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Germany is offering a summer of cheap trains

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Re: Germany is offering a summer of cheap trains

#11

Post by St_Alfonzo »

DocTomoe wrote: post #8

This is first and foremost a subsidy scheme to give public transit providers some more money - many people will buy the 9 euro ticket which before did not buy monthly tickets - and for each such ticket, the state will give the public transit provider the difference to a full month ticket, up to 200 Euros. 1. The casual public transit rider will get one of these tickets: 9 Euros is like three rides on the Berlin subwa…

regarding number 4: for more information or to team up with other people, see the 'official' subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/sylt51/

Re: Germany is offering a summer of cheap trains

#12

Post by 88840-8855 »

guerrilla wrote: post #9
winkelwagen wrote: post #5

As someone using the German railway for a large distance destination couple a weeks ago it was a total disaster, we got stranded in a unfamiliar German city. Deutsche bahn told us they didn’t have any of their (partner) hotel rooms left. Just arrange something yourself. That was very nice because all the hotels were full anyway. It took us another 2 hours of calling to find something. I was exhausted when I finally c…

Okay, but when you compare to the US, it's still amazing.

Okay, but the US is 50x larger.

Re: Germany is offering a summer of cheap trains

#13

Post by f6v »

winkelwagen wrote: post #5

As someone using the German railway for a large distance destination couple a weeks ago it was a total disaster, we got stranded in a unfamiliar German city. Deutsche bahn told us they didn’t have any of their (partner) hotel rooms left. Just arrange something yourself. That was very nice because all the hotels were full anyway. It took us another 2 hours of calling to find something. I was exhausted when I finally c…

You book a train from Aachen to Berlin. The first leg in your connection is late, you miss the ICE in the middle of nowhere. The next one is in four hours. You get in, the DB staff looks at you like you shit in their coffee. Booked a bike place and reserved a seat? The best they can do is to offer to stand between the carriages.

Re: Germany is offering a summer of cheap trains

#15

Post by ThePhysicist »

winkelwagen wrote: post #5

As someone using the German railway for a large distance destination couple a weeks ago it was a total disaster, we got stranded in a unfamiliar German city. Deutsche bahn told us they didn’t have any of their (partner) hotel rooms left. Just arrange something yourself. That was very nice because all the hotels were full anyway. It took us another 2 hours of calling to find something. I was exhausted when I finally c…

That's really unlucky. Before the Covid thing I took a long-distance train at least once per month for two decades, and I never managed to get stranded anywhere even when I chose late connections. Normally DB knows the connections passengers have, and it seems that if the last train of the day gets delayed the other trains wait for it to make sure no one gets stranded. I would really have enjoyed staying in one of those Intercity hotels at DB's expense.

The worst thing that happened to me was that the ICE train broke down in the middle of nowhere and the DB had to send another train and evacuate everyone from the original one over a gangway (it's not allowed to let passengers deboard in the middle of nowhere). Took more than four hours of waiting in an overheated train during summer. They sent me a box of really good chocolates as a "We're sorry" gift.

Re: Germany is offering a summer of cheap trains

#16

Post by chromanoid »

winkelwagen wrote: post #5

As someone using the German railway for a large distance destination couple a weeks ago it was a total disaster, we got stranded in a unfamiliar German city. Deutsche bahn told us they didn’t have any of their (partner) hotel rooms left. Just arrange something yourself. That was very nice because all the hotels were full anyway. It took us another 2 hours of calling to find something. I was exhausted when I finally c…

I do not share your experience. I used to commute weekly for 1,75 hours in one direction with ICE. I had rarely problems that lasted more than 5 minutes. There was no change of trains required which might help here.

Re: Germany is offering a summer of cheap trains

#17

Post by thebrain »

This is very interesting to hear. In 2014, my wife and I went on a vacation in Germany and I found that it was cheaper and more convenient to rent a car than it was to use trains as we've typically done countries like Italy and France for our vacations. I chalked it up to Germans being a big fan of cars.

Re: Germany is offering a summer of cheap trains

#20

Post by [deleted] »

winkelwagen wrote: post #5

As someone using the German railway for a large distance destination couple a weeks ago it was a total disaster, we got stranded in a unfamiliar German city. Deutsche bahn told us they didn’t have any of their (partner) hotel rooms left. Just arrange something yourself. That was very nice because all the hotels were full anyway. It took us another 2 hours of calling to find something. I was exhausted when I finally c…

[deleted]
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