Saturday, July 17, 2010

Sänk ju for träwelling wis Deutsche Bahn

Ok, let me start by saying this: This post is not going to be about murder, suicide or any other death related topic. I'm gonna write about the Deutsche Bahn, the German national railway company because....it seriously pisses me off!
You might have heard about it in the news: Last Saturday an ICE high speed train had to be evacuated due to the malfunctioning of the air conditioning. The temperatures inside the trains were as high as 50 degrees (122 fahrenheit) and people were beginning to collapse. Several people actually had to be treated in hospitals afterwards. Shortly after the Bahn comitted to three trains in which the a/c broke down and their comment was:"It was a problem and we're sorry for it but think about it: hundreds of other trains had no problems, arent we good?"...I felt like yelling at the TV screen...what would this guy say if his wife died in a plane crash and the airline would say "We dont get your problem, several other flights didnt crash..."??? (Apparently the a/c's are constructed to work in temperatures up to 32 degrees, if it gets hotter they just cease to work completely).
The following days more and more stories got out about trains that were travelling with broken a/c's. And it's not just that, there have been several incidents during the last years:
Just this April one of the ICEs, going at full speed, lost a door. It hit an oncoming train and resulted in six injured persons. In 2008 an axle broke which led to a derailment with fortunately no casualties. Over the course of the last year the suburban trains in Berlin had massive security problems and needed repair...sometimes only a forth of all trains were running, obviously this led to chaotic situations.
In addition there are the usual weather problems: in winter trains are delayed because of the snow and frozen catenaries, in fall because of storms and leaves on the tracks, in summer because of the heat and in spring..well, they think of something!
and on top of all that, it's getting more and more expensive!
Unfortunately too many people are still dependent from the Bahn and therefore have to use it no matter how much it sucks. I'm sure on routes that Ryan Air is offering, trains will get considerably emptier. But for daily commuting the only alternative is the car and well, that sucks too :)
So I guess we have to keep using the Bahn and at least after every trip and basically at every dinner families have lots of stories to tell about their fun day! Newspapers and magazines are actually offering advice to travellers...calling them survival kits for the Deutsche Bahn!
How better to end this post than with a famous example of the embarassing english speaking skills of the employees: "Sänk ju for träwelling wis Deutsche Bahn"!
Und nein, wir haben kein Verständnis!

No comments:

Post a Comment