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Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

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Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#341

Post by em-bee »

whstl wrote: post #330
raverbashing wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what's the level of mutual ineligibility between DE NL (probably DE is easier to NL) but it's funny how Germans sometimes seem to play dumb and not understand a thing in NL

As a German speaker, spoken Dutch REALLY trips me up because of small pronunciation differences in almost every word. Written Dutch is way closer. The Dutch seem to understand German better, but my Dutch friends credit that more to education and exposure.

they have access to german tv and watch it.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#342

Post by michaelt »

em-bee wrote: post #302
svara wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a big, systemically failing organization running way beyond its capacity. Failures rippling through and compounding in a tightly coupled rail network. If they weren't able to announce the train would stop at one station, why do you think they'll be able to do that at another? I'm pretty sure train conductors aren't allowed to just stop somewhere unscheduled for good reasons, there's always a train behind and in…

train conductors are not controlling the train. that is done from a central (regional) control center that manages all trains of the region. only there someone decides where trains go or stop

Usually the train driver is in radio contact with central control and can request changes to the points, signals etc so they can make unscheduled stops. For example if there's a medical emergency on board and a passenger needs to be transferred to an ambulance.

Of course doing this can have ripple effects on other services, and if a common factor has severely delayed dozens of different trains, the central control room might not have enough staff to deal with dozens of unscheduled stop requests.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#343

Post by thesimon »

matrss wrote: post #260
Zufriedenheit wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 unfort…

> They are forced to (at least try to) make a profit for their shareholders [...]

Not true. Shareholder primacy is not as huge as in Delaware.

And in the end it's the government that owns all shares and thus can decide how much profit the company should make.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#344

Post by ruszki »

sva_ wrote: post #313
pjmlp wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, although quite often they forget not everyone speaks German. I once had a bit of Schadenfrunde while travelling in Netherlands, having the conductor telling us to switch trains in Dutch, and all my German fellow travellers wondering what it was all about.

How dare they speak their own language in their own country on a regional train

They can. But they should also not be assholes with everybody else. And no not just local trains, I got information in English exactly zero times when there were huge delays on international trains. And it happened 2 times from 3 when I tried to cross Germany by train. And Germans (and Austrians btw) are terrible with this, even compared to others. The German site at my multinational company at the time was the only site on Earth which had to introduce an internal regulation about mandatory English, because they just switched to German all the time even when there were people on the call from different countries. I’m living now in Wien, and they are terrible with this even in friendly environments.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#345

Post by bombcar »

forgingahead wrote: post #183
modo_mario wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Belgium gave me one of the more annoying train experiences when I was a younger man. I was in Leuven for a conference, and had decided to bring my then girlfriend (now wife) for a trip, after which we would take the Eurostar to London. On the ticket, it said Brussels-Midi, but after happily boarding the train, we only saw the following related options on the train map for stops: 1. Brussel-Noord 2. Brussel-Centraal 3…

Was it Centraal? That would have been my guess.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#346

Post by mcv »

creichenbach wrote: post #163
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…

As per my other comment, Swiss trains (especially SBB) are not as pleasant as they get credit for. I get a lot that "you know, in other countries it's much worse", and it reminds me of software hosting, where it was normal in the past to be offline occasionally. Then Google et al. came and showed that much more reliability is possible with good engineering. I think there would be a lot of room for improvement.

I disagree. Swiss trains are a delight. They even have trains going up mountains (although some of those cost extra). Public transit in Switzerland was extremely reliable when I was there, and also according to official statistics.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#347

Post by ludicrousdispla »

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 not so bad, with luck you'll eventually end up at a station outside of Germany.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#348

Post by bombcar »

mystifyingpoi wrote: post #308

The term "kidnapped" is kinda over the top, but I can understand the author. I've travelled with Polish trains a lot when studying, and there were a few situations like this. Especially frustrating, if the train stops because of "some issue" while you can literally see the platform 200m away. No, you can't get out and walk the track (which will be guaranteed to be empty, because well, the train is broken) and take a…

We had similar occurrences on Amtrak but there was a trick - the conductor could let people out of a stopped train to “smoke” on their own reconnaissance and risk.

And if you went to smoke with your bag and disappeared, well, they never saw it.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#349

Post by wiz21c »

svara wrote: post #293
Zealotux wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for a massive German company you heard of, this sounds more like the typical German philosophy of strictly following the process -- as absurd as it might be -- and refusing to take initiative for anything that is not explicitly defined as one's responsibility. As a French, the culture shock was brutal and I never really got around that work attitude. I went through a similar issue back when I used to take a…

As far as DB goes, I'm pretty sure it's mostly an issue of systemic technical and consequently social collapse. The system runs beyond its limits and consequently the culture collapses because the people inside learn they have no agency. The German rail network is quite good on paper, with dense and high frequency connections even to relatively remote locations. But keeping that functional (particularly with constant…

That's the crux: we must invest in trains instead of planes.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#350

Post by ffsm8 »

snowpid wrote: post #173
ffsm8 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

That's why I said it's incredibly corrupt. It's an Aktiengesellschaft which is fully owned by the state, so profits would remain in the ownership of the company and their leadership to do with as they please, e.g. pay themselves whatever bonuses they want . (Or pay out to their shareholders? Lol, nope).

losses get pushed to be picked up by the state/taxes.

That's why it's privatize profits, socialize losses.

But there has just been a leadership change, maybe things will improve..

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