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Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

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Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#251

Post by uxcolumbo »

flr03 wrote: post #168
pjerem wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk how it is in Germany but my wife is currently trying to became a train driver in France and there are far more requirements that what you would imagine. Even if the job is actually opened to basically everyone (and that’s pretty nice), you have to be in perfect physical and psychological shape with pretty strict tests, you have to be intellectually apt enough to follow the training which is pretty intense. You ha…

Nothing is perfect but living in the UK after living in France, I have now a lot more love for SNCF than I used too.

Why is that? Better service?

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#252

Post by creichenbach »

comrade1234 wrote: post #214
creichenbach wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a heavy public transport user in Switzerland, and even though it's almost a meme how reliable the trains are, reality is different. Yes, they operate in a way that make the stats look good (x% on time), but they take tradeoff to get there. E.g. they won't await connections if another train is a few minutes late. So you might have to wait for 30 minutes for the next one, or even longer if you're unlucky. And there…

They changed the policy maybe 5-years ago about a train waiting for a late train to come in because they found that it added additional delays to the entire system. I prefer the new way.

> it added additional delays to the entire system

Yes, obviously. And that hurts statistics. That's like killing sick cattle to be able to say that 100% of yours are healthy.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#253

Post by Avamander »

drunx wrote: post #24

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. - th…

> P.s. I am surprised that DB is not held more accountable for the absolutely shit service they provide.

That's the famous German efficiency, not to waste time on things that were not done or caused by being inefficient in the first place. There's no point in wasting time on improving some process, fax machines still work, don't they?

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#254

Post by zipy124 »

rwmj wrote: post #200
BloondAndDoom wrote: post #131

I feel like we lost humanity somewhere in modern world. I grew up in 3rd world country and if this were to happen, train would literally stop somewhere, anywhere. (With the assumption it’s safe from crewing into another train). But the idea that you go 55 minutes just because of policy; and skip 15 stations is crazy to me. Again with the assumptions that it can safely stop somewhere for 5m and I’m pretty sure the ans…

I wonder if it's not safety but money. In the UK, train operators pay station operators a fixed fee to stop. As a result trains can't just stop somewhere randomly (except I hope in an emergency) even if that would benefit many people. All this is, needless to say, very stupid.

They actually do. I was on a train a month ago from Sheffield to London and a passenger was on the wrong train and they scheduled an extra stop to get them on the right train. Kind of restored my faith in humanity a bit tbh.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#255

Post by HPsquared »

purpleflame1257 wrote: post #229
BloondAndDoom wrote: post #131

I feel like we lost humanity somewhere in modern world. I grew up in 3rd world country and if this were to happen, train would literally stop somewhere, anywhere. (With the assumption it’s safe from crewing into another train). But the idea that you go 55 minutes just because of policy; and skip 15 stations is crazy to me. Again with the assumptions that it can safely stop somewhere for 5m and I’m pretty sure the ans…

Venkatesh Rao offers the following definition of the "Fourth World" Fourth world: Parts of the developed world that have collapsed past third-world conditions because industrial safety nets have simultaneously withered from neglect/underfunding, and are being overwhelmed by demand, but where pre-modern societal structures don’t exist as backstops anymore. This is what this story reminds me of.

Isn't that basically what happened to the USSR? (Yes not technically "first world" but highly industrial and bureaucratic)

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#256

Post by saagarjha »

dominicq wrote: post #120
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'…

I find the downvotes to your comment absurd. The downvoters seem to me what Kaczynski called "oversocialized". They accept being taken against your will because the system says that's how it's supposed to work. And then rationalize their conformity with apparent consequences (medical emergency services not providing care elsewhere, you being penalized for a fake call, and so on). It shows a concerning lack of agency…

I agree that the decision made by the train here sucks, but I think it's pretty clear that the use of "kidnapped" is hyperbole. You are not "kidnapped" if the bus driver refuses to let you get down in the middle of the freeway. The situation is a little similar if the driver is taking you to somewhere you don't want to go, because that is also what a kidnapper does, but that's where the similarities end.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#257

Post by ExoticPearTree »

nperson wrote: post #185
microtonal wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The less complex your train network, the easier it is to ensure trains are on time. France, Italy and Germany possibly have larger networks than Switzerland.

Switzerland has all public transport synchronized across the country. In any of the countries you mentioned they don’t even gave synchronized public transport at city level.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#258

Post by taneq »

fabian2k wrote: post #227
BloondAndDoom wrote: post #131

I feel like we lost humanity somewhere in modern world. I grew up in 3rd world country and if this were to happen, train would literally stop somewhere, anywhere. (With the assumption it’s safe from crewing into another train). But the idea that you go 55 minutes just because of policy; and skip 15 stations is crazy to me. Again with the assumptions that it can safely stop somewhere for 5m and I’m pretty sure the ans…

Anywhere doesn't help you much. You want to stop at a station with sufficiently good connections to continue your travels. This situation seems pretty unusual, even for the DB. A regional express train should have many more stops than that. It sounds a bit like they switched the train to a direct connection to the final stop because they switched to the other side of the rhine (so you can't make any of the other plan…

Not if you live near the tracks! Obviously that’s a bit of a safety issue, though, not to mention taking a few minutes time from (potentially) hundreds of people to gain a few tens of minutes for yourself.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#259

Post by codesections »

> At some point you stop being a passenger and start being cargo.

It’s much worse than that – FedEx would never treat cargo like that. If they took cargo further away from its destination than it started and then left it there for the customer to sort out, that would break so many SLAs …

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#260

Post by matrss »

Zufriedenheit wrote: post #193
matrss wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words: it's going downhill ever since the DB was privatized.

DB is not privatized. It is 100% owned by the state.

DB has been reorganized as an AG in the 90s, i.e. a corporation under private law. They are forced to (at least try to) make a profit for their shareholders, which is a common trait of private organizations. They consistently do so via short-sighted (mis-)management, another common trait with many private organizations. This privatized corporation is indeed fully owned by the state as its only shareholder, but unfortunately that doesn't manifest in the DB being run as the critical infrastructure that it is. I suspect that the indirections in power over the corporation that the privatized structure imposes is a key reason for why it became such a disaster.
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