not coz of any accident) is named the same so I got on too early one by accident and had to walk a stop away.
Deutsche Bahn seems very similar to most of the railway in England. Customer service is non-existent; delays are highly normalised.
The UK government hates how expensive it is to operate, so they are reducing subsidies and massively prioritising the most profitable routes and raising prices.
Staff got nice condition/pay bumps during COVID and all have the attitude that they are doing us a favour. I don't mean that lightly or that I've had one bad experience with a member of staff on a bad day. They are work-shy, offensive, rude, lacking training and plain bad tempered.
I'm very pro car now these days, which is exactly what the Government wants.
I know the author mentioned this, but I just got nervous imagining this as a tourist who doesn't speak German at all. This shouldn't be like this. Why they don't help at all?
It's also funny considering how here in South America we look at Germany trains (and Switzerland trains) as always on time, and the best train system, etc. But I am sure if this happens here it would be on the cover of newspapers.
Swiss trains are always on time. I've heard they've start to refuse delayed German trains entry to the country because their delays disrupt the system too much. The Swiss train system is excellent. The German train system is a joke.
> I know the author mentioned this, but I just got nervous imagining this as a tourist who doesn't speak German at all. This shouldn't be like this. Why they don't help at all?
How much help does your home country give to German tourists who don't speak English?
Swiss trains are very civilized. On an ordinary intercity train can sit at a table with a white tablecloth and have a beer or wine and a proper dinner. It really makes the time fly by. The SBB also has merch store with their own line of watches.
To some extend I'd like rail operators being forced to follow the same rules as airlines in terms of compensation for delays. As the only thing that seems to work in cases like this is financial motivation.
Meh. I have lived here for 7 years, and get a bit tired of these sorts of complaints about DB coming from the US. Germans have exceedingly little, if any, patience for anything going wrong. DB is always painted as this evil, completely broken system when in fact it's been a joy compared to e.g. San Francisco.
I've only encountered flexibility and slight discomfort in a few cases where something has happened. I'm not entirely sure what Germans expect DB to do. A car had an interconnecting door problem and had to remove that car from the train. Everyone had to filter in to other cars to compensate for the lack of seating. Should they instead cancel those tickets? Or make them stand? It was a full train, and no answer is the correct one for everyone involved. I ended up giving my seat to an elderly gentleman and sat between cars on the ground. Mild discomfort but literally nobody was to blame for this. I suppose I could have gotten the next train but I didn't want to wait - that's also not DB's problem to fix.
Another time, my train was delayed for several hours. Of course I was quite annoyed but found out the reason was that someone had offed themselves in front of one of the trains before it, bringing the line to a standstill while it was dealt with.
Most of the whining I've heard about DB boils down to inconvenience in situations nobody could have predicted nor helped, and this almost insatiable attitude by some Germans that any inconvenience is an offense to Germany seems always to be directed at an otherwise highly reliable and robust trnasporation system whilst having zero other frame of reference. Seriously, come to the US or, from what I've heard, the UK. Then tell me Germany's is awful with a straight face.
This article reads exactly like that. You weren't kidnapped. You were rerouted. Don't dilute words like that, it just undermines your point.
> Most of the whining I've heard about DB boils down to inconvenience in situations nobody could have predicted nor helped [..]
I agree with you that there’s a lot of complaining and it does get tiresome. The German train system is one of the most complex in the world and works closer to an interconnected spider web than the typical straight line systems in other countries.
However much of this has been predicted in the past. I think that’s why a lot of people are annoyed. Here are some sources if you’re interested to read more:
DB is weird. They seem to make their own rules and then run the game and “dont tell the rules to anyone”. I was on my way to catch a flight from Munich to my home (Madrid). I didn’t knew that apparently at one point the train splits into two parts and the front part goes to the airport and the other part just goes to the nearby cattle farms and comes back in 3 hours.
Google Maps - No idea
Citymapper - what?
English announcement - nien.
Thanks to an old lady, who told me that i needed to switch coaches to go the airport. Madre mia!!
Yeah, the S1 from Munich to the airport splits regularly, and you have to be in the rear half of the train. The first time (as a not-perfect-German-speaker) I'd have missed it but for the kindness of another traveller.
Now, at least, the announcements are also in English, which frankly is very positive - that DB are improving anything noticeable. (And to be clear, Bavaria/Germany are absolutely not given to accommodating non-German speakers, like, ever.)
