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Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

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Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#831

Post by gmueckl »

db48x wrote: post #621
gmueckl wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand ome detail of this story: Amtrak platforms are about 110cm high. That's more than waist high for most people. So how do you let people get on and off at a grade intersection instead of at a platform?

Lol, most Amtrak platforms are at track level! I think the cars are 8” above track level, not waist high. Every car has a metal step that will be placed in front of the door by the attendant. Edit: Oh, except for a few lines on the East Coast where the trains are only single–level. Those are 48” above the top of track.

Looks like we both had incomplete information. I didn't know that some trains have their doors really close to the ground and it's actually very inconsistent. I'm getting a clearer picture now.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#832

Post by AnthonyMouse »

CalRobert wrote: post #416
hylaride wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some cultures are more sticklers for creating and following rules and bureaucracy than others, though. A good example: Here in North America I'll jaywalk without a thought if there's no traffic. In Germany, you'll get grandmothers calling you a child-killer for setting a bad example if you did the same. Another example: Both France and Germany spend roughly the same amount (in raw Euros) on their militaries. France (…

Of course, the very idea of jaywalking was created to remove the obligation to not kill people from drivers and shift it to the very people being killed, but this doesn’t seem to bother the meddling grandmothers.

> Of course, the very idea of jaywalking was created to remove the obligation to not kill people from drivers and shift it to the very people being killed, but this doesn’t seem to bother the meddling grandmothers.

I'm kind of curious how you expect this to work.

A driver is driving down the road at the posted speed limit. Instead of crossing at an intersection, a pedestrian steps into the road from between two parked vehicles directly in front of the moving car. By that point the car cannot be stopped before it hits the pedestrian because of the laws of physics, so who would you have at fault and how was that person expected to prevent it?

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#833

Post by hexbin010 »

kenanfyi wrote: post #702

I read the story and I felt like the mentioned background characters in it, saying "Deutsche Bahn..." to myself at the end of every paragraph. Once I was travelling back to home from Munich and the train stopped somewhere in Frankfurt in the middle of nowhere. Literally stopped on the tracks and it was completely dark outside except some far away lights from the houses around. We waited for 3 hours, with 2-3 explanat…

3 hours!! Unbelievable. In the UK we would smash the doors/windows open these days after an hour or two. We got sick of the railway having no contingency plans for getting people off stuck trains in bad conditions

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#834

Post by hexbin010 »

jasonvorhe wrote: post #602

I guess that's what happens if you live in a failed state. It's like watching an accident happen in super slow motion. I live rather remotely and 90% of bus drivers don't even speak German so when they skip a station despite you pushing the button to signal wanting to exit, you basically can't even communicate, leading to having to walk up to 2km with all your grocery bags.

Did you really just blame immigration for the German railway's issues...?

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#835

Post by throwaway5465 »

cfstras wrote: post #536
xenocratus wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We took that train, realised when we got to the other end of the line that we hadn't gotten where we expected, then turned back to the place where it separates. Waited for the next advertised train to airport (it's signalled on the electronic board as two separate entries; yes, it says "board whatever carriages for airport, and the rest for ...", or at least I assume it did, as it was in German of course; but again,…

A couple years ago, I was at a station waiting for a (delayed) ICE train. I couldn't buy a ticket at the machine or with the app, since the train had already departed (if it had been on schedule). The ticket machine also wouldn't take VISA / MasterCard, only the more common Girocard (most people still call it EC) Later, in the train, when I asked the conductor to buy a ticket with my Girocard, he said "That's not a c…

For other readers' benefit: Girocard is not related to Girobank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girobank or using said Girobank's Girocard to pay bills or collect dole.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#836

Post by cyphar »

Etheryte wrote: post #632
3ds wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! When you spend billions on car infrastructure but hardly anything on rails, there will be issues. What people don’t write clickbaity blog posts about is how in general things work very well. I’m currently sitting on a train from Nuremberg to Berlin and it takes less than three hours, it’s on time, quiet and just a good experience. This trip used to take five hours but then the high speed rail track got compl…

Things do not work well in general. DB is internationally infamous for its garbage service because everyone who has ever taken DB has a horror story. I lived in Germany some years ago and not once did I manage to catch a train that was on time for both arrival and departure. And this doesn't even touch on the topic of being stranded in the middle of nowhere as a regular occurrence.

As someone who has caught DB a fair number of times over the years, I think DB is most hated by Germans (who love to complain) and German locals.

Maybe I've just been lucky so far, but as an Aussie it is hard to overstate the fact it is even possible to travel almost anywhere within the country and between several other countries by train for fairly cheap is already quite miraculous to me. Yeah, I've run into a fair few issues and it was annoying but that goes for every country I've been to (Japan had the least by far but trains still get delayed there more often than people think and I've also run into situations as in TFA where if I didn't speak Japanese things would've ended up worse).

I'm not sure I'd even put DB in my "bottom three" in terms of overall experience. Should it be much better? Of course. But if you listen to Germans it sounds like DB is the worst train network in the universe by a clear margin, and that's just obviously not true.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#837

Post by bosse »

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.

I’ve never received a debit or credit card in Norway without a magstrip. One of the points of having one is to use it in places abroad where chip or contactless isn’t implemented. It’s become thinner but the stipe is still there.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#838

Post by srcreigh »

tEem21 wrote: post #811
vidarh wrote: post #804

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 ha…

This has been EU-wide legislation for quite some time, see https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-right...

> EU countries can decide to exempt some rail services. These exceptions may apply to urban, suburban, regional, long-distance domestic trains

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#839

Post by lmm »

zahlman wrote: post #421
jltsiren wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never had trouble buying train tickets with a credit card in Germany. If I had to guess, your issue was that you were trying to use a card that didn't support chip-and-PIN or contactless payments.

> 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?

> As opposed to... swiping the card?

People still do that? Are you posting to us from 20 years ago?

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#840

Post by lmm »

pjmlp wrote: post #215
bcye wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Splitting trains is a quite common thing in Germany (though more long distance) and communicated in the official app. If third party apps don't show that information that's on their part. Usually it's also said after departure inside the train by the conductor, though maybe just on long distance trains.

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.

> Yes, although quite often they forget not everyone speaks German.

Do you complain when announcements in your home country are given in exclusively non-German languages?

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