If this had happened in Eastern Europe, someone would have probably pulled the emergency brake and ran off.
Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
271–280 of 1001 posts
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#272I 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…
The accountability part is what makes me more angry. I get to lose so many (maybe hundreds?) of hours a year because of how bad DB works. Meanwhile the executives at DB get their nice boni each year and absurdly high wages for what they do... which is consistently worsening the train experience year after year. Probably none of them even use the train.
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#273I lived in Berlin for 10 years. In my experience, people complain too much about German public transport. But comming from a south american country with reasonably good public transport, I found German's one very good.
The only thing I can agree is the "speaking only in german as if it was the lingua franca of the world". Germany is part of the EU. The EU has 24 langueages. You should at least speak in English. And no, my mother language is not english but spanish.
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the State wants to attract well educated international workers to fix it's failing economy?
A "well educated" international worker willing to relocate in Germany would probably learn the language.
Educated immigrants often consider countries interchangeable. They are in a country, because they found an opportunity and took it. But they are not committed to stay, because better opportunities could arise elsewhere. When you have already immigrated once, doing it again is only going to get easier.
Immigrants with fewer opportunities are more likely to try to learn the language and integrate. When a country is offering them something they can't find anywhere else, it makes more sense to go through all that effort. Even knowing that they will probably never fully fit in.
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#275When I was a child in France people were quick to say that trains ran on time in Germany... Well, in my experience there is no developed country with a worse train company than DB. Even Amtrack is still slightly better. In France people complain about the SNCF (especially strikes) but at least outside of strikes the TGV are mostly on time.
> no developed country with a worse train company than DB
Italy is pretty similar, and I would say even worse, but after reading / hearing more about DB I think they're just competing for being the worst train company ever
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#276There are also pleasant experiences when traveling by train, but rarely in Germany.
The Swiss railways are excellent and friendly. In Milan, I was unable to catch the reserved train to Zurich, but the conductors on the Swiss train that was just departing even accepted my ticket for the Italian railway.
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#277Earlier 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.
The swiss have a more challenging geography and weather than Germany.
They also spend far more per capita on their train system.
All that and afaik they still manage to connect all important places.
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's really not too much to expect a train going to the airport to make important announcements in English.
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.
Look, as an EU country citizen, English is more or less the defacto language of the EU, regardless of what politicians declare. Everyone in the EU speaks english in some form as even traveling to a next door country like you state requires communication.
There are cases where in Belgium you will see signs in 4 languages (Dutch, French, Flemish and English)
Also if you ever travel in Japan, they have signs, especially on trains, all in, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and English all in one. (usually rotating signage). So the precedent is there to do it on mass transit but :shrug:.
Point is, when your customer base is logically needing more language options, it should be considered.
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm pro car, I would much prefer to relax on a train, but the economics just don't work in the UK. I can't think of anywhere I want to go where taking the train is cheaper than driving
After paying for fuel, insurance, property taxes and maintenance (exclude the possibility of a car note in this scenario), is it still cheaper than taking the train?
Yes. Because the trains don't go from my house, and don't go everywhere I need to go, so I need a car anyway.
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#280I rode DB many times, all over Germany and from Düsseldorf to Cologne weekly for months. Luckily, never had an issue. By far my worst experience has been Trenitalia. I lost a couple of connections during the same vacation because the train was late and in both opportunities no one could tell me what to do, let alone give me a refund. In one trip the teller while exhaling cigarette smoke on my face shrugged then suggested I took a bus from Campiglia to Piombino, which ended up been one of the scariest rides of my life (I have crossed the Andes in South America by speeding buses racing each other with 200 ft exposed cliff drops on the side, so I’m not strange to scary rides)