I'm pretty sure there should be english announcements. Maybe they were broken. You also get this information via the displays on the wagons and on the screens inside.
There is a bus/train from Freising to the airport every 10 min that takes 15min, so you are not trapped there for hours.
Google maps also has all the public transport connections available for navigation. That it does not support certain things like train splits or instant train changes is not DBs problem.
The preferred way to get to the airport is via S8 (not S1). Idk how one could push/guide people more to take this one.
S8 does not split and it definitely has announcements in english.
They also prioritize keeping S8 running above anything else.
I'd also recommend buying tickets via app, not via ticket machines.
This is pretty common in other countries. I almost got screwed multiple times by SNCF (french trains) where they don't announce which half of the train goes where on the speakers. Even in the official app, it's buried deep: for some reason, it's under "Travel Details" and not "Train Details".
It was partially on me because there are assigned seats and carriages, but I was late and had to jump in the train. But still no vocal announcement of "cars x to y go to z, the others go to w".
This just happened to me a couple days ago trying to get from Luxembourg to Heidelberg, got on what I thought was the right train at a transfer but was apparently the wrong half, announcement only in German, rushing to find a spot for luggage in packed train and getting scolded by various Germans and we missed it. 3 hours of travel to end up back in Luxembourg and we got a very expensive rental car to get to our next couple destinations, not proudest travel moment. Next train we took was easiest possible scenario, Nuremberg to Munich, one train no transfers, assigned carriage, app helpfully shows you where to stand, arrived with time to spare. Except the platform changed as train was arriving, announcement again only in German, asked an attendant if train on other platform was our train, “No that train is on platform 9” rush up and down platform 9, carriages and train number don’t match ask another attendant if the original train on the other platform is ours, says you have no time, jump on that train, it is right but we are on opposite side of train and walk through the entire train with luggage again with various Germans giving scolding looks. Peaceful way to travel.
I had similar experience only in Poland. Where this part of the train goes was posted on the glass window on the doors. Somehow I missed it and went to a city I didn't intend to.
Splitting trains is not uncommon. Generally for Amtrak there will be two conductors one for each part of the train. On the platform both conductors will tell you which part of the train goes where. They often check tickets more frequently than usual just to make sure you are on the right part of the train.
Train splitting is quite acceptable when the customer service is alright.
When was this? Took the train (S1) last week and every single screen at the stations and in the train explains this in detail and there are probably 20 announcements both in German and English telling everybody which coach goes to the airport and which to Freising.
To be fair (and I am not fan of DB and many other rail companies), DB is not the only rail system that splits trains, and it is rather clearly indicated, but you have to 1) expect something like trains that split at specific stops and 2) know what you are looking for on a ticket or billboard, partially because indicating that, especially far in advance is a bit of a UI/design challenge.
Also, I believe you were trying to write "nein". But why would you expect an English announcement in Germany on a German train? Google Maps? What does that have to do with that; it's an unofficial and only like an 80% solution.
In general the S-Bahn in Munich is a massive s*t show I can report more info about this if needed. However, in the S1 going to the airport (the train you took) it is quite well described that the train splits and it's both on German and in English.
But then you already entered the wrong train. The destination of a train is usually clearly written on the train, unless it's a very old one where it's not visible on every coach
I agree that it's not that intuitive that a line can have multiple end stops (like Stuttgart - Munich ends in both Stuttgart and Munich, depending on the direction you are entering?
DB is infinitely better than Trenitalia. I once took the train equivalent of what airlines call a code-share from Venice to Munich and Trenitalia just straight-up forgot half the train somewhere. It was a total gong show.
That fucking Sbahn is the bane of the existence of many tourists. It happens so much that there‘s now a bus line from those cow fields to an airport. You will be late.
I am German and the three times I took an ICE from Cologne to Berlin and then back, EACH TIME I boarded at a wrong wagon. The entire system, their app, the signages at the tracks... it is all complete and utter dogshit.
I don't tolerate this kind of thing. If you find yourself in a similar situation and want out - call emergency services, say chest pain, out of breath, and where you are.
You may find the train has now "registered" itself at the next station.
It will reveal driver to be using intentionally tricky language. "Cannot stop"
It's not that the train can't stop, trains can obviously stop wherever and whenever they want. It's not that the doors cannot open - train doors can be opened by the driver or by passengers, trains have emergency egress requirements.
