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Man survives after clinging on to German train travelling at 282 km/h | dpa international
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this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2025
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that last quote really hits home. germans are so focused on rules, they forget that sometimes people don't follow them...
last year i travelled by train from austria to sweden on the cheapest possible tickets, and when i went to board the ICE in mΓΌnchen at 02:00 there were no free second-class seats. people were sleeping in the vestibules. so i went to the DB site, noticed that seat reservations were independent of ticket purchases, found a free first-class seat, and booked it. the conductor was incredibly mad at me, because "you can't do that! you have a second-class ticket!". there wasn't even a notice about it on the DB site, it just lets you do it. but you're not supposed to.
Edit: they let me stay in the seat but they were really annoyed about it.
but like, if the difference between first and second class isn't the seat, in has to be in service. just not giving me first class service solves the problem.
So you booked a seat in first class with a second class ticket?
yes. you could even book a seat without having a ticket. it was completely separate flows.
Why would they do it like that? Does the ticket give anything extra? Sounds like a waste of money to buy first class tickets otherwise.
You can make the reservation independent of the ticket/fare payment. You're still supposed to have a ticket for the class of service you want.
Paying for a seat reservation doesn't pay the 'fare'
I've never seen it before but were just given examples, DSB being one.
I find it strange to manage tickets separate from seats. Why not keep them linked?
It's mostly because you can have tickets that are not bound to a specific train. Aside from things like monthly tickets you can also have tickets for a single ride, which have a fixed start and end station, but you can take any train on the booked day. When you don't know beforehand, which train you will take, you can still reserve a seat as soon as you decide (even just before the train leaves)
Because of things like monthly regional passes.
those are a different kind of train where i live. regional trains have mostly passes (that also work on buses), intercity trains do not.
So what was the outcome? Did they let you stay in the seat? Or if not did you get a refund for the seat?
they said "i guess you can sit there, until someone who reserved the seat comes along"
which was weird because i reserved the seat for the whole trip
Why should they? They reserved him a seat in first class. It's not their fault that he didn't have a first class ticket.
You can always buy a first class ticket or pay a surcharge for upgrading your ticket to first class
they didn't know what to do, but by their own admission they couldn't really stop me from sitting in the seat i had reserved. they were just really annoyed about it.
Of course they could have and this has led to people being removed from the train by the federal police (which is extremely costly as the German Bahn charges one for the delay costs and the police also charges one).
When you reserve a seat it means you have the right to use that reservation for 15min after the train left the station and not be moved from it when you have a taken the seat. The reservation even is void if you decide to sit in another seat before claiming your seat or go to the restaurant before claiming your seat.(Afterwards it's different)
And of course you still have to have a ticket for the class/train. By your logic you could have simply reserved the seat for 4β¬ and then used no ticket at all - which is of course also wrong.
BTW: It says you need a valid ticket for that class in bright red letters on the webshop.
TLDR: You could have been removed from that seat and it would have cost you a lot of money if they did.
it didn't when i took that train. instead of warning people they should just require a ticket for a reservation.
that reservation footnote is very strange to me. here it's fine to sit wherever as long as you move when someone comes along with a seat reservation. then you can go back to your reserved seat.
Yeah that's the part I don't believe. I have seen people getting fined or charged the upgrade for this many times. Maybe they were nice to you because you were a tourist. But they could definitely have made you pay, or call the police to remove you from your seat and get your personal information
but... why? i reserved the seat. there were no seats available in the rest of the train. would they rather i sat on the floor?
there was an older woman who tried to sleep next to the door in an adjoining car. she had to move every time the train stopped. that seems insane to me.
It's pure bullshit. We've told ourselves "things must be this way for efficiency", yet we've merely commoditized casual cruelty.
You reserved the seat, but didn't have a valid ticket for first class. So yes, either stand,sit on the floor until another seat becomes available, have a meal in the dining car, or take another train if you have a flexible ticket. (You don't need a reservation to board the train, and some people travel on season tickets or flexible fares where you can choose freely any train).
If you want to be guaranteed a seat buy a reservation in your class
You can pay a surcharge to upgrade your ticket. But the seat reservation just reserves a seat, not the right to travel in that class or on that train without a valid ticket. It's not linked to a ticket or a name
Most people also prefer to sit on the floor or stand than to not travel on that service and be forced to wait an hour or two
In other countries like France, Italy or Spain it's like Airplanes on their long-distance services, everyone with a ticket is assigned a seat. And the reservation is linked to the ticket. But in central Europe we fortunately don't do it this way (with the exception of Poland and Sweden).
(In France and Spain they do this even on some regional services, but their national operators forget sometimes that they are Railways and not Airlines)
i want to add that this was a long-haul night train (mΓΌnchen to hamburg), so no dining car, few stops, and a travel time of about 9 hours. in that circumstance, selling more tickets than there exists seating seems negligent. the bathrooms were all closed, there were no sleeping cars, there was a police inspection at four in the morning, people were propped up against every wall in the train trying to sleep in peace... it is without exception the worst experience i've ever had on a train, and i was once stuck in jΓΆrn for four hours in a train car without electricity in -30 weather. i don't understand how the separate reservation system is better in any way.
this is what i meant about the rules thing: it is expected that you know how it works, nobody will tell you, and if you do it wrong you will be yelled at and/or fined. i would much rather that the site told me "hey, you need a first-class ticket for a seat reservation in first class".
