7 ms·

DB is weird. They seem to make their own rules and then run the game and “dont tell the rules to anyone”. I was on my way to catch a flight from Munich to my ho

DB is weird. They seem to make their own rules and then run the game and “dont tell the rules to anyone”. I was on my way to catch a flight from Munich to my home (Madrid). I didn’t knew that apparently at one point the train splits into two parts and the front part goes to the airport and the other part just goes to the nearby cattle farms and comes back in 3 hours. Google Maps - No idea Citymapper - what? English announcement - nien. Thanks to an old lady, who told me that i needed to switch coaches to go the airport. Madre mia!!

modo_mario 9mo ago
[flagged]
- rwmj 9mo ago
  Because it's going to the airport and so might be full of travellers and tourists?
  - tirant 9mo ago
    To be fair, it’s announced in the platform screens in a language abstract way, by indicating the destination and the platform segments (A,B vs C,D) to take to reach the destination.
    - bombcar 9mo ago
      The key is that on hundred of trains around the world this is done to indicate the convenience - these doors will be closer, etc. Trains splitting in half are rare enough that THAT is what needs to be described. The US equivalent is the empire builder which splits in Spokane (I believe) but it’s much more old fashioned and you have a tag above your seat showing your destination- if you somehow end up on the wrong car the conductor will wake you up and move you to the right one. A similar one that can catch you (and has caught me) are express elevators or the two-story ones which mean you only can stop at even or odd floors depending on where you got on.
  - johnisgood 9mo ago
    Unpopular opinion: you should learn the absolute basics of the language used in the country you are travelling to. Seriously? That unpopular? Lmfao.
    - SpaceNugget 9mo ago
      Going from the Netherlands to Budapest I started my journey with Deutsche Bahn. My train also did the split in half and go different directions trick. Was I supposed to learn Dutch, German, and Hungarian in order to buy my train tickets?
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      - johnisgood 9mo ago
        I said "travelling TO", and most of the time you do not need to know anything apart from the name of the city... and then I presume you have a smartphone as well. Come on. What did you do once you arrived in Budapest? Did you do your research or did you get scammed by the taxi mafia as well?
        rplnt 9mo ago
        If you travel to Budapest from Berlin you buy the ticket from DB and the crew changes as follows: German, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian. None of the first three crews would speak Hungarian. Luckily all will be able to communicate in English. (regular announcements oftentimes won't be in Hungarian until you are in Hungary, that depends on the train origin, but I would only expect local+English)
        rplnt 9mo ago
        > What did you do once you arrived in Budapest? You will be perfectly fine staying in Budapest with just English; you can learn hello, please, and thank you to be polite. This goes for most bigger European cities, outside of France I guess.
- stevage 9mo ago
  It's really not too much to expect a train going to the airport to make important announcements in English.
  - deleted 9mo ago
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  - nephihaha 9mo ago
    [flagged]
    - sho_hn 9mo ago
      It's still an expectation I have, even as a native German speaker. I work for a well-known German company (our storefronts are sometimes called "the German embassy"), and our day-to-day business language at work is ... English. We hire from all over and want people to be able to get around effectively. This is infrastructure. Make it work.
    - xenocratus 9mo ago
      Nu sunt englez, așa cã n-o sã-ți rãspund în englezã.
      - nephihaha 9mo ago
        Ceart gu leòr. Chan eil Romainis agam. :)
    - rplnt 9mo ago
      Honestly, it should be an obligation. DB should make it one for themselves. DB carries millions of people a year that do not speak the language. Important information like route changes should be available to them. English just happens to be the most likely language to be understood at least enough to ask staff/other passengers as to what is going on.
      - modo_mario 9mo ago
        If preventing people that struggle with the local language from getting confused or missing stuff is the goal then they're likely better off doing it in Turkish or Arab.
- larnon 9mo ago
  Because even in countries less developed(by western standards), there are more English announcements, so visiting tourists can also use the public transport. This isn't lack of speaking the language as well, it is more about not wanting to speak another language because "In Deutschland muss man Deutsch sprechen." It is reaching French level of racism at this point. Funny for a country that wants to attract so many international expats.
  - nephihaha 9mo ago
    [flagged]
    - stoneforger 9mo ago
      Lingua Franca predates colonialism. Latin predates Lingua Franca, although one can argue Latin was forced down due to the Roman Empire's extensive reach and size. Ancient Greek also served a similar role. One doesn't need to learn each others language as long as they all know one common language. One could argue for Esperanto, or a purely symbolic language like traffic icons, but you need to learn that one too. So it makes more sense to use a fit for purpose language for travel that has no ambiguities. You can even create a graph that can be queried. There's all sorts of ways to solve this with as little pain as possible as long as you care to. And wanting people to just learn the local language to traverse a transport network is chauvinism.
      - nephihaha 9mo ago
        The term "lingua franca" comes out of the Holy Roman Empire and Norman expansion, and later French imperialism, which gave it high status. But I have long wondered whether many European languages will end up in the same state as Welsh or Basque or Sorbian. Icelandic is already much of the way there. Will Dutch and even German go the same way? It is chauvinistic and colonial-minded to expect everyone to speak your language in their country. Not to mention arrogant.
    - School-Cotton 9mo ago