The problem is that nobody actually wanted to get off that train. They wanted to complain about it. Comparing it to a kidnapping is offensive and absurd. That's now how people act when kidnapped.
Faking a medical emergency emergency is both illegal and immoral.
In Germany in particular, you could be charged for all the expenses. A friend of mine did not fake, was in real panic, but still was at the end of the ”nothing” and had to paid the ambulance costs. Not cheap!
If you think you are being kidnapped or whatever, instead of lying and abusing EMS, you can call the police, and explain clearly what’s going on with the truth. If serious enough they will be able to act better in that case.
I lived 15 years in The Netherlands and 3 years ago moved to Germany.
Back in NL I used to complain about trains being late...
Boy oh boy was I not ready for Germany and Deutsche Bahn. I heard stories, but it was so absurd at times that I treated them as comical acts.
Then I traveled long distance on DB...
- trains being late by 15-40 minutes is NORMAL. It's included. At this point I feel like it's even planned.
- the "thrown out in the middle of nowhere" happens! Ruthlessly. Operationally. With zero empathy or guidance. One minute you traveled inside the train approaching your destination another minute you are on a station in some village, knowing nothing about "why?" And "what is next?"
I still take trains - but I do not plan any appointments on arrival. As arrival is theoretical and not guaranteed. I just take a gamble and sink hours into the journey. Read books. Watch movies.
P.s. I am surprised that DB is not held more accountable for the absolutely shit service they provide.
The accountability part is what makes me more angry. I get to lose so many (maybe hundreds?) of hours a year because of how bad DB works. Meanwhile the executives at DB get their nice boni each year and absurdly high wages for what they do... which is consistently worsening the train experience year after year. Probably none of them even use the train.
Deutsche Bahn has gone from not perfect to straight up disastrous and antisocial in the past years. They use scamming approaches more misleading than airline's and in cases straight up lie. It's rightfully headed for insolvency despite billions of wasteful and wrongful state funding. I hope that company goes under as soon as possible. Any other solution to the railway system management is better than DB. DB is not going to make it
> They use scamming approaches more misleading than airline's and in cases straight up lie.
Would you mind sharing some examples? My only complaints with DB are cancellations and delays. Well, the ticketing might be a bit confusing the first time you realize "ticket" and "seat reservation" are two completely independent entities. Similarly, rules for which train you're allowed to take might be a bit confusing. But I wouldn't call it scamming.
historically german railway had a track record of treating people like cattle, but one would expect that not even institutional culture changes would take that long
I wonder if people think they will be taken seriously with so much hyperbole and drama
> Only then I notice: the driver has been speaking German only.
Oh wow a German conductor in a German train speaking German oh how awkward...
No you were not "kidnapped" your train just stopped at a different station.
> “That’s a different federal state.”
Yes and if you go to many cities in Europe and the US you can walk from one country to another. Oh wow shocking I know /s
Of course this is Deutsche Bahn at its best (in getting hand and feet mixed up) and that compensation is ridiculous. It should at least get your ticket back to the place you intended to go.
Neuwied to Troisdorf is 1h by car or train (in a good day of course)
I don't know what to make of this. Of course everyone has a right to be pissed off for losing time because of someone else's mistake, but at the same time the language is... I mean if you feel kidnapped because your train connection didn't work out I am not sure how you'd feel if you were really kidnapped. Was my family kidnapped when they were sitting for two hours in the airplane before takeoff because of xyz? No, it was just an unfortunate turn of events that happen from time to time when you fly.
German railways could be better, but at the same time it's nowhere near the level of complaining the average person makes, as in this article. I think it says more about the author than the company. "It's twenty minutes late, I consider this early". Despite the problems that exist, I wouldn't say I ever had the feeling of being relieved the train is only 20 minutes late. Especially not with local trains.
> I was trying to travel 35 kilometers. I was now 63 kilometers from my grandmother’s house. Further away than when I started.
Oh boy. There's something deeply human about the frustrations of state institutions and bureaucracy.
From the linked article:
> How are train cancellations and delays compensated when traveling with the Deutschland-Ticket?
> In the event of a delay of at least 60 minutes at the destination station due to a delay or train cancellation in local transport, you will receive €1.50 compensation per case.
