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Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

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Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#901

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

lucianbr wrote: post #746
britzsquad wrote: post #666

For my job, I travel all over Germany very often. I take the car, train, bus, or sometimes even the plane. The train is the most comfortable means of transportation in Germany. Of course, there are delays, and sometimes mistakes happen that result in very long delays. But where doesn't that happen? I find traveling by car to be the worst. How many times this year have I been stuck in traffic jams for several hours wi…

> the train can't just stop anywhere when there's a problem. Grow up > didn't have to worry about traffic, icy roads, or snow Aren't these statements contradictory? I think "grow up" means problems are unavoidable and the adult thing to do is expect them and accept them, and then you say you didn't have to worry, as if problems never happen. To me it sounds like you just got lucky on your Christmas trips. Two trips o…

According to the Deutsche Bahn, 61.9% of passengers arrived at their destinations with less than 15 minutes of delay in November 2025.

You can decide whether a 38.1% chance of being delayed by more than 15 minutes is bad. I think it is.

Source: https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen...

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#902

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

eigenspace wrote: post #676
britzsquad wrote: post #666

For my job, I travel all over Germany very often. I take the car, train, bus, or sometimes even the plane. The train is the most comfortable means of transportation in Germany. Of course, there are delays, and sometimes mistakes happen that result in very long delays. But where doesn't that happen? I find traveling by car to be the worst. How many times this year have I been stuck in traffic jams for several hours wi…

I'm glad at least someone has a sense of proportion here. German trains have problems for sure, but the train system in Germany is nonetheless fantastic.

It's fantastic compared to Amtrak. It's terrible compared to the Swiss, Chinese or Japanese rail systems, or even just the Deutsche Bahn 20 years ago.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#903

Post by hdgvhicv »

yeputons wrote: post #792
hdgvhicv wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Planes have never diverted people to the wrong country. It’s always state institutions.

Happens regularly. And if you don't have a visa for the new destination, well, too bad. E.g. on December 20 a WizzAir flight 4768 was diverted to Thessaloniki (Greece) instead of its destination Skopje (North Macedonia): https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/WZZ4768/history/2025... . Those with Schengen visas (or appropriate passports) got a bus to Skopje. The rest allegedly waited for three hours and then got retu…

Of course it does. I forgot ya is can’t tell sarcasm when it splashes them in the face.

But when a train had to divert and delays someone by an hour or two it’s somehow kidnapping.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#904

Post by jasonvorhe »

hexbin010 wrote: post #883
jasonvorhe wrote: post #881

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wtf? No.

"failed state" coupled with "don't even speak German" seemed like dog whistles What did you mean by failed state?

It's difficult having an honest discussion if participants claim to sense barely perceptible noises where there aren't any.

One attribute of a failed state is that it can no longer provide public services. German bridges are in dire need of repair, some just crumbled last year. Trains aren't on time if they ride at all. Bordering countries already complain about this affecting their schedules as well.

Another attribute is crime. We've seen a rise in knife attacks over the last few years. German cities try to curb this via weapon-free zones with no effect because making something illegal doesn't fix the root cause. Then there's this intellectually offensive and unnecessarily expensive security theatre at local christmas markets.

Next is state legitimacy. After last year's elections which followed a government collapse, the old (collapsed!) cabinet was brought back in to support a debt-driven military budget that the new cabinet wouldn't have approved. The Election Scrutiny Committee decided against a recount of the votes for a specific party that didn't make it into the Bundestag because of a missing votes to reach a requirement while there were many reports of votes having been mishandled - even in many previous elections. Not to forget the complete lack of interest in investigating critical infrastructure being destroyed that now affects the entire industrial core of the country.

Then there's corruption: Mask deals, Cum ex, Azerbaijan as just rather recent examples involving national and international scandals.

Economy: Barely any growth, inflation beyond the official numbers, rising energy prices (spot prices partially tripled in the ~5 years).

I could go on. I know it's a far cry from "gangs rule the streets" levels of "failed state" but compared to some slightly saner Western governments and compared to pre-2020 Germany, it's quite the failure with no signs for improvements.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#905

Post by elbear »

faust201 wrote: post #894
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,…

> And don't get me started on the ticketing machines not accepting Visa, Mastercard, or Amex at the central station in Munchen Wow. You travel to a different part of the world without doing basic research. Hope you did not try stuffing USD on machines.