      If you visited Japan as a tourist, I believe you learned enough to say hello, ask someone where your hotel is, and so on. I don’t for a second believe you learned enough to understand arbitrary train network change announcements. Unless you spend years studying the language before visiting any country as a tourist, which would be absurd.
- AniseAbyss 9mo ago
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- forgingahead 9mo ago
  Belgium gave me one of the more annoying train experiences when I was a younger man. I was in Leuven for a conference, and had decided to bring my then girlfriend (now wife) for a trip, after which we would take the Eurostar to London. On the ticket, it said Brussels-Midi, but after happily boarding the train, we only saw the following related options on the train map for stops: 1. Brussel-Noord 2. Brussel-Centraal 3. Brussel-Zuid So here we were, not speaking the language, rushing for a train that we were at risk of being late for, and not having a clear idea of the actual stop to get off of. And the people on the train? Totally unhelpful. "Eurostar"? Shrug. "Train to London?" Blank looks. Anyway we winged it and made it, but still a damn stupid set up if you want to be welcoming to tourists (and their money).
  - ghaff 9mo ago
    Brussels in particular perhaps is sort of non-intuitive because, even (or perhaps especially) if you know a little bit of French, the station names don't obviously correlate to their relative locations. There is a logic but it's not obvious to someone not used to it--and, honestly, I'd have to go online to figure it out again.
  - bombcar 9mo ago
    Was it Centraal? That would have been my guess.
    - throw-the-towel 9mo ago
      Nope, the biggest station is actually Midi/Zuid.
    - jonasdegendt 9mo ago
      Hah nope! Even as a Belgian I find the naming of the Brussels train stations maddening. Brussels-Midi is the south station, so Brussel-Zuid. Midi allegedly means south in French, but I've never actually heard it being used over "sud", also south. In conversation, midi also means noon (e.g. used as "meet me at noon"), which for my brain correlates more with central than south, given the context of a day. Not a linguist, so what do I know, maybe someone else can chime in.
- doommius 9mo ago
  I most most places to English. Honestly it should be default to have the local language and English.
- etothepii 9mo ago
  Because English has become the lingua franca for Europe. I suspect that now UK has left EU it will be much easier to accept this.
  - manarth 9mo ago
    Wasn't that meant to be Esperanto? /s
    - School-Cotton 9mo ago
      Sure, but it never caught on. Not sure the point of your “/s” sign, since what you’re claiming is in fact true, and if it’s a joke it’s not a particularly funny one.
  - petesergeant 9mo ago
    Personally I worry about the Maltese/Irish supremacy that will arise as a result. More seriously, I suspect that > Since the exit of the United Kingdom from the EU in 2020, the government of France has encouraged greater use of French as a working language will hasten the move to English in official proceedings. Almost 44% of the population understand it already, and it’s unclear why the teens of the EU who already speak near-perfect English would want to learn French other than for recreation.
  - pjmlp 9mo ago
    I still lean on UK English though, regarding way of writing and words I tend to use.
- thisislife2 9mo ago
  In India train announcements in stations are made in the regional language, English and Hindi.
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tirant 9mo ago
I guess you took the S1 S-Bahn. Yes, it always splits in Neufahrn. Part of the train goes to the airport, the other section to Freising (a cute University city, by the way) That is indicated on the platform screens before getting on the train. It tells you which part of the train goes where so you know which wagon to take. I found it also not very intuitive first time I took it. But hey, when travelling there’s always local peculiarities to take care of ;)
- froh 9mo ago
  Hamburg has a similar arrangement, however they make a very clear and unmistakable audio announcement in both English and German. im.surprised this not to be the case in Munich??
- sauercrowd 9mo ago
  Strong disagree. For most parts travelling is a non-event these days. A train that splits, on the way to the airport where there will be a lot of non-german speaking people, and for some reason only shows it on the platform is insane. Having a train that splits on that route is already bad enough, but you HAVE to emphasize it on the train. I know that I need to pay attention to this, because I've grown up with DB pulling all sorts of fucked up shit, but we should not accept that this is reasonable.
  - groestl 9mo ago
    From the top of my head I know three cities which have peculiarities when it comes to public transportation to the Airport. In two cases, it's obvious they do this to push the private train to foreigners, at 5x the ticket rate.
    - throw-the-towel 9mo ago
      Can you share which cities these two are?
      - groestl 9mo ago
ilyush 9mo ago
Same we missed the right stop on our way back to France. We just managed to get in a train going the other way but dB personal almost ticketed us a penalty...
utllitarian 9mo ago
It’s likely some utilitarian reason, i.e. sacrifice the riders on the train for the good of all the other schedules. This is the one benefit of living in an overly-litigious country that has news media which can pick up on a story like this. They’d rather have the masses suffer to avoid the legal fees and bad press, so instead of sacrificing a train, they’d make everyone’s lives worse overall. I’m not arguing for utilitarianism, though. Ir allows dictators to thrive.
- fxwin 9mo ago
  I think you're reading a bit too much into this
bcye 9mo ago
Splitting trains is a quite common thing in Germany (though more long distance) and communicated in the official app. If third party apps don't show that information that's on their part. Usually it's also said after departure inside the train by the conductor, though maybe just on long distance trains.
- pjmlp 9mo ago
  Yes, although quite often they forget not everyone speaks German. I once had a bit of Schadenfrunde while travelling in Netherlands, having the conductor telling us to switch trains in Dutch, and all my German fellow travellers wondering what it was all about.