> Amounts under €4 will not be paid out due to a legal de minimis threshold. However, you can accumulate multiple late payment claims.
DB is a typical German moloch. Insane wages, a culture of anti performance. And being eaten alive by consultants. I know someone working there. It's a tragedy how they change once good people
I am never taking the train in Germany or through Germany again (or through Belgium, for that matter). The experience is consistently bad. NS, DB, and NMBS all perform poorly. Train travel itself has become unreliable and frustrating. Ever since I got my car, the difference in freedom is obvious.
I do support having basic public transport and solid bike infrastructure for young people, but once you’re 25 or older, there’s little justification for relying on such low-quality public transport.
I’ll be going to Prague next year, and I’m fully willing to drive for hours rather than sit on a train that keeps getting delayed, is unpleasant to be on, and costs far too much.
> The train starts moving. The driver announces there are “issues around Bonn.” He does not specify what kind. No one asks. We have learned not to ask.
This is one of those issues I keep mulling about; it seems train operators (and airliners for that matter) tend to avoid being technically specific about operation problems, and just say "problems" and - if they are kind - where the problem is. And I cannot decide whether this is the wrong or right approach: how much information is too much? The argument is that travellers don't care why the train cannot move or why it is delayed, they just want to know when the next train is.
The problem - however - is that train operators come off looking like idiots, when they really aren't. As an example, the S-trains around Copenhagen have recently switched to a CBTC signal system, which has increased punctuality to 97% (below 3 minutes, cancelled trains counted). At cold temperatures, railway points (or switches, if you will) might become inoperable, as their mechanism freeze (of course, there are systems to prevent this, but can occur anyway). This happened this November on the S-train lines, but the announcement was "signal failure"; which meant the train operator (DSB) (and the railway owner (Banedanmark)) kind of looked a bit stupid, since the whole point of CBTC was to eliminate signal failures entirely (in fact, if you're being pedantic, since CBTC has _no_ signals, there technically cannot be any signal failures), and had promised as much.
But - then again - travellers really just wanted to know what the next train was, but I still think train operators are doing themselves a disservice by being oblique about the actual problem. Particularly when a problem lasts for several days, "technical problems" just makes people think their engineers are incompetent, when in reality they have no idea about the severity of the problem (because it is not communicated).
I may of course be biased here, since I have a high interest in how trains operate, but friends of mine - whose interest is far lessen compared to mine - are also frustrated by these opaque messages; and I think the reason is a strong sense of lack of control - since (assuming one made it to the station on time) up until this point, the passenger have done everything right, and yet the system failed, and now they are not privy as to why.
At the station itself, on the other hand, you might as well play "delay bingo". Is it an earlier training running late that is now slowing down other trains? Is it yet another Stellwerksstörung? Or maybe it's urgent track repairs? It might also be an Oberleitungsschaden!
To be honest, I don't care about excuses. Yes, problems happen, but this is systemic. Does it help me if I know the train tracks are broken yet again? It does not. The reasons (excuses) they bring up ring hollow. I don't feel that drivers or station staff would appear stupid if they don't tell. They are victims, too.
I think they look stupider by not saying anything. They look stupid by all of these constant delays, cancellations, and the occasional utterly surreal self-inflicted problem like in the article. That's what makes them look stupid.
Just explain what's wrong. Arm passengers with the best info you can give them. And figure out a way to let people disembark close to where they need to be.
DB has become a complete joke. I've had to travel to and through Germany several times these past couple of years, and almost always there's a problem.
I once paid 80 euro for a taxi from Essen to Dusseldorf because they cancelled the train that would connect to the last ICE to Amsterdam. When I got to Dusseldorf on time, the ICE arrived at a different platform than announced. I only noticed that because some people were suddenly leaving the platform. I warned a few people who still hadn't noticed it. I bet a lot of people still managed to miss that train after all the trouble making it to Dusseldorf.
