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Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

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Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#171

Post by ghaff »

groestl wrote: post #123
sauercrowd wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong disagree. For most parts travelling is a non-event these days. A train that splits, on the way to the airport where there will be a lot of non-german speaking people, and for some reason only shows it on the platform is insane. Having a train that splits on that route is already bad enough, but you HAVE to emphasize it on the train. I know that I need to pay attention to this, because I've grown up with DB pul…

From the top of my head I know three cities which have peculiarities when it comes to public transportation to the Airport. In two cases, it's obvious they do this to push the private train to foreigners, at 5x the ticket rate.

This sort of used to be the case with Heathrow Express in London. There was a lot of signage that suggested to the unwary that Heathrow Express was the "right" way to get into London. Now, especially with the Elizabeth Line, while you can save a few minutes with Heathrow Express, that's really not a cost-effective alternative for a lot of people. (And Piccadilly may be a better option depending on your luggage and where you are staying.)

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#172

Post by CaptainZapp »

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.

> we look at Germany trains (and Switzerland trains) as always on time

When taking an international train from Germany to Switzerland, don't count on it that it will run through to the final destination.

SBB (Swiss National Railways) started to block German trains if their delay is more than 15 minutes (so, basically every DB train) and won't allow the train on their network.

This is only peripherically educational. Constantly delayed DB trains completely fouled up the scheduling on the extremely dense Swiss network. So they just won't allow it anymore.

On a sidenote: In 2024 SBB trains were 93.2% punctual. Connectivity punctuality (where you have to catch a connecting train) was 98.7%. A train is counted as punctual if the delay is less than 3 minutes (half the German figure).

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#173

Post by snowpid »

ffsm8 wrote: post #82
em500 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deutsche Bahn is completely state owned, UK rail is privatized. They're both pretty bad. China's new high speed rail is state owned, while the Japanese network is largely private. They're both far better than UK and Germany. I wonder what are the main determinants of the quality of large infra networks? State ownership only seems to have a very loose correlation, where even the sign of the relationship is unclear.

You're actually misrepresenting it with that imo. DB is state owned, yes ... but it's run like a private company. It's basically the classic "privatize profits, socialize losses" - done as a yearly routine. Not even remotely exaggerating, it's incredibly corrupt.

When the owner of DB is owned by the German federal government, they all rule the whole company, who gets the profit? The German federal government? (It's a sign of stupidity to claim DB is privat. It is not. It is not.)

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#174

Post by 476392647282 »

larnon wrote: post #87
em500 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd reverse the question ask why Germany (or any other country where English is not an official language, and does not majorly rely on tourism for income) would provide any public information in English? Commercial services can choose to do so a matter of self interest, but why would state financed services?

Because the State wants to attract well educated international workers to fix it's failing economy?

[flagged]

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#175

Post by rwmj »

johnisgood wrote: post #112
rwmj wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Unpopular opinion: you should learn the absolute basics of the language used in the country you are travelling to. Seriously? That unpopular? Lmfao.

I took French for 5 years and I don't think I learned enough to understand a tannoy announcement that the train was being split into two parts. Tannoy announcements aren't the easiest to understand even for native speakers.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#176

Post by pjmlp »

Unfortunately travelling in Germany by train has become a mess, hence why so many reach out for car or inland flights.

Delays are to be expected, trains cancelled without reasoning, train stations skipped in similar ways as described on the article, and if using connections, better plan for at least 30m interval, while taking into account a plan B for every connection that might be missed.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#177

Post by Macha »

abigail95 wrote: post #102
croes wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Why is my time less valuable than an ambulance or doctor? You have to make a lot of assumptions and normative judgements for that to be true, which I reject. Morally DB (through the driver) is the one lying and saying things like "cannot stop". They don't want to stop - that's different. They've already broken the social contract, I'm free to do the same.

The consequence of wasting a doctor or ambulance drivers time is depriving someone else of medical care, potentially leading to worse medical outcomes, up to death.

I’m sure you’re going to pose a hypothetical that you would be in the way to save someone’s life, but we both know that’s not true and even in that situation, you could raise that with the train company rather than faking a new, different medical emergency

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#178

Post by nephihaha »

hdgvhicv wrote: post #44
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.

People who claim the U.K. is worse have no idea what DB is like and just think that “nationalisation” makes trains half the price and twice as reliable.

I've used trains in the UK and Germany. The German trains are cleaner and more spacious (two floors in some cases).

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#179

Post by globular-toast »

I have my own DB story. About 15 years ago I was supposed to take an overnight sleeper train from Copenhagen to Cologne. We had beds booked. It's about 22:00 and we're on the platform ready for bed.

The train arrived on time, we checked our tickets to see which coach we were on and walked down the train looking for it. We get to the end of the train, odd, we must have missed our carriage so we turn around for another pass. Then we start to notice other confused expressions.

We eventually figured out the problem: they had accidentally left the sleeper coaches in Hamburg, a full 180 miles away as the crow flies, or almost half our entire journey.

After waiting on the platform for about an hour, busses arrived to take us to Hamburg. We're now quite tired and our bed on a train is now a seat on a bus.

We finally get to Hamburg at about 3:00 the next day, walk to our beds and we're ready to collapse. Surely they're not going to come and inspect our tickets at this time?

They came and inspected our tickets at around 3:30. Two and a half hours later we were in Cologne. Yay.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#180

Post by sho_hn »

manarth wrote: post #159
stevage wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not too much to expect a train going to the airport to make important announcements in English.

And French, as Germany is adjacent to France. There are train connections to Scandinavia, so let's add Swedish, Danish and Finnish. Also Dutch and Polish to accommodate the other adjacent countries.

This is the sort of immature "well, actually" response that you can't afford anymore once you actually take responsibility for things. I wish more people trained themselves to have a "what if I had to do it" habit before having an opinion.

Imagine you're in charge of the train network. You have to pay for the announcements on trains. You can't reasonanbly pay 10 announcements because that's silly and expensive. If you add any language other than German, which are you going to add?

It's not hard to be pragmatic.

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