  - bcye 9mo ago
    Well it's generally a good idea to ask a fellow traveller when you hear an announcement you don't understand. Especially if it doesn't use words you've commonly heard before. And maybe tell them instead of having Schadenfreude?
    - pjmlp 9mo ago
      Which is what happened next. The point was that even in international trains inside Germany, announcements related to trains problems are only done in German. I speak it fluently, including some variations, however most travellers do not. I also remember there used to be ticket machines in NRW only in German, about 20 years ago.
  - raverbashing 9mo ago
    I wonder what's the level of mutual ineligibility between DE<>NL (probably DE is easier to NL) but it's funny how Germans sometimes seem to play dumb and not understand a thing in NL
    - whstl 9mo ago
      As a German speaker, spoken Dutch REALLY trips me up because of small pronunciation differences in almost every word. Written Dutch is way closer. The Dutch seem to understand German better, but my Dutch friends credit that more to education and exposure.
ben_w 9mo ago
Had something similar from Nuremberg to Suhl and accidentally ending up in Bad Kissingen for a bit. But I don't think DB is unique in this weirdness. Back in the UK, I think something similar happens on routes going past Gatwick; I've only heard English announcements on that train despite the airport being one of the ones serving London. Plus, one time I was on a work trip to Liverpool (via London), and somewhere around Nottingham or Crewe a fellow passenger asked me when we'd be getting to "Liverpool Street": https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Liverpool+Street+Station,+London,+UK/Liverpool+Lime+Street,+Lime+Street,+Liverpool,+UK/ https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Liverpool+Street+Station,+Lo... There's also the way my first leg home from university was Aberystwyth to Birmingham New Street, but the train regularly terminated early (Shrewsbury? Or was it Wolverhampton?) to game the rules.
- ajb 9mo ago
  What language would you pick first, if you're going to add non English to London trains? The problem with UK announcements is that they are piped to multiple places in the station, which is all hard surfaces and produces lots of reverberation and echo. This often makes them hard to understand even for natives. Also there are some stations with really terrible old speakers , such as horn speakers.
  - kyleee 9mo ago
    Arabic?
  - ben_w 9mo ago
    I'd ask the airports themselves for the nationalities of the tourists departing through them, and specify whichever secondary language was most relevant for trains likely to be used by tourists accessing those airports accordingly. If I had to guess, French, German, or Spanish, in that order. But it may well be that e.g. Heathrow has a lot more Arabic, Stansted gets a lot more German, and Gatwick gets a lot more French, Luton gets the Spanish tourists, and City is mostly business trips or something. You're correct about the acoustics, but foam panels are a thing that can be installed (or not) independently of this.
xenocratus 9mo ago
We took that train, realised when we got to the other end of the line that we hadn't gotten where we expected, then turned back to the place where it separates. Waited for the next advertised train to airport (it's signalled on the electronic board as two separate entries; yes, it says "board whatever carriages for airport, and the rest for ...", or at least I assume it did, as it was in German of course; but again, it literally shows up as two different trains). Train arrives, stays there for a while (it's a big train, so the part in front of us didn't move so we didn't realise it had already separated), then after like 5-6 minutes it leaves. Only as it starts moving I notice that a small electronic board on the side of the carriage said "airport". The notice board then changes and obviously "both" trains disappear. We were so lucky that we'd decided to go to the airport much earlier than we needed. And don't get me started on the ticketing machines not accepting Visa, Mastercard, or Amex at the central station in Munchen. Or the web ticketing interface which was at least as annoying as the train to use.
- Freak_NL 9mo ago
  American Express I get. No one uses that in Europe. Visa and Mastercard debit cards are what everyone uses and they work in all German ticket machines. You weren't trying to use a credit card where you? What language do you expect the Germans to use?
  - huhkerrf 9mo ago
    I don't think the person expected the Germans to use a different language, only was saying that they weren't entirely sure what it said.
  - eldaisfish 9mo ago
    For a train going to an airport, English. This is the norm around the world, especially with complicated situations like a train splitting in two.
    - lostlogin 9mo ago
      Is it though? Why should anywhere cater to my failure to learn their language and systems? It’s nice if they do but I don’t expect it.
mft_ 9mo ago
Yeah, the S1 from Munich to the airport splits regularly, and you have to be in the rear half of the train. The first time (as a not-perfect-German-speaker) I'd have missed it but for the kindness of another traveller. Now, at least, the announcements are also in English, which frankly is very positive - that DB are improving anything noticeable. (And to be clear, Bavaria/Germany are absolutely not given to accommodating non-German speakers, like, ever.)
tobias3 9mo ago
I'm pretty sure there should be english announcements. Maybe they were broken. You also get this information via the displays on the wagons and on the screens inside. There is a bus/train from Freising to the airport every 10 min that takes 15min, so you are not trapped there for hours. Google maps also has all the public transport connections available for navigation. That it does not support certain things like train splits or instant train changes is not DBs problem. The preferred way to get to the airport is via S8 (not S1). Idk how one could push/guide people more to take this one. S8 does not split and it definitely has announcements in english. They also prioritize keeping S8 running above anything else. I'd also recommend buying tickets via app, not via ticket machines.
tuetuopay 9mo ago