> The argument is that travellers don't care why the train cannot move or why it is delayed
Deutsche Bahn does not think this is true and neither do I. If this was ever the thinking, they've performed or read studies and changed their mind
You can very clearly hear the drilled setup "<delay info> grund dafür ist <error category>" rigidly being regurgitated every. single. time. a delay is announced. The middle words are (per my understanding) a formal way to say "because of" and it's not something you will hear in daily life, so I presume it's the output of a committee and corporate requires them to say this, no matter if they know anything more than "the signal is red". Whether they know or not, the detail is always at a level that sounds like malicious compliance. I'd rather they say "we don't know" or say nothing at all. And if they do know, I'd hope they make up a new sentence like "someone was spotted on the crossing up ahead after the barriers closed. Someone is checking the cameras to make sure it won't come to a collision" but we instead get the robotic "we have come to a stop on the grounds of person on track". It mimics their training samples and what colleagues got into the habit of saying so I guess they think it's good like this, but is not actually helpful
Idk what creates this useless information culture, but they clearly know that passengers do want this information
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 153 ms ] threadI've been told that the UK is worse, but I don't have much experience with it outside of Eurostar.
Oh c’mon have you tried trains in Slovenia? The ICE from Budapest with a constant 230+ min delay, the regional one from Ljubljana to Celje where half the track is seemingly under perpetual construction (so transfer to a bus!), passenger trains delayed all the time waiting for freight trains, trains randomly going 20kph on some segments, and lately even vandals sabotaging the tracks. And don’t worry, they announce all of that exclusively in Slovene with no extra answers.
I’ve been on DB and it wasn’t that bad. It was expensive but at least the train didn’t max out at 80kph.
I'm on the other side of this. I end up chaperoning lost tourists on my DB disaster trips with a regularity that I should be getting a paycheck from DB.
But at this point, I'm convinced you should avoid any train in and around Germany. This includes Denmark as well. Just take a plane, but don't have a layover in Germany. The same could probably be said about France. My first train from Paris to Nancy stopped for about 2hrs in the middle of nowhere. As the machinist said: "The train is tired."
Other countries like Italy or Spain seem to actually have well-functioning rail though.
I regularly travel on DSB (2.5hr journeys, 4 times a month minimum), and only very rarely encounter issues. Staff have always been easy to deal with and on the rare occasion I've had to be refunded (the carriage with my reserved seat didn't show up) I've received it within days.
Avoid trains run by GoCollective though.
The UK government hates how expensive it is to operate, so they are reducing subsidies and massively prioritising the most profitable routes and raising prices.
Staff got nice condition/pay bumps during COVID and all have the attitude that they are doing us a favour. I don't mean that lightly or that I've had one bad experience with a member of staff on a bad day. They are work-shy, offensive, rude, lacking training and plain bad tempered.
I'm very pro car now these days, which is exactly what the Government wants.
It's also funny considering how here in South America we look at Germany trains (and Switzerland trains) as always on time, and the best train system, etc. But I am sure if this happens here it would be on the cover of newspapers.
How much help does your home country give to German tourists who don't speak English?
I've only encountered flexibility and slight discomfort in a few cases where something has happened. I'm not entirely sure what Germans expect DB to do. A car had an interconnecting door problem and had to remove that car from the train. Everyone had to filter in to other cars to compensate for the lack of seating. Should they instead cancel those tickets? Or make them stand? It was a full train, and no answer is the correct one for everyone involved. I ended up giving my seat to an elderly gentleman and sat between cars on the ground. Mild discomfort but literally nobody was to blame for this. I suppose I could have gotten the next train but I didn't want to wait - that's also not DB's problem to fix.
Another time, my train was delayed for several hours. Of course I was quite annoyed but found out the reason was that someone had offed themselves in front of one of the trains before it, bringing the line to a standstill while it was dealt with.
Most of the whining I've heard about DB boils down to inconvenience in situations nobody could have predicted nor helped, and this almost insatiable attitude by some Germans that any inconvenience is an offense to Germany seems always to be directed at an otherwise highly reliable and robust trnasporation system whilst having zero other frame of reference. Seriously, come to the US or, from what I've heard, the UK. Then tell me Germany's is awful with a straight face.
This article reads exactly like that. You weren't kidnapped. You were rerouted. Don't dilute words like that, it just undermines your point.
I agree with you that there’s a lot of complaining and it does get tiresome. The German train system is one of the most complex in the world and works closer to an interconnected spider web than the typical straight line systems in other countries.
