[Ipg-smz] The train from hell?

[Dan Rosenbaum]

A couple of years ago, my family and I took the German express train from Frankfurt to Dusseldorf. Sort of. Eventually.

 

Frankfurt is a big terminus station, so all the tracks end in blocks and you can’t tell which direction they’ll go when they get back to the trunk. And, of course, all the signage and announcements are in German.

 

The Dusseldorf train was to leave at, let’s say, 8:15 on Track 8.  At 8:12, a train pulls in on Track 8. We get on, with all our luggage, make our way through a crowded train to find our reserved seats which didn’t have our names on the display above the seats but what the hell. Train leaves, and the family pulls out their phones to watch our progress on Google Maps.

 

Except we’re not going north to Dusseldorf. We’re going south toward Munich. On an express.

 

So I find a conductor, whose English is pretty not-bad. He understands the issue, pulls out his Android pad with schedules and figures out quickly how to reroute us and reissues the tickets.

 

But he asked, “why did you get on the wrong train?” I told him, we were trying to get on the northbound 8:15 and, given the reliability of European train, I thought it was running a few minutes early. He looked at me sternly and with a small smile said, “On the Deutsche Bahn, we are sometimes a little late. We are *never* early.”

 

d 

 

From: Ipg-smz <ipg-smz-bounces at netpress.org> on behalf of Dennisf63 via Ipg-smz <ipg-smz at netpress.org>
Reply-To: <dennisf63 at wildblue.net>, <ipg-smz at netpress.org>
Date: Tuesday, October 29, 2019 at 4:16 PM
To: <ipg-smz at netpress.org>
Cc: Dennisf63 <dennisf63 at wildblue.net>
Subject: Re: [Ipg-smz] The train from hell?

 

Departed twenty seconds EARLY! For shame!

On 10/29/2019 03:11 PM, Andy Patrizio via Ipg-smz wrote:

Meanwhile, in Japan…

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42009839

 

From: Ipg-smz [mailto:ipg-smz-bounces at netpress.org] On Behalf Of David Needle via Ipg-smz
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2019 10:52 AM
To: ipg-smz at netpress.org
Cc: David Needle
Subject: [Ipg-smz] The train from hell?

 

 

My wife just emailed me this from her office in Palo Alto: 

 

 

very quiet here -- Caltrain horror stories from the SF commuters -- the train doors wouldn't open when they stopped in Palo Alto! same thing in Mountain View!  people were freaking out. Finally got off the train in Santa Clara or something and took an uber to work -- $45 and 2.5 hours...  




 
-- 
Dennis Fowler
P. O. Box 70
Otego, NY 13825
dennisf63 at wildblue.net
-- Ipg-smz mailing list Ipg-smz at netpress.org http://netpress.org/mailman/listinfo/ipg-smz_netpress.org 

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