This is pretty common in other countries. I almost got screwed multiple times by SNCF (french trains) where they don't announce which half of the train goes where on the speakers. Even in the official app, it's buried deep: for some reason, it's under "Travel Details" and not "Train Details". It was partially on me because there are assigned seats and carriages, but I was late and had to jump in the train. But still no vocal announcement of "cars x to y go to z, the others go to w".
- elAhmo 9mo ago
  Hah! We had the same situation taking a train from Marseille to Paris. Looked at the seats, entered the proper carriage, sit down, and at the next stop someone came and told us we took their seats. I was like 'this is 74B' (or whatever), 'the ticket is for that seat', until someone managed to tell us that we got in the wrong part of the train, and we need to move forward. Now, the train itself was two trains connected together, and at the next stop we literally had to run like 100 meters or so to make it on time to enter the front part, because there was engine near the end/stop. Not sure would the 2nd half of the train depart, but it was super stressful experience.
- lostlogin 9mo ago
  > Travel Details Where the train is going being a ’detail’ is completely hilarious.
mrbombastic 9mo ago
This just happened to me a couple days ago trying to get from Luxembourg to Heidelberg, got on what I thought was the right train at a transfer but was apparently the wrong half, announcement only in German, rushing to find a spot for luggage in packed train and getting scolded by various Germans and we missed it. 3 hours of travel to end up back in Luxembourg and we got a very expensive rental car to get to our next couple destinations, not proudest travel moment. Next train we took was easiest possible scenario, Nuremberg to Munich, one train no transfers, assigned carriage, app helpfully shows you where to stand, arrived with time to spare. Except the platform changed as train was arriving, announcement again only in German, asked an attendant if train on other platform was our train, “No that train is on platform 9” rush up and down platform 9, carriages and train number don’t match ask another attendant if the original train on the other platform is ours, says you have no time, jump on that train, it is right but we are on opposite side of train and walk through the entire train with luggage again with various Germans giving scolding looks. Peaceful way to travel.
- selfmodruntime 9mo ago
  Ir you download the Deutsche Bahn App, chances are about 50% that it will tell you if your platform changes. Better than nothing.
bad_username 9mo ago
Your ticket was without assigned seat? Because if there was assigned seat, surely the seat would be in the correct carriage?
- alexfoo 9mo ago
  > surely the seat would be in the correct carriage? You’d think so but you’d be surprised how un-joined-up things can be.
- mtmail 9mo ago
  There's only local trains to Munich airport. Those don't have seat numbers.
scotty79 9mo ago
I had similar experience only in Poland. Where this part of the train goes was posted on the glass window on the doors. Somehow I missed it and went to a city I didn't intend to.
kccqzy 9mo ago
Splitting trains is not uncommon. Generally for Amtrak there will be two conductors one for each part of the train. On the platform both conductors will tell you which part of the train goes where. They often check tickets more frequently than usual just to make sure you are on the right part of the train. Train splitting is quite acceptable when the customer service is alright.
T0Bi 9mo ago
When was this? Took the train (S1) last week and every single screen at the stations and in the train explains this in detail and there are probably 20 announcements both in German and English telling everybody which coach goes to the airport and which to Freising. It's not that complicated.
- estherney 9mo ago
  (Also, the S8 is usually quicker anyway...unless you somehow ended up at Laim, Moosach or Feldmoching.)
- mtmail 9mo ago
  Those announcements in English have been in place for 20 years. Neither train to Munich airport (S1, S8) goes to cattle farms. Tourists can get confused if they're unaware in which part of the train they sit.
- rostigerpudel 9mo ago
  Completely agree. They even recruited a native BBC level English speaker as the voice actor for the announcements.
hopelite 9mo ago
To be fair (and I am not fan of DB and many other rail companies), DB is not the only rail system that splits trains, and it is rather clearly indicated, but you have to 1) expect something like trains that split at specific stops and 2) know what you are looking for on a ticket or billboard, partially because indicating that, especially far in advance is a bit of a UI/design challenge. Also, I believe you were trying to write "nein". But why would you expect an English announcement in Germany on a German train? Google Maps? What does that have to do with that; it's an unofficial and only like an 80% solution.
vander_elst 9mo ago
In general the S-Bahn in Munich is a massive s*t show I can report more info about this if needed. However, in the S1 going to the airport (the train you took) it is quite well described that the train splits and it's both on German and in English.
- pm3003 9mo ago
  The Munich S-Bahn is usually a delight compared to the Paris suburbian RER.
hxhebdxbb 9mo ago
But then you already entered the wrong train. The destination of a train is usually clearly written on the train, unless it's a very old one where it's not visible on every coach I agree that it's not that intuitive that a line can have multiple end stops (like Stuttgart - Munich ends in both Stuttgart and Munich, depending on the direction you are entering?
stackghost 9mo ago
DB is infinitely better than Trenitalia. I once took the train equivalent of what airlines call a code-share from Venice to Munich and Trenitalia just straight-up forgot half the train somewhere. It was a total gong show.
selfmodruntime 9mo ago
That fucking Sbahn is the bane of the existence of many tourists. It happens so much that there‘s now a bus line from those cow fields to an airport. You will be late.
mbrochh 9mo ago
I am German and the three times I took an ICE from Cologne to Berlin and then back, EACH TIME I boarded at a wrong wagon. The entire system, their app, the signages at the tracks... it is all complete and utter dogshit.

