Berlin public transportation | Deutsche Bahn on strike

Deutsche Bahn had a huge strike all over Germany on March 10.

It is a well known fact that the French do like to strike, but their German neighbors seem to be catching up. Anyway, the S-Bahn in Berlin is part of the Deutsche Bahn, so local employees were on strike as well, from 4.00am to 10.00am this morning. Of course this means the rest of the day was screwed up, as no transport system can recover after a strike very quickly.

Myself and most other people who had this odd inexplicable wish to use public transportation in Berlin today were not particularly happy about having to make detours on a normally direct and uninterrupted point A to point B route. What normally takes me 9 minutes took me about 30 today. Quelle dommage!

The thing about the Bahn is that it always has problems. In the winter when I came to Berlin and it was cold and snowy, the trains were late all the time and people were very pissed about that. (At first I wondered why they were mad about a 2-5 minute delay.) Later, a new winter schedule was introduced which meant the trains had a different speed and were to travel less often, the S-Bahn head had a lot of curses sent his way back then. It was a much talked about topic on the radio and could only be rivaled by Berlinale talk, a month later. Now the old schedule was introduced again and there was lots of confusion, trains were repeatedly late on the first few days . And now came the strike that left no one happy.

And the thing about this is… Berliners and some visitors are upset about that, myself included. But then I am just reminded how in Krasnodar, Russia there is NO schedule for anything, tram, bus, trolleybus, minibus. I mean, theoretically… there is a schedule as public transportation companies’ employees somehow have shifts and all that jazz, but there is no schedule at stops (and I don’t only mean an electronic schedule, you will not even find a toilet paper like sheet with times scribbled on it). Best thing you’ll know? Which buses/trolleybuses /trams pass this stop on their route.

My 90 year old grandmother is forced to stand at the stop for 20-30 until her means of transport shows up (normally too full), so after remembering this, a 2-3 minute delay and even a rare strike don’t seem so bad to me.

Apparently the DB employees who went on strike do have low salaries and they are somehow uneven for people with same skills, duties and experiences. This sounds surprising to me as DB has ridiculously high prices for their mediocre train service. And then a few people just pocket that and the rest eat crumbs. Sounds shitty to me. Strike on, my Lokführer comrades. (Just let me get to airports safe and on time.)

/rant

The Deutsche Bahn rant

There was a point in my life when I thought that Deutsche Bahn was the most punctual train service. I thought that for a very long time and I think it’s the popular opinion amongst many people.

My opinion has altered due to latest events though. First my train from Cologne to Munich was an hour late. Then Munich-Karlsruhe arrived 15 or 20 minutes later than scheduled (it’s not such a big deal, but not for a supposedly punctual train service). Of course you have to keep in mind the weather has been terrible, but then again Germany always has snow and it’s not a tropical country, so I would suppose that snow is to be expected as well as railway icing.

But the weirdest experience was my recent City Night Line ride from Karlsruhe to Berlin. The train was about 10 minutes late, so that’s in the present situation quite okay.

So I was waiting at the train station and it was only the first time that I noticed that you can actually know where exactly your train car will stop. Each railway has letters assigned to it and there are boards that where you can see next to which letter your train car will stop, so that you won’t have to run 300m with your huge suitcase once the train arrives. Which is exactly what you do in Russia as you almost never can predict how far you’ll have to run. I was thinking how cool it is to be in a civilized place and then the train car arrived.

I had a Ruhesessel ticket with a seat reservation, which means it’s just a more or less comfortable armchair that leans back quite a lot. I entered my train car and there were just compartments. I was puzzled. I went back and forth at least 4 times, just trying to figure out if I had the number of the car right, if it was actually my train, if I was blind, etc.

No, it was all fine, except there was not a one Ruhesessel in sight and of course no Deutsche Bahn employee anywhere in the vicinity. [What's also odd, my seat number was 67 and there was no 67 at all there. There were places 60-66 and then I think 69-75, etc.] I sat down in the next car, there were plenty of Ruhesessels free there, but did I want to be worried at every stop that the train made that somebody would come up to me and tell me it’s their seat? Nope. Eventually, two stops later and an hour on the road, I went to check out if maybe a Ruhesessel miraculously appeared in my assigned train car… and stumbled upon a DB employee at last.

The guy had little interest in talking to me and for the most part was quite impatient and obviously had better things to do than explain the situation to me, so the best I got was this: yes, I had a Ruhesessel train car with seat reservation, yes, it was the correct car number, no, there are no Sessels here because it’s somehow a different train, so I should just take any place I want in this car. I was a bit flummoxed as again, there could’ve been a problem of somebody showing up and telling me where to go as it was their place, but it turned out that somehow there were no reservations for that car at all. Or something.

Anyhow, in the end I shared a compartment with another confused guy, so it was actually a better option than what I paid for, but that thought didn’t help me fall asleep and arrive all fresh and perky to Berlin. Oh well. I might still give DB another chance for long-distance travel at one point.

Local subsidiaries are not great either, though. The S-Bahn in Berlin goes absolutely not according to the schedule and with long delays, much to the discontent of people who are late to work every day because of this as you can’t foresee such things. But the weather is getting better (fingers crossed that it’s not just for two days) and so maybe Berliners will see the end of their commuting nightmare. At some point.