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Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

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Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#861

Post by hxhebdxbb »

indiantinker wrote: post #17

DB is weird. They seem to make their own rules and then run the game and “dont tell the rules to anyone”. I was on my way to catch a flight from Munich to my home (Madrid). I didn’t knew that apparently at one point the train splits into two parts and the front part goes to the airport and the other part just goes to the nearby cattle farms and comes back in 3 hours. Google Maps - No idea Citymapper - what? English a…

But then you already entered the wrong train. The destination of a train is usually clearly written on the train, unless it's a very old one where it's not visible on every coach

I agree that it's not that intuitive that a line can have multiple end stops (like Stuttgart - Munich ends in both Stuttgart and Munich, depending on the direction you are entering?

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#862

Post by tsimionescu »

locallost wrote: post #722
tsimionescu wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The train took them 5+ stations away from their destination. They could very well have stopped in any of those stations, they just claim that some bureaucracy prevented them from doing so. Also, trains can in fact stop anywhere they want and let people get off. It's not normally done, but it could be a very good option rather than forcing people to travel much farther away than their destination.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#863

Post by hulitu »

sho_hn wrote: post #180
manarth wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 yo…

> If you add any language other than German, which are you going to add?

Bavarian ? /s

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#864

Post by sdeframond »

RadiozRadioz wrote: post #860
bradley13 wrote: post #857

Reminds me of my time in Scotland. I commuted by train, and they published stats that showed my route as 95% on time "excepting conditions outside our control". In the year I was there, the train arrived on-time exactly once. Apparently very little was under their control. They did occasionally announce the reasons for delays. Two that I remember: "Leaves on the track" in Autumn, what a surprise. "The wrong kind of s…

The leaves are actually a big deal because they get crushed into a slippery film that stops the wheels making good friction with the rails. Occasionally you will see specialised debris-removal vehicles moving along the tracks and spraying them

Since it is a recurring event, one would assume preventive steps are taken such as frequent cleaning of the tracks in autumn.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#865

Post by stackghost »

indiantinker wrote: post #17

DB is weird. They seem to make their own rules and then run the game and “dont tell the rules to anyone”. I was on my way to catch a flight from Munich to my home (Madrid). I didn’t knew that apparently at one point the train splits into two parts and the front part goes to the airport and the other part just goes to the nearby cattle farms and comes back in 3 hours. Google Maps - No idea Citymapper - what? English a…

DB is infinitely better than Trenitalia. I once took the train equivalent of what airlines call a code-share from Venice to Munich and Trenitalia just straight-up forgot half the train somewhere. It was a total gong show.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#866

Post by sdeframond »

integralid wrote: post #665
wouldbecouldbe wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On paper yes, but every time my flight was delayed in EU the airlines (KLM, Lufthansa, RyanAir) always had a cop out, weather, airport issues, etc. and I didn't get compensated. Even though other planes managed to fly in the same conditions.

If they refuse you can escalate or hire a company that will negotiate for some percentage of profit. In most cases I had this problem they gave me a refund, but sometimes I had to argue a bit.

I used to work at one such company. The process can take a long time but it is mostly hands-off for the traveller and success rates are high once the case has been taken.

Edit: and also, these claim-assistance companies work on a winning fee.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#867

Post by [deleted] »

seszett wrote: post #514
whstl wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know about the Dutch but apparently the Flemish don't understand German without having learned it at school. I speak both some German and some Dutch (as nth languages, I can understand them fine but speaking is hit and miss) and sometimes I don't notice which is which and answer in the wrong language, to me they're almost the same language with a different accent. I translate the German into some Frenglish me…

[deleted]

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#868

Post by sdeframond »

bluebarbet wrote: post #783
dmurray wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airlines are vague about this (at least in Europe) because different types of problems mean different obligations to compensate passengers. After the incident they will determine what's the least expensive lie they can plausibly give (perhaps the weather will change fast enough that you can blame the weather, perhaps you can't lie about an equipment failure when everyone in the airport sees you swap out the airplane)…

Yet the very fact that airlines routinely do put people up in hotels when flights get cancelled is an example of the exorbitant privilege of air travel (another being tax-free kerosene). Nobody expects this to happen with train travel. Perhaps they should.

They are required to by law I believe.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#869

Post by lostlogin »

ninalanyon wrote: post #678
zahlman wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> didn't support chip-and-PIN or contactless payments. As opposed to... swiping the card? Are there really cards out there that exclusively support that?

Very few Norwegian issued cards, if any, have a magnetic strip. It's too easily cloned.

If you work near high field magnets, mag strips don’t last long. Chips are fine though so that’s another bonus.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#870

Post by splittydev »

ahf8Aithaex7Nai wrote: post #859

DB is a joke and a disgrace to Germany. I have actively avoided traveling by train for many years. The company is customer-unfriendly from start to finish. I find the confusing ticket prices particularly bad: Sparpreise, Super-Sparpreise, Frühbucher-Tarife, Flexpreis, Sparpreis Gruppe, BahnCard, Gutscheine, ... If you don't want to pay extra, you have to book six months in advance and be familiar with the fare system…

Yeah, this is the great irony of it all. Germany really wants to discourage taking a car for "environmental reasons" and so on and does everything to encourage public transport.

But one thing is clear: I won't be bothered, robbed or even stabbed in my own car, and I also won't arrive in a different village lest I drive there myself. I won't arrive three hours late either, or have to stay overnight in some shitty Hotel because they couldn't find a replacement train.

The German public transport, like many other things in Germany, is an absolute fever dream for a "developed country".

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