You know there is a Long Haul Night train between Munich and Hamburg with real Beds, Showers and complimentary breakfast. Or sleeping Pods if you're on a budget.
Check it out the next time. Nightjet.com
It's operated by the Austrian state railways
Otherwise the separate reservation system makes international train ticketing easier and allows for greater flexibility.
That's just common knowledge in most of European Countries. I can understand that this might confuse visitors who are used to air travel
Can you honestly justify seats in the first class being left empty, while people in the second class have nowhere to sit? There's so many ways to improve the situation here without anyone actually being hurt. Can't we all take a step back and see how crazy this actually this?
Yes because a seat reservation doesn't free you from the requirement of having a valid ticket for the desired class.
It's the same in nearly every European Country on trains without mandatory reservations
I would say this is not about Germans being rule focused but you being just used how things work in Air travel
Their point is that any ticketing website in any other country would have the checks built in to not allow it. It's like an airline showing the first class seats as avaient in the seating chart when you bought an economy ticket.
You can have a weekly/monthly/whatever ticket that lets you ride any train inside the area of validity. The seat reservation system doesn't have a way to 'check' those types of tickets.
You can also book a 'rail and fly' ticket on DB that lets you take the ICE /anywhere/ in Germany 24h before/after your international flight, but doesn't check your airline ticket because it can't - you need to show the ticket inspector your confirmed booking (paper or phone) when they check your ticket.
If you don't have a valid booking to show, they will charge you a full fare ticket, or call the cops to remove you and fine you.
No you can buy a reservation without a train ticket in
And probably more countries, thats just the ones I know from my memory where this is possible
No it's not, because the reservation is a separate service. You can buy it from the train operator but you might have obtained your ticket from your own national train company, or you bought it later on, or you have a flexible ticket and don't know if you will make this train and it's busy (your right to your seat goes away after 15 Minutes of departure), or you buy it for someone in your family. It's just easier to not have this check included. Everyone in these countries knows that you still need to own a valid ticket for this class for the reservation.
I've never been able to buy a reservation without a ticket. It is usually buy ticket -> buy seat is you want one or get a random one if not. Perhaps 20 years ago but not today.
Edit: if train ride continues with another company, seat is still managed in my experience.
It's directly on the landing page of bahn.de
Or here in the Swiss Railway App, to give another example ("Nur Sitzplatzreservierung" means "Just Seat Reservation")
And the other carriers in the list I've made above allow it as well
No, not buying a seat doesn't guarantee you a seat on the train. Only if there is one available, which is the case most of the time (only during very busy services/timesthere might be no seats available (e.g. December 23)) That's not how countries with trains without mandatory reservations work. And that's the majority in Europe
This is why I said usually.
SJ (Sweden) and VY (Norway) did not have this option. DSB (Denmark) does. How strange to allow only buying seats instead of changing an existing booking.
Edit: looked at https://jegy.mav.hu/ and could not find the option to buy only seats. It seems like this way of handling tickets is intermittent.
MAV offers it too (the last option on the bottom)
Sweden and Norway are countries with global price ticketing (Mandatory Reservations, integrated with Ticket/ SCIC-IRT), Denmark and Hungary not, so no surprise there (SCIC-NRT)
I don't think it's strange, it gives just more flexibility.
EDIT: Also it's nearly impossible to do international ticketing to Global Price Countries with more than a change or outside selected connections, whereas such problems don't exist in Countries that use SCIC-NRT, another Reason why Trains with Mandatory Reservations suck
I didn't look hard enough out seems. :-)
i basically never fly these days. i am just confused why i could even buy a reservation for a different class to begin with.
Because they don't check anything, you can walk up to a counter or ticket machine and get a reservation without any personal or other details required
yeah that's my point, it's super easy to bypass the system and they just assume you won't. but if you don't know how the system is supposed to work it's hard to do it right.
There is no bypass.
Your seat reservation doesn't entitle you to travel on that train in this class without a valid ticket. You will get a fine if you try to travel with just a seat reservation. And if you don't pay or are catched multiple times they will initiate criminal proceedings against you
Are you saying that you can buy a reservation without a ticket? That the act to buying a ticket and buying a reservation are two distinct actions?
Yes, that's the case
I saw your other comment. I've never seen that before.
That is actually a necessity:
I would assume that if you have any of those tickets, you would buy the normal way with 100% discount.
but what's the difference between first and second class except the seat? why not make a seat reservation require a ticket?
The seat (more comfortable, more space) ist the main difference.
Of course they could check if you have a ticket at the time of purchase, they just don't. When buying a seat reservation it's clear it's not a ticket.
but just entering the ticket number when doing a reservation would be so incredibly easy to add. as it is now, i can buy up seat reservations without even being on the train, forcing multiple people to stand.
It's more complicated because there's also time limited (or even unlimited) tickets/passes, but I agree it could be done.
Seat reservations expire 15 minutes after passing the station. By now all trains have those small displays on the seats which show reservations. They simply turn off after 15 minutes, indicating the seat can be taken by anyone.
that's such a weird system.
There are less seats in the carriage, it is more comfy, you get at-seat dining service, free newspapers, faster Internet, more generally people who behave better and are more quiet, and if you have a flexible ticket Lounge Access