Martin's Blog

Martin and trains – it has never been the best friendship ever. Delays, misunderstandings, by far not as much fun as cars, expensive… there were a lot of reasons why I’m not the greatest fan of trains.

Story 1:

But, well, what do you do if you want to go to Amsterdam, there’s no car available, plane tickets cost four times as much, and you are in Germany where there’s no particularly well-developed coach system (as for example in the UK)? Well, you take the train. And because you are pretty late with making a one-way booking to Amsterdam, you book the cheapest option available – which was a 1^st class special. Approximately 9 hours from Lower Bavaria to the Dutch capital. All fine, you think.

You think! First thing you realise when you enter the train is that instead of sitting next to a window and in a non-subdivided passenger compartment (as you reserved it), you sit in a subdivided compartment and in the middle seat. Ok, do I care? No, because it really doesn’t matter. I just want to work with my laptop anyway. Sockets? Negative! Internet? Yes – but only in the newest type of ICE trains… I happened to be in the older type.

Good, getting closer to Würzburg, the first place to change from one ICE (the fast trains in Germany) to a second one. You realise that the train conductor doesn’t manage to make up the delay, and you start getting slightly nervous as you only have 8 minutes for changing trains in Würzburg.

Relief in Würzburg – the second ICE train is delayed as well. You might start asking yourself, if anything ever is on time that’s arranged by the German train company? Well, you’d be surprised, yes, there is: my third and final train from Hannover (the second station where I had to change) to Amsterdam. Helpful train personnel, however, announced all the way from Würzburg to Hannover at every single stop what the alternatives for the big connections (i.e. with fast trains to big cities) were. ‘This train has left, but you can take the next one in one hour instead’; ‘This train will be waiting for you in the station’… etc. etc.

They must have, however, known that I was on board – and decided to not announce any alternative for my connection to Amsterdam (which, as I find, is a major city as well). So a lost Bavarian was wandering around at a station in northern Germany and sees as only solution talking to the “Service” Centre. The first thing this friendly woman there announced was ‘oh, that’s going to be difficult’, and the second thing ‘as long as there is some sort of connection on the same day, you’re not allowed to use the same ticket the next day’. Good, ‘some sort of connection’, yes, there was one! And I can tell you, it was a great one!

First of all, I took another ICE, direction: back! It wasn’t exactly the same route, but generally it was towards south within Germany, for 2.5 hours, i.e. where I’ve just come from. The next two trains where regional or local trains – obviously one of them being delayed so that my only option at another station in western Germany which was in the middle of nowhere (and I though the Ruhrgebiet was the most populated area in Germany) was to simply get off my train and take the other one which was standing on the opposite track. There were no people, no passengers, no nothing to ask. Not even a display, neither at the train nor at the station. Luckily it was the right one, and luckily it was still there, otherwise I’d have stayed overnight in, I really can’t remember the name. No man’s land – remember, with a 1^st class special!

Being in Holland, the thing became a bit more cheerful again. The first of the trains there was on time and everything, just on track 1 instead of the announced track 6 – which didn’t even exist on that station. And from Eindhoven onwards my first class special ended squeezed into the entrance area standing next to the doors together with thousands of Dutch all dressed in orange and celebrating their second win in the European championship – but I have to say, that cheered me up quite a bit.

And at an ideal time of arrival – at 2:40am! – I got to Amsterdam when they were just about to close the station, and if I didn’t have a nice girl friend who picked me up by car, I certainly would have been stuck at the station for the rest of the night.

Story 2:

Me visiting an old Leeds friend in Holland – but as every meeting and evening, things come to an end, so I had to get back to where I was supposed to be, a nice little Dutch town. And me being a big guy, I decided that I can take a train from one station to the next one, no problem. Bought my ticket, waited for the train, got on the train. Next thing I remember is seeing the station where I was supposed to get off passing by my eyes, the train I was in not even slowing down. Great! Wrong train. And that after having studied the schedule seriously and intensively, and I was absolutely sure that I’d get to where I wanted to be. Well, obviously not. Good, so that’s when the stress of taking trains really started (after story 1 and story 2 so far, anyone still of the opinion that taking trains is more relaxing than driving?!).

Well, when the train finally got to a halt somewhere far, far away, I got off, and, surprise, there was a train standing on the other track, appearing to go into the direction where I just came from. What made me even happier was seeing a train conductor standing at the door (so for the first time that evening there was actually a person whom I could ask something) – and he confirmed that this train would leave within a few seconds and would go back to where I started from (still not really where I had to be, but good enough). Well, only problem: buying tickets on Dutch (and I guess it’s the same for German and other) trains, not possible. He offered me to get on the train anyway, but then he’d fine me 35 Euros. So I had to get to the ticket machine at the other end of the station – and by the time I got my ticket, the train was long gone. So I had to wait for the next – and last! – one that day (uhm, night). I don’t think it comes as a big surprise to you that the train had some delay as well, but I was freezing to death in that station anyway while waiting for more than an hour, so didn’t really care anymore.

And that is why they’ll never become friends, trains and Martin.

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