The picture of the DB station should be the official logo of Germany.
I'd rather go through dante's inferno than live in Germany. What a bleak existence.
Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
981–990 of 1001 posts
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#982DB 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…
Cost of a car is extremely hard to predict, not just because of unexpected repairs but also because the price of gas is literally political. The train experience in Germany is as bad as it is because of lobbying by the car industry and corruption both in the government and train operators. Not enough investment over decades paired with the absurd idea that train fares need to cover operating costs. Nobody would ask t…
> Cost of a car is extremely hard to predict, not just because of unexpected repairs
Cars aren't complicated. Make the right choice (buy cheap, buy japanese or french, avoid wet V-belts, prefer timing chains). Change oil and oil filter often. Keep an eye on the brake pads, shock absorbers, brake discs, tires, brake fluid, rust on the bodywork. Taking care of all this is surprisingly inexpensive. Of course, you can also have a car mechanic do all of this. Then you pay for their labor. But I really don't see any nasty surprises that might be lurking there. Of course, it depends on how well informed you are. If you've never looked under your car, then it's obviously a surprise when the floor panel is rusted through.
I understand that this is unreasonable for most people. But there is scope for ensuring that costs can be planned very well. However, I must admit at this point that you might as well deal with the complicated DB tariffs if you want to.
> but also because the price of gas is literally political.
Super 95 currently costs between €1.60 and €1.80. I still find that pretty easy to budget for.
> The train experience in Germany is as bad as it is because of ...
I agree with all your points. I'm just totally disappointed that we as a society can't manage to make public long-distance transport appealing. I would love to live in a world where I would feel like a complete idiot if I drove from Leipzig to Stuttgart and back instead of just taking the train.
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#983The term "kidnapped" is kinda over the top, but I can understand the author. I've travelled with Polish trains a lot when studying, and there were a few situations like this. Especially frustrating, if the train stops because of "some issue" while you can literally see the platform 200m away. No, you can't get out and walk the track (which will be guaranteed to be empty, because well, the train is broken) and take a…
> The term "kidnapped" is kinda over the top If you got in a taxi to take you 35km away and he drove you 60km away to a random other town instead, would you consider "kidnapped" to be over the top? Does it only count as "kidnap" if you are not eventually released? Or is it just that it's not kidnap when a corporation does it?
From the Cambridge dictionary:
kidnap: to take a person away illegally by force, usually in order to demand money in exchange for releasing them.
The "usually" refers to the money, but the part that is "always" is the existence of an intent.
There was no intent here. This was a mistake, not on purpose. Nobody would say, unless to make a joke, "i was kidnapped by an elevator" Because the elevator works automatically, it has no intent to take the person by force and hold them hostage.
Can't believe i had to type this down.
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#984Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ideally announcements should be bilingual, but if there’s only one language, it’s better to inconvenience any number of foreigners than even a single native who doesn’t speak English.
Nobody suggested that dutch announcements should be removed. You can make announcements in two languages.
Why have Dutch at all? "They all speak English."
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#985Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is imperial mentality. Dutch is the language of the Netherlands not English and they have the right to use it. If we follow your line Dutch will go the same way as Welsh or Basque.
And the dutch aren’t very well known for their imperial mentality?
The Dutch were ridiculously bad at imposing their language on other countries. Little trace of it remains in Indonesia, or New York. Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten have never taken to it. South Africa is kind of the exception except even then Afrikaans has played second fiddle to English for 150 years, and they have sought to differentiate their language from Dutch in more recent times.
Portugal has been better at that game when you consider its size.
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#986Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is imperial mentality. Dutch is the language of the Netherlands not English and they have the right to use it. If we follow your line Dutch will go the same way as Welsh or Basque.
> If we follow your line Dutch will go the same way as Welsh or Basque. No it won't. Mirroring important announcements in two languages is a thing most countries do, and their languages are far from extinct.
It already is, mate. There are people who move to countries such as the Netherlands, Iceland and Sweden and insist on using English all the time. I've even heard of Dutch using English with each other. There are people who've attempted this in Spain, but it's harder there since there are so many Spanish speakers.
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#987Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is imperial mentality. Dutch is the language of the Netherlands not English and they have the right to use it. If we follow your line Dutch will go the same way as Welsh or Basque.
The ongoing non-adoption of Esperanto remains one of the world's many tragedies.
Yes and no. Esperanto has strengths and weaknesses, and some see it as Eurocentric, but let's just leave it at that.
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#988Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dutch announcements in the Netherlands. Fancy that. Almost like it's the national language or something.
Yes, I'm obviously not mad with them using their own language, and I am studying it since I live there. But it's in the EU, and there is a lot of international tourists on the train, who shouldn't be expected to learn the national language of every country they visit just to navigate it.
Yeah, why bother using their own language at all? They all speak English and are just pretending. I want all the people in all the places I visit to be just like me.
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#989Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The term "kidnapped" is kinda over the top If you got in a taxi to take you 35km away and he drove you 60km away to a random other town instead, would you consider "kidnapped" to be over the top? Does it only count as "kidnap" if you are not eventually released? Or is it just that it's not kidnap when a corporation does it?
From the Cambridge dictionary: kidnap: to take a person away illegally by force, usually in order to demand money in exchange for releasing them. The "usually" refers to the money, but the part that is "always" is the existence of an intent. There was no intent here. This was a mistake, not on purpose. Nobody would say, unless to make a joke, "i was kidnapped by an elevator" Because the elevator works automatically,…
There plainly was intent.
The train operator deliberately drove the train, with passengers on it, to places they knew the passengers didn't want to go, and did not allow them a chance to get out sooner.
If a taxi driver were to do the same thing we would say he kidnapped his passengers.
The fact that trains are operated by big corporations does not absolve them of responsibility. If anything they should be held to a higher standard, not a lower one.
(I can't believe I had to type this down.)
Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
#990Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I used to complain about the French SNCF, then I discovered DB and stopped complaining. I've been a Bahncard 1. Klasse holder for a few years. Last time I took the train in Germany I was 30h late and had to spend a sunday between Cologne and Karlsruhe (not that I was really surprised). The punctuality is a joke, ICEs are unpractical, train management comically incompetent (remember when the ICEs cars would never come…
As a French I feel that the SNCF is pretty good. We like to complain about it but I have had a few minor problems (3 hours pause from locomotive breakdown, or 2 hours stop to allow cleaning after a suicide) but nothing too bad.
There are on times and rarely canceled.
The major issues are with pricing and lack of investment outside of TGV but it's not too bad.