However much of this has been predicted in the past. I think that’s why a lot of people are annoyed. Here are some sources if you’re interested to read more:
(2006) Audit critique regarding the bad state of DB funding after privatization: https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/16/008/1600840.pdf
(2011) DB is not spending enough on the track network: https://taz.de/Investitionen-in-das-Schienennetz/%215117195/
(2014) State of German train bridges: https://www.zeit.de/mobilitaet/2014-09/deutsche-bahn-bruecke...
Google Maps - No idea Citymapper - what? English announcement - nien.
Thanks to an old lady, who told me that i needed to switch coaches to go the airport. Madre mia!!
Now, at least, the announcements are also in English, which frankly is very positive - that DB are improving anything noticeable. (And to be clear, Bavaria/Germany are absolutely not given to accommodating non-German speakers, like, ever.)
The preferred way to get to the airport is via S8 (not S1). Idk how one could push/guide people more to take this one. S8 does not split and it definitely has announcements in english. They also prioritize keeping S8 running above anything else.
I'd also recommend buying tickets via app, not via ticket machines.
It was partially on me because there are assigned seats and carriages, but I was late and had to jump in the train. But still no vocal announcement of "cars x to y go to z, the others go to w".
Where the train is going being a ’detail’ is completely hilarious.
Train splitting is quite acceptable when the customer service is alright.
It's not that complicated.
Also, I believe you were trying to write "nein". But why would you expect an English announcement in Germany on a German train? Google Maps? What does that have to do with that; it's an unofficial and only like an 80% solution.
I agree that it's not that intuitive that a line can have multiple end stops (like Stuttgart - Munich ends in both Stuttgart and Munich, depending on the direction you are entering?
You may find the train has now "registered" itself at the next station.
It will reveal driver to be using intentionally tricky language. "Cannot stop"
It's not that the train can't stop, trains can obviously stop wherever and whenever they want. It's not that the doors cannot open - train doors can be opened by the driver or by passengers, trains have emergency egress requirements.
The problem is that nobody actually wanted to get off that train. They wanted to complain about it. Comparing it to a kidnapping is offensive and absurd. That's now how people act when kidnapped.
In Germany in particular, you could be charged for all the expenses. A friend of mine did not fake, was in real panic, but still was at the end of the ”nothing” and had to paid the ambulance costs. Not cheap!
If you think you are being kidnapped or whatever, instead of lying and abusing EMS, you can call the police, and explain clearly what’s going on with the truth. If serious enough they will be able to act better in that case.
Back in NL I used to complain about trains being late...
Boy oh boy was I not ready for Germany and Deutsche Bahn. I heard stories, but it was so absurd at times that I treated them as comical acts.
Then I traveled long distance on DB...
- trains being late by 15-40 minutes is NORMAL. It's included. At this point I feel like it's even planned. - the "thrown out in the middle of nowhere" happens! Ruthlessly. Operationally. With zero empathy or guidance. One minute you traveled inside the train approaching your destination another minute you are on a station in some village, knowing nothing about "why?" And "what is next?"
I still take trains - but I do not plan any appointments on arrival. As arrival is theoretical and not guaranteed. I just take a gamble and sink hours into the journey. Read books. Watch movies.
P.s. I am surprised that DB is not held more accountable for the absolutely shit service they provide.
Would you mind sharing some examples? My only complaints with DB are cancellations and delays. Well, the ticketing might be a bit confusing the first time you realize "ticket" and "seat reservation" are two completely independent entities. Similarly, rules for which train you're allowed to take might be a bit confusing. But I wouldn't call it scamming.
> Only then I notice: the driver has been speaking German only.
Oh wow a German conductor in a German train speaking German oh how awkward...
No you were not "kidnapped" your train just stopped at a different station.
> “That’s a different federal state.”
Yes and if you go to many cities in Europe and the US you can walk from one country to another. Oh wow shocking I know /s
Of course this is Deutsche Bahn at its best (in getting hand and feet mixed up) and that compensation is ridiculous. It should at least get your ticket back to the place you intended to go.
Neuwied to Troisdorf is 1h by car or train (in a good day of course)
German railways could be better, but at the same time it's nowhere near the level of complaining the average person makes, as in this article. I think it says more about the author than the company. "It's twenty minutes late, I consider this early". Despite the problems that exist, I wouldn't say I ever had the feeling of being relieved the train is only 20 minutes late. Especially not with local trains.
Oh boy. There's something deeply human about the frustrations of state institutions and bureaucracy.
From the linked article:
> How are train cancellations and delays compensated when traveling with the Deutschland-Ticket?
