Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

theocharis.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 1001 posts

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#51

Post by croes »

abigail95 wrote: post #20

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'…

So you want to waste the time of an ambulance and emergency doctor just to be able to get off a train, which could mean that emergency services are lacking elsewhere?

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#52

Post by j1elo »

abigail95 wrote: post #20

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'…

You're being downvoted because what you propose is an abuse of the emergency services system. And that's bad. I wonder who's conversely taking action on the badness of DB abusing every customer of most of their services.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#53

Post by modo_mario »

indiantinker wrote: post #17

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 a…

[flagged]

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#54

Post by graemep »

hexbin010 wrote: post #19
101008 wrote: post #10

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.

> Why they don't help at all? If it's anything like the UK, the staff have incredibly secure jobs and recently secured some good changes to their working conditions/pay. It's probably not in their contract to announce in other languages, so they do exactly what their contract says

I have found station and train staff in the UK to be very friendly and helpful.

They do have very good pay (drivers can earn as much as some airline pilots) and a very good pension scheme on top of that.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#55

Post by jansan »

microtonal wrote: post #26
101008 wrote: post #10

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.

It's also funny considering how here in South America we look at Germany trains (and Switzerland trains) That's very outdated, DB has been terrible for a long time though. Switzerland is still the best though. Here are some stats for 2025: https://chuuchuu.com/2025wrapped Since you have to scroll down quite a bit to get the list of most reliable European trains (with percentage on time): 1. Switzerland 97.8% 2. The N…

In Germany in 2025 it got worse with only 55% of trains being on time (defined very generously as being less than 6 minutes late).

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#56

Post by locallost »

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.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#57

Post by djoldman »

> 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.

https://www.bahn.de/faq/deutschlandticket-verspaetung-erstat...

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#58

Post by boxed »

huhkerrf wrote: post #4

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.

It's so weird. That doesn't seem to be the lesson to be learned from Nazi Germany. The train going on time was not the part to fix.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#59

Post by croes »

That’s what you get when you stop seeing train service as a service and try to make into a business.

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.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#60

Post by rwmj »

modo_mario wrote: post #53
indiantinker wrote: post #17

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 a…

[flagged]

Because it's going to the airport and so might be full of travellers and tourists?
Post reply on HN