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Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

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Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#721

Post by microtonal »

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It's also funny considering how here in South America we look at Germany trains (and Switzerland trains) That's very outdated, DB has been terrible for a long time though.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.

Except that The Netherlands has the busiest rail network in Europe [1] and still manages to be second in that list.

[1] https://www.acm.nl/en/publications/acm-rail-monitor-netherla...

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#722

Post by locallost »

tsimionescu wrote: post #596
locallost wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes because after kidnapping you are always allowed to leave the vehicle you were kidnapped with and continue with your day. Sorry, but no.

If you got into an Uber and they took you to some completely different place, many km away from your destination, and didn't let you get out of the vehicle until they got there, would you not say that they kidnapped you? Would you not be tempted to call the police and press charges, even if they did tell you that they would let you go out once they reached their destination?

You do understand how a train works?

* It has tracks so it cannot go anywhere it wants to go

* It can only let passengers go at certain places, these are called stations

So no, I would not compare it to a random Uber driver that takes me somewhere random on a whim. I wouldn't call the police if an Uber took me on a different road if the original road was closed. Etc.

Please start making sense, thank you. I'm done.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#723

Post by cyberpunk »

fbcpck wrote: post #412
p00dles wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you summarized my 5+ year experience living in Germany with one sentence in a way that I have never found the words for - thank you, really, thank you I feel that in Germany, the original intent of the many rules, processes, and procedures has been lost. Employees are trained to operate such that every situation is governed by a rule/process/procedure, and their job is to look up the situation in a massive leather-bo…

It is certainly my biggest dislike factor with my stay in Germany, and I'm still struggling to come to terms with it: do I dislike it enough to compel me to move away? is this something I can accept? How much can I influence and improve things that I directly interact with? It seeps in everywhere too, with almost all aspects. Day-to-day with restaurants, cafe, shops. Almost all interaction feels like it's actively ch…

The difference in healthcare between private and public insurance is, as far as i know, because if a doctor sends you for some test or something that your insurance feels was unnecessary then the doctor has to pay for it with the public flavour. At least, that’s what I heard but could be wrong.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#724

Post by iso1631 »

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…

Or maybe the tracks the train was routed onto didn't have platforms at the station.

In 3rd world countries it might be acceptable for people to jump out of 5-foot high carriages onto live tracks with trains running at 100mph for convenience, but not in Germany

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#725

Post by iso1631 »

taneq wrote: post #258
fabian2k wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> bit of a safety issue

OK, so you disgorge however many people, at what age, with or without babies in ipushchairs or people in wheelchairs, onto the tracks, and they avoid the passing 100mph trains, they then walk along in the dark and rain for a few miles looking for a gap in the fence?

Sure, just a "bit" of an issue.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#726

Post by Aeolun »

solaire_oa wrote: post #532
fbcpck wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is certainly my biggest dislike factor with my stay in Germany, and I'm still struggling to come to terms with it: do I dislike it enough to compel me to move away? is this something I can accept? How much can I influence and improve things that I directly interact with? It seeps in everywhere too, with almost all aspects. Day-to-day with restaurants, cafe, shops. Almost all interaction feels like it's actively ch…

I would summarize Americans (and perhaps most English speaking countries) as perceiving this mindset to be callous, ineffective, and a dereliction of autonomy. But I'm interested in how Germans perceive Americans in reverse? If shop staff went out of their way to help them find a product, shoot the breeze, or recommend a lunch spot, would Germans tend to see this as being overzealous? Would it cause embarrassment, or…

I tend to view shop staff having a random talk with someone while I’m waiting to purchase or ask something as a dereliction of duty. If you want to catch up with a friend you can do it on your own time.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#728

Post by nikeee »

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…

Keep in mind that a train in Germany counts as one-time if it is less than 6 minutes late. In Switzerland, it's 3 minutes.

Also in Germany, a train that did not even arrive does not count as too late.

There is also a concept of the "Pofalla-Wende", which is when a train is so late that it just does a 180 and drives back, to mitigate that the delay doesn't carry over to the train's next route. Of course, that means that it skips the stations at the end of the route.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#729

Post by pimeys »

ruszki wrote: post #344
sva_ wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

YMMV. I worked in three different German startups in Berlin and I almost never heard anybody speaking German in the company, even though more than half of the people were from Germany. Maybe it's different in bigger companies, or outside Berlin?

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#730

Post by pjmlp »

hopelite wrote: post #649
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.

[flagged]

I speak fluently 6 languages, and a few dialects of them, how many do you speak?
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