modo_mario 9mo ago

[flagged]

rwmj 9mo ago
Because it's going to the airport and so might be full of travellers and tourists?
- tirant 9mo ago
  To be fair, it’s announced in the platform screens in a language abstract way, by indicating the destination and the platform segments (A,B vs C,D) to take to reach the destination.
  - bombcar 9mo ago
    The key is that on hundred of trains around the world this is done to indicate the convenience - these doors will be closer, etc. Trains splitting in half are rare enough that THAT is what needs to be described. The US equivalent is the empire builder which splits in Spokane (I believe) but it’s much more old fashioned and you have a tag above your seat showing your destination- if you somehow end up on the wrong car the conductor will wake you up and move you to the right one. A similar one that can catch you (and has caught me) are express elevators or the two-story ones which mean you only can stop at even or odd floors depending on where you got on.
- johnisgood 9mo ago
  Unpopular opinion: you should learn the absolute basics of the language used in the country you are travelling to. Seriously? That unpopular? Lmfao.
  - SpaceNugget 9mo ago
    Going from the Netherlands to Budapest I started my journey with Deutsche Bahn. My train also did the split in half and go different directions trick. Was I supposed to learn Dutch, German, and Hungarian in order to buy my train tickets?
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    - johnisgood 9mo ago
      I said "travelling TO", and most of the time you do not need to know anything apart from the name of the city... and then I presume you have a smartphone as well. Come on. What did you do once you arrived in Budapest? Did you do your research or did you get scammed by the taxi mafia as well?
      - rplnt 9mo ago
        If you travel to Budapest from Berlin you buy the ticket from DB and the crew changes as follows: German, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian. None of the first three crews would speak Hungarian. Luckily all will be able to communicate in English. (regular announcements oftentimes won't be in Hungarian until you are in Hungary, that depends on the train origin, but I would only expect local+English)
      - rplnt 9mo ago
        > What did you do once you arrived in Budapest? You will be perfectly fine staying in Budapest with just English; you can learn hello, please, and thank you to be polite. This goes for most bigger European cities, outside of France I guess.
stevage 9mo ago
It's really not too much to expect a train going to the airport to make important announcements in English.
- deleted 9mo ago
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- nephihaha 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - sho_hn 9mo ago
    It's still an expectation I have, even as a native German speaker. I work for a well-known German company (our storefronts are sometimes called "the German embassy"), and our day-to-day business language at work is ... English. We hire from all over and want people to be able to get around effectively. This is infrastructure. Make it work.
  - xenocratus 9mo ago
    Nu sunt englez, așa cã n-o sã-ți rãspund în englezã.
    - nephihaha 9mo ago
      Ceart gu leòr. Chan eil Romainis agam. :)
  - rplnt 9mo ago
    Honestly, it should be an obligation. DB should make it one for themselves. DB carries millions of people a year that do not speak the language. Important information like route changes should be available to them. English just happens to be the most likely language to be understood at least enough to ask staff/other passengers as to what is going on.
    - modo_mario 9mo ago
      If preventing people that struggle with the local language from getting confused or missing stuff is the goal then they're likely better off doing it in Turkish or Arab.
larnon 9mo ago
Because even in countries less developed(by western standards), there are more English announcements, so visiting tourists can also use the public transport. This isn't lack of speaking the language as well, it is more about not wanting to speak another language because "In Deutschland muss man Deutsch sprechen." It is reaching French level of racism at this point. Funny for a country that wants to attract so many international expats.
- nephihaha 9mo ago
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  - stoneforger 9mo ago
    Lingua Franca predates colonialism. Latin predates Lingua Franca, although one can argue Latin was forced down due to the Roman Empire's extensive reach and size. Ancient Greek also served a similar role. One doesn't need to learn each others language as long as they all know one common language. One could argue for Esperanto, or a purely symbolic language like traffic icons, but you need to learn that one too. So it makes more sense to use a fit for purpose language for travel that has no ambiguities. You can even create a graph that can be queried. There's all sorts of ways to solve this with as little pain as possible as long as you care to. And wanting people to just learn the local language to traverse a transport network is chauvinism.
    - nephihaha 9mo ago
      The term "lingua franca" comes out of the Holy Roman Empire and Norman expansion, and later French imperialism, which gave it high status. But I have long wondered whether many European languages will end up in the same state as Welsh or Basque or Sorbian. Icelandic is already much of the way there. Will Dutch and even German go the same way? It is chauvinistic and colonial-minded to expect everyone to speak your language in their country. Not to mention arrogant.
  - School-Cotton 9mo ago
    If you visited Japan as a tourist, I believe you learned enough to say hello, ask someone where your hotel is, and so on. I don’t for a second believe you learned enough to understand arbitrary train network change announcements. Unless you spend years studying the language before visiting any country as a tourist, which would be absurd.
AniseAbyss 9mo ago
[dead]
forgingahead 9mo ago
Belgium gave me one of the more annoying train experiences when I was a younger man. I was in Leuven for a conference, and had decided to bring my then girlfriend (now wife) for a trip, after which we would take the Eurostar to London. On the ticket, it said Brussels-Midi, but after happily boarding the train, we only saw the following related options on the train map for stops: 1. Brussel-Noord 2. Brussel-Centraal 3. Brussel-Zuid So here we were, not speaking the language, rushing for a train that we were at risk of being late for, and not having a clear idea of the actual stop to get off of. And the people on the train? Totally unhelpful. "Eurostar"? Shrug. "Train to London?" Blank looks. Anyway we winged it and made it, but still a damn stupid set up if you want to be welcoming to tourists (and their money).
- ghaff 9mo ago
  Brussels in particular perhaps is sort of non-intuitive because, even (or perhaps especially) if you know a little bit of French, the station names don't obviously correlate to their relative locations. There is a logic but it's not obvious to someone not used to it--and, honestly, I'd have to go online to figure it out again.
- bombcar 9mo ago
  Was it Centraal? That would have been my guess.
  - throw-the-towel 9mo ago
    Nope, the biggest station is actually Midi/Zuid.
  - jonasdegendt 9mo ago
    Hah nope! Even as a Belgian I find the naming of the Brussels train stations maddening. Brussels-Midi is the south station, so Brussel-Zuid. Midi allegedly means south in French, but I've never actually heard it being used over "sud", also south. In conversation, midi also means noon (e.g. used as "meet me at noon"), which for my brain correlates more with central than south, given the context of a day. Not a linguist, so what do I know, maybe someone else can chime in.
doommius 9mo ago
I most most places to English. Honestly it should be default to have the local language and English.
etothepii 9mo ago
Because English has become the lingua franca for Europe. I suspect that now UK has left EU it will be much easier to accept this.
- manarth 9mo ago
  Wasn't that meant to be Esperanto? /s
  - School-Cotton 9mo ago
    Sure, but it never caught on. Not sure the point of your “/s” sign, since what you’re claiming is in fact true, and if it’s a joke it’s not a particularly funny one.
- petesergeant 9mo ago
  Personally I worry about the Maltese/Irish supremacy that will arise as a result. More seriously, I suspect that > Since the exit of the United Kingdom from the EU in 2020, the government of France has encouraged greater use of French as a working language will hasten the move to English in official proceedings. Almost 44% of the population understand it already, and it’s unclear why the teens of the EU who already speak near-perfect English would want to learn French other than for recreation.
- pjmlp 9mo ago
  I still lean on UK English though, regarding way of writing and words I tend to use.
thisislife2 9mo ago
In India train announcements in stations are made in the regional language, English and Hindi.

