Delayed by 20 min
by Volker Weber
Travelling by train lets me do things that would be impossible with a car. Like travelling 800 km in one day and still having a long und useful meeting. While the way home was working absolutely perfectly with all trains running on the minute, I was lucky this morning to have taken the earlier train and not the one which would have brought me there just in time. I switched from a delayed IC to a commuter train, only to have this train sit at the platform and let the IC pass. This bad call did not hurt me in the end, because the ongoing train was delayed by 20 minutes, which built up to 30 minutes until I reached my destination.
Roundtrip less than twelve hours with four hours on site. And I was able to get a lot of stuff done.
Comments
You think that's bad...you should try commuting into London for a few weeks ;)
Announcement in the ICE International last Sunday "We apologize for the delay of around 15 minutes. Because of the weather conditions in Germany at the moment, all other trains are delayed, also. This means all connecting services in Cologne can be reached."
Sounds like the Deutsche Bundesbahn is not what it used to be anymore .. :)
Oh well, in Italy every second train (I am talking InterCity now) is delayed for one reason or another.
It's getting that bad, that in order to encourage people using their services, Trenitalia offers a full refund of your ticket if the delay suffered exceeds 30 minutes.
(but who has the time to cue up for a claim anyway?)
Interesting though is that, according to the official records, in 1934 Milano-Torino was taking 1 hr and 4 minutes. Nowadays, the same journey takes 1 hr. and 8 minutes.
Welcome to the Italian private railways system!
When I have (rarely) put my daughter on the Amtrak train here in the U.S., it is considered lucky if it is less than an hour and a half late. Note, this is not for for trains running up and down the East Coast, which tend to be much better, but for those running through the middle of the country. It is completely ridiculous to go to a station not knowing within two hours or more when it will show up.
Because of a long contract in Frankfurt years ago I switched from using my car to using the train (Deutsche Bahn) to go from Hamburg. And I really love the relaxed way of travelling. You can work, take a nap, have a good chat, drink some coffee etc. The biggest advantage is that you reach your destination fully relaxed and mostly on time and not stressed by e.g. traffic jams. In comparsison to take a plane, no interuptions because of check-ins, bordings, short flight times etc. etc. And for a distance up to 500 kilometers it's approx. the same time. And by the way, how many flights are on time? Lots of people are blaming the Deutsche Bahn for delays, I don't agree with them.
I had the opportunity to work outside of Munich on a project a few years back and one of my fondest memories of the experience is that of riding the trains. I even got to visit the Railway Museum in Nuremberg. It was the only thing open on the Sunday I visited and turned out to be a great way to spend an afternoon.
As was mentioned above, except for the Northeast US and the Northwest US, Amtrak is pretty much a disaster. The trip from Portland to Seattle can be nice if you get one of the newer trains. They even have electrical outlets for your laptop.
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