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Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

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Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#801

Post by hopelite »

sajithdilshan wrote: post #223

Unfortunately nowadays traveling with DB has become a game of Russian roulette. If you get lucky the train arrives at the destination ahead of time and if you're unlucky most probably a delay of 4+ hours and missing your connecting train. The main reason for this is lack of competition for DB in Germany. I used to date a guy who works at infra department in DB and based on what he told me, I couldn't believe how inef…

I don't really buy that this is the core issue, even though it may very well be one issue. Rail was operated efficiently and on time in the past when competition did not exist even in a contrived manner, and rail is not really an industry in which real intra-industry competition is really possible. Rail competes with flight, and personal and mass surface transportation. It cannot really compete among rail operators in an efficient manner.

It is way more complicated than that, but you could commoditize the rail separate from the transport of goods and people, where they each compete on price for capacity, but it all gets extremely political very fast, i.e., public transport people vs goods transport that primarily pays for the whole network.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#802

Post by zelphirkalt »

deepsun wrote: post #612
niemandhier wrote: post #426

It’s a system run at the absolute border of what is possible and that was designed with the “just enough” philosophy in mind. You cannot add a stop if the rails are single track and the next train is just behind you. If you do said train will be delayed, will not be able to switch tracks at its final destination ( since it has a hard slot for that) and errors cascade. It’s the best possible train system, given how li…

As someone said during COVID supply chain disruptions: when a system is very optimal it becomes fragile. So probably they need to add more parallel tracks, unused most of the time.

The money for that is corrupted away as soon as provided by the state. If there is constructions going on, you won't be taking any regional train any time soon around here.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#803

Post by arendtio »

rayiner wrote: post #685
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 grew up in 3rd world country and if this were to happen, train would literally stop somewhere, anywhere. I'm from Bangladesh, and the attitude you're describing is one reason why the country is poor and a mess! Deviating from the schedule for the sake of a single person is completely insane and maddeningly inefficient. It's classic third-world mentality. In a good country, the system would never tolerate such dev…

Well, for a single person, yes. But for most people on the train?!?

Sadly, this attitude of designing mediocre and over-complicated systems and then sticking to them no matter the cost is very German nowadays. And we hate it. But we can't help ourselves. And this does not affect trains alone; it also affects our tax system, every government process, and often businesses.

We are unable to design better systems; we are unable to design simpler systems, and improvising is a skill we have eradicated from our minds.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#804

Post by vidarh »

I like the Norwegian model: The train company is obliged to put up alternative transport to your destination. If they don't provide an alternative within reasonable time, you can demand refunds for documented costs for alternative transport up to fairly reasonable limits.

I've been bundled into taxis by the train operator in Norway because it was expected, but also likely cheaper for them to ensure full taxis than have people arrange it themselves and end up with everyone able to demand the maximum refund.

The costs are low enough that it's not a problem if it happens occasionally, but does create some real pressure to actually fix issues if it happens often enough.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#805

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

db48x wrote: post #328
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…

Same here. An Amtrak train would just stop at the next convenient road crossing, if there were really something preventing them from stopping at the scheduled station. Most Amtrak stations don't even have staff, or any way to prevent people from coming and going, so this would most likely involve construction on the station platform itself. That’s fairly rare but the last time I took the Zephyr headed east there was…

Yeah, I was on Amtrak in North Dakota somewhere and we got stopped for a couple hours waiting for a plow train. So like half the train got off in the middle of this field to play in the snow while we waited.

The Amtrak people I've met over the years pretty clearly want to do a good job in a system that is stacked against them.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#806

Post by slow_typist »

sajithdilshan wrote: post #223

Unfortunately nowadays traveling with DB has become a game of Russian roulette. If you get lucky the train arrives at the destination ahead of time and if you're unlucky most probably a delay of 4+ hours and missing your connecting train. The main reason for this is lack of competition for DB in Germany. I used to date a guy who works at infra department in DB and based on what he told me, I couldn't believe how inef…

Before the DB became a public limited company, their services worked remarkably well. I know from first hand experience because I was already a customer then.

The privatisation and the crazy idea that it could somehow not being run on a deficit is what ruined it. Of course the competition thing is artificial, and the internal structures are kaput, but I doubt that more competition would fix it.

Surprisingly, 90% of the train personnel is still pretty good, acting friendly and professionally.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#807

Post by slow_typist »

nikeee wrote: post #728
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…

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 th…

Experienced that a few months ago. Next time I‘ll be tempted to pull the emergency brake which will cost them at least half an hour to get the train going again. Or so I have been told.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#808

Post by rvba »

zahlman wrote: post #537
rvba wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prepaid gift cards (please note: those are not store issued) dont have chips and it is sometimes a problem to use them. But I doubt someone would buy a plane ticket with them.

A gift card isn't a credit card, though... ?

I am not sure if it counts as a debit or credit card, because from technology point of view the division is blurry.

They are perhaps prepaid debit cards. But you can change and set a pin on them just like on the old credit cards. Because that's what they are - old technology.

They dont have a chip, so you have to swipe them.

Some employers give those gift cards instead of cash and I think those cards use the older technology in order to be cheaper (the chip costs few cents to manufacture). After you clear your card balance you basically throw the card away (very ecological), but if they wanted they can also add more money to the same card again. They usually dont do it since people lose the cards, so they issue new ones. So you get a lot of plastic. Think of this as some pocket money every 3-6 months.

It says VISA on the card.

The companies could give cash, but due to some obscure law and psychological reasons they give cards. The card is still better than the paper sodexo gift cards they would give out years ago that were a pain to use since few shops accepted them. But still it is a pain, since you often end up with a small balance and you need to pay part with this gift card (to clean it up to zero) and part with cash.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#809

Post by tEem21 »

hopelite wrote: post #799
amai wrote: post #764

The title should be changed. It should be: "Kidnapped by National Express". Because the train mentioned in the article is not operated by Deutsche Bahn, but by National Express, see https://bahn.expert/details/RE28521/j/20251224-a0049123-9494... National Express is actually a subsidiary of the British train operator Mobico Group: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Express_Germany

Would you happen to know if they would be using their own branded/livery trains, or would they be using DB trains, or maybe just DB cars pulled by a British locomotive? It just raises so many questions in my mind that of all entities, a British train operator would be operating a train that is bounded within the German rail system. My first thought is that it's some kind of counter-union effort through fake "competit…

They are running their own trains and their own liveries. What happens a lot of the time in German regional services is that private operators run routes for DB, because they are required to offer them. There is some actual competition forming in German long-distance trains (Flixtrain), but the important bottleneck in Germain train travel is the rail network, which is owned and (at least supposedly) maintained by the recently formed DB InfraGo

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#810

Post by zepearl »

sajithdilshan wrote: post #223

Unfortunately nowadays traveling with DB has become a game of Russian roulette. If you get lucky the train arrives at the destination ahead of time and if you're unlucky most probably a delay of 4+ hours and missing your connecting train. The main reason for this is lack of competition for DB in Germany. I used to date a guy who works at infra department in DB and based on what he told me, I couldn't believe how inef…

> The main reason for this is lack of competition for DB in Germany

Cannot be - there is no competition in Switzerland, but things run pretty smoothly -> in the case of Germany I'd rather say: "lack of oversight, controls, 'konsequent zu sein'" -> in the case of Germany's DB I think that nobody at all levels gives a *hit about its problems.

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