This story, countless other stories. The fellow comments here. But then Europe wants us to drop our cars and rely more in public transport? Laughable.
It's not like this in Sweden I can tell you.
Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
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Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#62DB 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…
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Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#63DB 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.
Passenger rights are very good in the UK. It's easy to claim Delay Repay, where you get 25% refund after a 15 minute delay, 50% refund after 30 mins and 100% refund after 60 mins. Other train operators are obliged to help you get where you need to go if the company you intended to travel with has cancelled your trains, or you've missed a connection due to a previous train you were on being delayed.
I've had the last train out of central London for the night cancelled at about 1am and you can just message the train company on social media and they'll pay £100+ to get you a taxi all the way to somewhere like Cambridge.
Also, not sure how it is in other countries, but in the UK, everything is entirely open data. You can go to a site like https://map.signalbox.io/ to see a live map of every train in the UK, and sites like Realtime Trains let you get all the details about every train (eg. https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/simple/gb-nr:KGX)
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#64Meh. 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…
rerouted? it was a completly different destination, much further than he was originally. there is nothing "noone can do" about stupid burecracies like "can't stop at this station because we are not registered". First they had time to register the stop when they changed the itinery, Second if they failed that somehow, and most probably because of "there was no manual how to do it", in a sittuation like these, stupid rules like that should go out of the window and the passengers be let off as soon as possible and not 60km away. Somehow they can be flexible with the people's time but not with their stupid checklists.
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#65DB 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
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#66Meh. 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…
> This article reads exactly like that. You weren't kidnapped. You were rerouted.
Obviously. There's a joking undertone in those words. If they were serious, they would've called the police.
DB has gained its reputation for good reason. In this case, taking someone away into another federal state without giving them the option to get out of the train to find alternative transport. Their reasoning for not stopping seems to be purely bureaucratic.
Maybe the UK is worse; the UK is famous for its extremely high prices. The US probably is worse with the way their trains are operated. That still doesn't excuse the absolutely awful service DB provides in a country as wealthy and developed as Germany.
The worst part is that DB wasn't always this terrible. It's now playing catch-up with itself, taking care of overdue maintainance causing seruous disruptions that should've been minor annoyances years ago.
I have been advised by rail enthusiasts to make sure my train is scheduled to arrive two to three hours before my transfer, because DB will be late. A foolish friend once tried to make their transfer with only an hour and a half of scheduled margin; they missed their connection and lost their (paid-for) seat reservations.
Then there's the government side of things: we, the Dutch, want to run more and better train connections to the rest of Europe. Germany just doesn't want it to happen, though. Even when the Dutch offered to pay to have a broken bridge upgraded, the Germans turned down the offer, leaving plans for their old, outdated single track bridge in place.
DB probably works fine a lot of the time, but you shouldn't accept DB's incompetence as normal. You deserve better.
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#67I 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.
> Germany trains (and Switzerland trains)
Other commenters have already set the record straight, pointing out that these are clearly not in the same cluster.
See also https://www.thelocal.de/20250430/switzerland-suspends-deutsc...
Pay-walled, but the title says it all: "Switzerland suspends Deutsche Bahn trains due to chronic delays". DB is so unreliable that it impacts the networks of neighboring countries.
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#68I 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. - th…
And being delayed for 15-40 minutes, getting thrown out in the middle of nowhere, or having to continue by bus is an inconvenience for most people, but a nightmare for people with disabilities. Imagine being in a wheelchair, having a digestive condition (Crohn, IBS, etc.), or some sort of anxiety. I imagine that there are groups of people in Germany that simply do not travel anymore.
It is an area where proper governance is failing. I don't know about Germany, but in The Netherlands, Dutch law requires at least 90% of the trains to be on time (less than 5 minutes delay). If national train company do not reach those numbers, they are fined and I think in an extreme case they can lose their concession.
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#69I 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.
German trains, as recently as the 90s, were phenomenal, and integrated superbly with the Swiss and others. It is in the 21st century that Germany has gone off the rails.
"Off the rails" hehe
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#70Deutsche 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 li…
I'm pro car, I would much prefer to relax on a train, but the economics just don't work in the UK. I can't think of anywhere I want to go where taking the train is cheaper than driving