> In the event of a delay of at least 60 minutes at the destination station due to a delay or train cancellation in local transport, you will receive €1.50 compensation per case.
> Amounts under €4 will not be paid out due to a legal de minimis threshold. However, you can accumulate multiple late payment claims.
https://www.bahn.de/faq/deutschlandticket-verspaetung-erstat...
They stopped caring about their main customers and tried to compete with planes.
On top of that everything traffic related seems to be reserved for the least competent politicians.
I do support having basic public transport and solid bike infrastructure for young people, but once you’re 25 or older, there’s little justification for relying on such low-quality public transport.
I’ll be going to Prague next year, and I’m fully willing to drive for hours rather than sit on a train that keeps getting delayed, is unpleasant to be on, and costs far too much.
This is one of those issues I keep mulling about; it seems train operators (and airliners for that matter) tend to avoid being technically specific about operation problems, and just say "problems" and - if they are kind - where the problem is. And I cannot decide whether this is the wrong or right approach: how much information is too much? The argument is that travellers don't care why the train cannot move or why it is delayed, they just want to know when the next train is.
The problem - however - is that train operators come off looking like idiots, when they really aren't. As an example, the S-trains around Copenhagen have recently switched to a CBTC signal system, which has increased punctuality to 97% (below 3 minutes, cancelled trains counted). At cold temperatures, railway points (or switches, if you will) might become inoperable, as their mechanism freeze (of course, there are systems to prevent this, but can occur anyway). This happened this November on the S-train lines, but the announcement was "signal failure"; which meant the train operator (DSB) (and the railway owner (Banedanmark)) kind of looked a bit stupid, since the whole point of CBTC was to eliminate signal failures entirely (in fact, if you're being pedantic, since CBTC has _no_ signals, there technically cannot be any signal failures), and had promised as much.
But - then again - travellers really just wanted to know what the next train was, but I still think train operators are doing themselves a disservice by being oblique about the actual problem. Particularly when a problem lasts for several days, "technical problems" just makes people think their engineers are incompetent, when in reality they have no idea about the severity of the problem (because it is not communicated).
I may of course be biased here, since I have a high interest in how trains operate, but friends of mine - whose interest is far lessen compared to mine - are also frustrated by these opaque messages; and I think the reason is a strong sense of lack of control - since (assuming one made it to the station on time) up until this point, the passenger have done everything right, and yet the system failed, and now they are not privy as to why.
To be honest, I don't care about excuses. Yes, problems happen, but this is systemic. Does it help me if I know the train tracks are broken yet again? It does not. The reasons (excuses) they bring up ring hollow. I don't feel that drivers or station staff would appear stupid if they don't tell. They are victims, too.
Just explain what's wrong. Arm passengers with the best info you can give them. And figure out a way to let people disembark close to where they need to be.
DB has become a complete joke. I've had to travel to and through Germany several times these past couple of years, and almost always there's a problem.
I once paid 80 euro for a taxi from Essen to Dusseldorf because they cancelled the train that would connect to the last ICE to Amsterdam. When I got to Dusseldorf on time, the ICE arrived at a different platform than announced. I only noticed that because some people were suddenly leaving the platform. I warned a few people who still hadn't noticed it. I bet a lot of people still managed to miss that train after all the trouble making it to Dusseldorf.
Deutsche Bahn does not think this is true and neither do I. If this was ever the thinking, they've performed or read studies and changed their mind
You can very clearly hear the drilled setup "<delay info> grund dafür ist <error category>" rigidly being regurgitated every. single. time. a delay is announced. The middle words are (per my understanding) a formal way to say "because of" and it's not something you will hear in daily life, so I presume it's the output of a committee and corporate requires them to say this, no matter if they know anything more than "the signal is red". Whether they know or not, the detail is always at a level that sounds like malicious compliance. I'd rather they say "we don't know" or say nothing at all. And if they do know, I'd hope they make up a new sentence like "someone was spotted on the crossing up ahead after the barriers closed. Someone is checking the cameras to make sure it won't come to a collision" but we instead get the robotic "we have come to a stop on the grounds of person on track". It mimics their training samples and what colleagues got into the habit of saying so I guess they think it's good like this, but is not actually helpful
Idk what creates this useless information culture, but they clearly know that passengers do want this information