I would never expect a Western European country to not accept Visa and Mastercard. I say this as an Eastern European. But I do remember that in Germany (and Austria) it's not that accepted to pay by card.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#906

Post by low_tech_love »

deaux wrote: post #541
low_tech_love wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d say it’s mostly a North-European thing, not the whole world. I am a latin american living in Sweden and the overwhelming lack of empathy and humanity you’ll experience in the healthcare system is borderline unbelievable (until you learn to expect and deal with it). They trust the system so much that whenever it doesn’t work, it’s basically ”well bummer”. You become the 1% for which the system has failed, and you’…

> the overwhelming lack of empathy and humanity you’ll experience in the healthcare system is borderline unbelievable (until you learn to expect and deal with it). Curious to hear what strategy you've learned over time.

The most important thing is to learn to expect and plan ahead, so that you don't get caught by surprise as much as it is reasonably possible. I do not expect anyone to act with humanity, so I start playing the system as early as possible. If I think something might be a problem in two weeks, I start calling them today, knowing that it'll take them two weeks minimum to take me seriously. If I go the the ER, I take movies and games with me (and lots of paracetamol) because I know it'll take several hours for anyone to even say hello to me, let alone do something concrete. I also, maybe more importantly, do not expect anything from the human side. Basically I see them as robots, so I deal with them as robots: explain everything calmly, repeat myself 100 times, and even more importantly, do not get angry. You get angry, you lose. It doesn't matter if you have an internal bleeding and you're dying, the moment you start screaming, nobody will take you seriously anymore. You have to be slow, strong, and systematic: repeat yourself, call again in 1h, then in 4h, then next morning, then next morning, until at some point something happens.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#907

Post by low_tech_love »

embedding-shape wrote: post #677
low_tech_love wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d say it’s mostly a North-European thing, not the whole world. I am a latin american living in Sweden and the overwhelming lack of empathy and humanity you’ll experience in the healthcare system is borderline unbelievable (until you learn to expect and deal with it). They trust the system so much that whenever it doesn’t work, it’s basically ”well bummer”. You become the 1% for which the system has failed, and you’…

> I’d say it’s mostly a North-European thing, I think it's a "busy tracks" problem in general, which yeah, is a problem in Europe in general. You can't just stop a train in the middle of some track, there are a bunch of other trains coming too, who can't just pass unless you get to a place where that is possible, which isn't everywhere. None the less, the rest of what you say is true of Sweden, but I don't think it's…

My point is that, in a country where people act like well, people (and not robots), someone would be bothered by this and might try to solve the problem in some creative and unexpected way. Someone might think "damn, we're ruining these peoples' christmas, let's do something" and then fix it somehow. Here it's more like "well bummer, deal with it" in both cases. I doubt that a bunch of adult, highly-skilled people could not have a conversation over the phone and arrange for a train to stop 5 minutes on a track so people could get off. Are you saying that there are so many trains in the same track at the same time that stopping for 5 minutes would cause an accident? I think that a lack of willingness to give a fuck is much more likely.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#908

Post by xattt »

mk89 wrote: post #755
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…

This has nothing to do with lost humanity. In my experience, this doesn't always happen, and I say this as someone who traveled very often on that same RE5. The situation is what it is (poor maintenance, etc), but the main issue is that the tracks are shared with freight trains impossible to stop given their weight, so to avoid collisions and have a nice (albeit late) Christmas, they made that call to play it safe, r…

How long would it take for the train to register at a station? What happened to traffic control via semaphores?

This situation is an absolutely perverse application of policy.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#909

Post by xattt »

vadiml wrote: post #763
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…

Why NOBODY pulled emergency stop

Nobody on the train was registered to do so.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#910

Post by low_tech_love »

igsomething wrote: post #589
low_tech_love wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d say it’s mostly a North-European thing, not the whole world. I am a latin american living in Sweden and the overwhelming lack of empathy and humanity you’ll experience in the healthcare system is borderline unbelievable (until you learn to expect and deal with it). They trust the system so much that whenever it doesn’t work, it’s basically ”well bummer”. You become the 1% for which the system has failed, and you’…

As another 3rd world citizen living in Northern Europe, I usually describe it as "processes and rules over common sense". They understand your situation, they agree with you, they can solve your problem, but they will not do it because it goes against some obscure rule, or it would not follow a specific mandatory procedure step by step, and who knows what are consequences.

And quite frankly, they don't give a fuck. They have been conditioned not to give a fuck from an early age; the system works 99% of the time, so nobody really has to care about each other. There is literally no benefit in giving a fuck about another person, in fact it is quite possible that you'll end up being punished by the system for breaking the rules. It is a Leviathan whale state swimming through the sea with millions of little fish sucking on it, and they sure as hell don't care about the few who fall off during the trip.
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