Yesterday, we launched our new branch Rhein/Ruhr. It was a nice party. Everybody was optimistic about the future and we had a lot of fun.
This morning, I was going to be back at my office. Since I like travelling in the sleeping-compartment, I took the night train for the way back to Munich. The CNL 419 was supposed to depart from Duisburg Central Station (just a ten-minute walk from our branch office building) after arriving from Amsterdam at 10.58 p.m.
Since the train was late, I had to spend 20 additional minutes on a draughty platform at a time shortly before midnight in a rather unpleasant railway station.
That is often the case with night trains. When you board, they are late. On arrival at your final destination, however, they are on time. Consequently, you have a shorter travelling period, but unfortunately also less sleeping time. Basically, that is not a nice idea. The same is true for the time you have to spend waiting for the train.
The main reason why night trains are often late is that – wherever possible – they try to wait for passengers who need a connection. Because those passengers would otherwise be cheated out of an entire day (and their bed).
As you see, it is a rather “customer-oriented” thing. They can afford it because the train schedule allows for it. The thing that irritated me was the announcement at platform 2 of Duisburg railway station:
Passengers are informed that the night train from Amsterdam with the final destinations Munich-Zürich will be late by about 15 minutes. The reason for this delay is: Slow processing when the train crossed international borders.
That annoys me. It sounds like: it is not our fault, the others are to blame. I am sure the delay was not caused by the “foreign country”. The real reason was probably quite ordinary accidents or lack of motivation to be punctual among employees. Just like you see it all over the place in Germany.
Everybody knows that the train comes from Amsterdam. The Netherlands. That is the foreign country. Basically, I find it almost questionable if a EURO country is a foreign country at all. If anything, one should probably say: “European Foreign Country?”.
To me, this announcement sounds like a linguistic affront by the Deutsche Bundesbahn against their customers. The same is true for “passengers are informed that the train will be late”.
Most of the railways in Europe are no longer owned by the state. They have been privatized. Consequently, the correct announcement would be:
The competition caused the delay!
Well, considering the jumbled-up situation of the seemingly small private railways (nearly all of which actually are part of a huge international railway trust), this could easily get the normal degree of politeness. It is all the fault of the competition…
The next thing is that the competition processes the trains late on purpose. In order to get back to them or else because the concern top decreed it because they want to harm the competition. I already have a hideous mental concept of railway companies suing each other – like the big IT enterprises.
Such is the world. Our Federal Chancellor fights for the EURO, because she believes it is the only chance to preserve peace in Europe – and we talk about late processing of a train due to international borders.…
RMD
(Translated by EG)
P.S.
The Amsterdam-Munich night train reminds me of some very personal past experiences. In the winter semester of 1969, I commuted from Augsburg to Munich. Early in the morning (lectures at TUM started at 8.00 a.m.), there were always three trains we were waiting for on the frosty Augsburg platforms. The first one was the Hoek-van-Holland from Amsterdam, departure time at Augsburg 6:40 a.m. The last of the three, the one you definitely had to catch, was the Sassnitz-Express, departure time at Augsburg 6:55 a.m. But none of the three trains was really always on time in the winter of 1969. Consequently, I was often late for the first morning lecture.
P.S.1
I took the picture from the central media archive Wikimedia Commons. Many thanks to the Wikimedia User Jivee Blau.
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