deleted 9mo ago

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tirant 9mo ago

I guess you took the S1 S-Bahn. Yes, it always splits in Neufahrn. Part of the train goes to the airport, the other section to Freising (a cute University city, by the way) That is indicated on the platform screens before getting on the train. It tells you which part of the train goes where so you know which wagon to take. I found it also not very intuitive first time I took it. But hey, when travelling there’s always local peculiarities to take care of ;)

froh 9mo ago
Hamburg has a similar arrangement, however they make a very clear and unmistakable audio announcement in both English and German. im.surprised this not to be the case in Munich??
sauercrowd 9mo ago
Strong disagree. For most parts travelling is a non-event these days. A train that splits, on the way to the airport where there will be a lot of non-german speaking people, and for some reason only shows it on the platform is insane. Having a train that splits on that route is already bad enough, but you HAVE to emphasize it on the train. I know that I need to pay attention to this, because I've grown up with DB pulling all sorts of fucked up shit, but we should not accept that this is reasonable.
- groestl 9mo ago
  From the top of my head I know three cities which have peculiarities when it comes to public transportation to the Airport. In two cases, it's obvious they do this to push the private train to foreigners, at 5x the ticket rate.
  - throw-the-towel 9mo ago
    Can you share which cities these two are?
    - groestl 9mo ago

ilyush 9mo ago

Same we missed the right stop on our way back to France. We just managed to get in a train going the other way but dB personal almost ticketed us a penalty...

utllitarian 9mo ago

It’s likely some utilitarian reason, i.e. sacrifice the riders on the train for the good of all the other schedules. This is the one benefit of living in an overly-litigious country that has news media which can pick up on a story like this. They’d rather have the masses suffer to avoid the legal fees and bad press, so instead of sacrificing a train, they’d make everyone’s lives worse overall. I’m not arguing for utilitarianism, though. Ir allows dictators to thrive.

fxwin 9mo ago
I think you're reading a bit too much into this

bcye 9mo ago

Splitting trains is a quite common thing in Germany (though more long distance) and communicated in the official app. If third party apps don't show that information that's on their part. Usually it's also said after departure inside the train by the conductor, though maybe just on long distance trains.

pjmlp 9mo ago
Yes, although quite often they forget not everyone speaks German. I once had a bit of Schadenfrunde while travelling in Netherlands, having the conductor telling us to switch trains in Dutch, and all my German fellow travellers wondering what it was all about.
- bcye 9mo ago
  Well it's generally a good idea to ask a fellow traveller when you hear an announcement you don't understand. Especially if it doesn't use words you've commonly heard before. And maybe tell them instead of having Schadenfreude?
  - pjmlp 9mo ago
    Which is what happened next. The point was that even in international trains inside Germany, announcements related to trains problems are only done in German. I speak it fluently, including some variations, however most travellers do not. I also remember there used to be ticket machines in NRW only in German, about 20 years ago.
- raverbashing 9mo ago
  I wonder what's the level of mutual ineligibility between DE<>NL (probably DE is easier to NL) but it's funny how Germans sometimes seem to play dumb and not understand a thing in NL
  - whstl 9mo ago
    As a German speaker, spoken Dutch REALLY trips me up because of small pronunciation differences in almost every word. Written Dutch is way closer. The Dutch seem to understand German better, but my Dutch friends credit that more to education and exposure.

ben_w 9mo ago

Had something similar from Nuremberg to Suhl and accidentally ending up in Bad Kissingen for a bit. But I don't think DB is unique in this weirdness. Back in the UK, I think something similar happens on routes going past Gatwick; I've only heard English announcements on that train despite the airport being one of the ones serving London. Plus, one time I was on a work trip to Liverpool (via London), and somewhere around Nottingham or Crewe a fellow passenger asked me when we'd be getting to "Liverpool Street": https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Liverpool+Street+Station,+London,+UK/Liverpool+Lime+Street,+Lime+Street,+Liverpool,+UK/ https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Liverpool+Street+Station,+Lo... There's also the way my first leg home from university was Aberystwyth to Birmingham New Street, but the train regularly terminated early (Shrewsbury? Or was it Wolverhampton?) to game the rules.

ajb 9mo ago
What language would you pick first, if you're going to add non English to London trains? The problem with UK announcements is that they are piped to multiple places in the station, which is all hard surfaces and produces lots of reverberation and echo. This often makes them hard to understand even for natives. Also there are some stations with really terrible old speakers , such as horn speakers.
- kyleee 9mo ago
  Arabic?
- ben_w 9mo ago
  I'd ask the airports themselves for the nationalities of the tourists departing through them, and specify whichever secondary language was most relevant for trains likely to be used by tourists accessing those airports accordingly. If I had to guess, French, German, or Spanish, in that order. But it may well be that e.g. Heathrow has a lot more Arabic, Stansted gets a lot more German, and Gatwick gets a lot more French, Luton gets the Spanish tourists, and City is mostly business trips or something. You're correct about the acoustics, but foam panels are a thing that can be installed (or not) independently of this.

xenocratus 9mo ago

We took that train, realised when we got to the other end of the line that we hadn't gotten where we expected, then turned back to the place where it separates. Waited for the next advertised train to airport (it's signalled on the electronic board as two separate entries; yes, it says "board whatever carriages for airport, and the rest for ...", or at least I assume it did, as it was in German of course; but again, it literally shows up as two different trains). Train arrives, stays there for a while (it's a big train, so the part in front of us didn't move so we didn't realise it had already separated), then after like 5-6 minutes it leaves. Only as it starts moving I notice that a small electronic board on the side of the carriage said "airport". The notice board then changes and obviously "both" trains disappear. We were so lucky that we'd decided to go to the airport much earlier than we needed. And don't get me started on the ticketing machines not accepting Visa, Mastercard, or Amex at the central station in Munchen. Or the web ticketing interface which was at least as annoying as the train to use.

Freak_NL 9mo ago
American Express I get. No one uses that in Europe. Visa and Mastercard debit cards are what everyone uses and they work in all German ticket machines. You weren't trying to use a credit card where you? What language do you expect the Germans to use?
- huhkerrf 9mo ago
  I don't think the person expected the Germans to use a different language, only was saying that they weren't entirely sure what it said.
- eldaisfish 9mo ago
  For a train going to an airport, English. This is the norm around the world, especially with complicated situations like a train splitting in two.
  - lostlogin 9mo ago
    Is it though? Why should anywhere cater to my failure to learn their language and systems? It’s nice if they do but I don’t expect it.

mft_ 9mo ago

Yeah, the S1 from Munich to the airport splits regularly, and you have to be in the rear half of the train. The first time (as a not-perfect-German-speaker) I'd have missed it but for the kindness of another traveller. Now, at least, the announcements are also in English, which frankly is very positive - that DB are improving anything noticeable. (And to be clear, Bavaria/Germany are absolutely not given to accommodating non-German speakers, like, ever.)

tobias3 9mo ago

I'm pretty sure there should be english announcements. Maybe they were broken. You also get this information via the displays on the wagons and on the screens inside. There is a bus/train from Freising to the airport every 10 min that takes 15min, so you are not trapped there for hours. Google maps also has all the public transport connections available for navigation. That it does not support certain things like train splits or instant train changes is not DBs problem. The preferred way to get to the airport is via S8 (not S1). Idk how one could push/guide people more to take this one. S8 does not split and it definitely has announcements in english. They also prioritize keeping S8 running above anything else. I'd also recommend buying tickets via app, not via ticket machines.

tuetuopay 9mo ago

This is pretty common in other countries. I almost got screwed multiple times by SNCF (french trains) where they don't announce which half of the train goes where on the speakers. Even in the official app, it's buried deep: for some reason, it's under "Travel Details" and not "Train Details". It was partially on me because there are assigned seats and carriages, but I was late and had to jump in the train. But still no vocal announcement of "cars x to y go to z, the others go to w".

elAhmo 9mo ago
Hah! We had the same situation taking a train from Marseille to Paris. Looked at the seats, entered the proper carriage, sit down, and at the next stop someone came and told us we took their seats. I was like 'this is 74B' (or whatever), 'the ticket is for that seat', until someone managed to tell us that we got in the wrong part of the train, and we need to move forward. Now, the train itself was two trains connected together, and at the next stop we literally had to run like 100 meters or so to make it on time to enter the front part, because there was engine near the end/stop. Not sure would the 2nd half of the train depart, but it was super stressful experience.
lostlogin 9mo ago
> Travel Details Where the train is going being a ’detail’ is completely hilarious.

mrbombastic 9mo ago

This just happened to me a couple days ago trying to get from Luxembourg to Heidelberg, got on what I thought was the right train at a transfer but was apparently the wrong half, announcement only in German, rushing to find a spot for luggage in packed train and getting scolded by various Germans and we missed it. 3 hours of travel to end up back in Luxembourg and we got a very expensive rental car to get to our next couple destinations, not proudest travel moment. Next train we took was easiest possible scenario, Nuremberg to Munich, one train no transfers, assigned carriage, app helpfully shows you where to stand, arrived with time to spare. Except the platform changed as train was arriving, announcement again only in German, asked an attendant if train on other platform was our train, “No that train is on platform 9” rush up and down platform 9, carriages and train number don’t match ask another attendant if the original train on the other platform is ours, says you have no time, jump on that train, it is right but we are on opposite side of train and walk through the entire train with luggage again with various Germans giving scolding looks. Peaceful way to travel.

selfmodruntime 9mo ago
Ir you download the Deutsche Bahn App, chances are about 50% that it will tell you if your platform changes. Better than nothing.

bad_username 9mo ago

Your ticket was without assigned seat? Because if there was assigned seat, surely the seat would be in the correct carriage?

alexfoo 9mo ago
> surely the seat would be in the correct carriage? You’d think so but you’d be surprised how un-joined-up things can be.
mtmail 9mo ago
There's only local trains to Munich airport. Those don't have seat numbers.

scotty79 9mo ago

I had similar experience only in Poland. Where this part of the train goes was posted on the glass window on the doors. Somehow I missed it and went to a city I didn't intend to.

kccqzy 9mo ago

Splitting trains is not uncommon. Generally for Amtrak there will be two conductors one for each part of the train. On the platform both conductors will tell you which part of the train goes where. They often check tickets more frequently than usual just to make sure you are on the right part of the train. Train splitting is quite acceptable when the customer service is alright.

T0Bi 9mo ago

When was this? Took the train (S1) last week and every single screen at the stations and in the train explains this in detail and there are probably 20 announcements both in German and English telling everybody which coach goes to the airport and which to Freising. It's not that complicated.

estherney 9mo ago
(Also, the S8 is usually quicker anyway...unless you somehow ended up at Laim, Moosach or Feldmoching.)
mtmail 9mo ago
Those announcements in English have been in place for 20 years. Neither train to Munich airport (S1, S8) goes to cattle farms. Tourists can get confused if they're unaware in which part of the train they sit.
rostigerpudel 9mo ago
Completely agree. They even recruited a native BBC level English speaker as the voice actor for the announcements.

hopelite 9mo ago

To be fair (and I am not fan of DB and many other rail companies), DB is not the only rail system that splits trains, and it is rather clearly indicated, but you have to 1) expect something like trains that split at specific stops and 2) know what you are looking for on a ticket or billboard, partially because indicating that, especially far in advance is a bit of a UI/design challenge. Also, I believe you were trying to write "nein". But why would you expect an English announcement in Germany on a German train? Google Maps? What does that have to do with that; it's an unofficial and only like an 80% solution.

vander_elst 9mo ago

In general the S-Bahn in Munich is a massive s*t show I can report more info about this if needed. However, in the S1 going to the airport (the train you took) it is quite well described that the train splits and it's both on German and in English.

pm3003 9mo ago
The Munich S-Bahn is usually a delight compared to the Paris suburbian RER.

hxhebdxbb 9mo ago

But then you already entered the wrong train. The destination of a train is usually clearly written on the train, unless it's a very old one where it's not visible on every coach I agree that it's not that intuitive that a line can have multiple end stops (like Stuttgart - Munich ends in both Stuttgart and Munich, depending on the direction you are entering?

stackghost 9mo ago

DB is infinitely better than Trenitalia. I once took the train equivalent of what airlines call a code-share from Venice to Munich and Trenitalia just straight-up forgot half the train somewhere. It was a total gong show.

selfmodruntime 9mo ago

That fucking Sbahn is the bane of the existence of many tourists. It happens so much that there‘s now a bus line from those cow fields to an airport. You will be late.

mbrochh 9mo ago

I am German and the three times I took an ICE from Cologne to Berlin and then back, EACH TIME I boarded at a wrong wagon. The entire system, their app, the signages at the tracks... it is all complete and utter dogshit.