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Anecdotally, I spent most of July traveling around western Europe, entirely by train. Passing between other Schengen countries? No problem, you don't even know

Anecdotally, I spent most of July traveling around western Europe, entirely by train. Passing between other Schengen countries? No problem, you don't even know you crossed a border unless the conductor announces it. But at the German border the train stops, the crew is changed, sometimes the locomotive is changed, and on one train the police came on board at the border and asked to see everyone's identification. Other countries, the crew also just checked tickets shortly after boarding, then marked down "checked that seat, they're going to this place". Of the multiple trains I took in Germany, only one did that; the rest had the crew checking everyone after every major stop, to the point that I finally just left my ticket sitting in my lap so I wouldn't have to keep getting it out of my bag. So I would say that of the countries whose borders I crossed -- Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands -- Germany was by far the one with the most border controls. In fact, it was the one that had border controls. (also the German trains had the highest rates of delay and malfunction; I did one six-hour trip to Berlin on a train which had no food available, and another six-hour trip on a different German train where the air conditioning didn't work, on a sunny day over 30C, and missed a connection to a TGV because the ICE was running nearly 30 minutes late)

lispm 12y ago
Ticket control has nothing to do with border controls. In every train in Germany, if the crew is changed, they will control your ticket. They say 'Personalwechsel' and control the tickets again. You don't need a passport, visa, or whatever to buy a ticket and no train crew is controlling your passport. They are also NOT authorized to see your passport. If you don't have a valid ticket, they will ask for your passport for identification purposes. You don't have to show it. They will then call the police, which you then HAVE to show your passport. The train crew only looks at the passport, if you used it online to buy a ticket, using the passport number as an identification number. So they check the online ticket and look at the passport number. But you can use other ways of checking for a correct online ticket (using your credit card number for example) and you can buy your ticket also offline. It also does not matter for 505 million EU citizens. The police may control your passport. But that's it. ALL 505 MILLION EU CITIZENS ARE ALLOWED TO TRAVEL AND WORK IN GERMANY WITHOUT VISUM. Details: http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=457&langId=en http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=457&langId=en
- ubernostrum 12y ago
  I think you have misread. I was pointing out two separate things which occurred: 1. German train crews relentlessly checking and re-checking and re-re-re-checking train tickets after each major stop, rather than (as with every other country) checking once, noting the passenger's destination, and then not bothering them again. This was not an identification check, it was a ticket check. This is primarily an annoyance, but seemed part of a pattern of much stricter controls imposed by German crews and within Germany in general, as corroborated by... 2. At the first stop inside the German border, police -- that is, officers in uniforms which read POLIZEI -- boarding the train and carrying out a check of every passenger's identification. This was not a ticket check, it was an identification check. At that border stop I was also asked, by an officer who did not speak sufficient English (and I speak no German, only English and French) and so had to show me printed cards and ask me to point to answers, the purpose of my visit to Germany and the duration of my stay in Germany. This was asked despite my already having legally entered and having remained continuously within the Schengen area (my passport, already displayed by that point, contained the entry stamp, ironically from an airport in Germany), and despite my already having entered Germany twice on that trip. As a result I am extremely skeptical of the idea that Germany has an "open border" or "no border controls" for intra-Schengen travel. That border stop on a train, coming from another Schengen country into Germany, was actually more in-depth than the examination at my initial entry in Frankfurt airport.
  - skrebbel 12y ago
    The part you misunderstood was that that police officer couldn't have denied you entry into the country. He could have taken you to the police station for questioning, just like the police in any other country can if they think there's grounds for it. Basically, you ran into a police patrol that happened to be near the border. It could've been a random check for illegal activity (drug trafficking, etc), or they might have been looking for something in particular. It was not a border control, and the German borders aren't more open or closed just because their police is relatively eager to do patrols. As a counterpoint, I was once stopped by German police on the highway near Hannover - far, far away from any border, and asked the same questions you were asked. I'm from the Netherlands, and I travel into Germany many times a year, by all kinds of means of transport. I've been stopped near the border (also on a train, much like your story actually) exactly once. You just had bad luck. Finally, while the Schengen treaty has a lot to say about freedom of movement, there's no section about welcome hugs.

lispm 12y ago

Ticket control has nothing to do with border controls. In every train in Germany, if the crew is changed, they will control your ticket. They say 'Personalwechsel' and control the tickets again. You don't need a passport, visa, or whatever to buy a ticket and no train crew is controlling your passport. They are also NOT authorized to see your passport. If you don't have a valid ticket, they will ask for your passport for identification purposes. You don't have to show it. They will then call the police, which you then HAVE to show your passport. The train crew only looks at the passport, if you used it online to buy a ticket, using the passport number as an identification number. So they check the online ticket and look at the passport number. But you can use other ways of checking for a correct online ticket (using your credit card number for example) and you can buy your ticket also offline. It also does not matter for 505 million EU citizens. The police may control your passport. But that's it. ALL 505 MILLION EU CITIZENS ARE ALLOWED TO TRAVEL AND WORK IN GERMANY WITHOUT VISUM. Details: http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=457&langId=en http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=457&langId=en

ubernostrum 12y ago
I think you have misread. I was pointing out two separate things which occurred: 1. German train crews relentlessly checking and re-checking and re-re-re-checking train tickets after each major stop, rather than (as with every other country) checking once, noting the passenger's destination, and then not bothering them again. This was not an identification check, it was a ticket check. This is primarily an annoyance, but seemed part of a pattern of much stricter controls imposed by German crews and within Germany in general, as corroborated by... 2. At the first stop inside the German border, police -- that is, officers in uniforms which read POLIZEI -- boarding the train and carrying out a check of every passenger's identification. This was not a ticket check, it was an identification check. At that border stop I was also asked, by an officer who did not speak sufficient English (and I speak no German, only English and French) and so had to show me printed cards and ask me to point to answers, the purpose of my visit to Germany and the duration of my stay in Germany. This was asked despite my already having legally entered and having remained continuously within the Schengen area (my passport, already displayed by that point, contained the entry stamp, ironically from an airport in Germany), and despite my already having entered Germany twice on that trip. As a result I am extremely skeptical of the idea that Germany has an "open border" or "no border controls" for intra-Schengen travel. That border stop on a train, coming from another Schengen country into Germany, was actually more in-depth than the examination at my initial entry in Frankfurt airport.
- skrebbel 12y ago
  The part you misunderstood was that that police officer couldn't have denied you entry into the country. He could have taken you to the police station for questioning, just like the police in any other country can if they think there's grounds for it. Basically, you ran into a police patrol that happened to be near the border. It could've been a random check for illegal activity (drug trafficking, etc), or they might have been looking for something in particular. It was not a border control, and the German borders aren't more open or closed just because their police is relatively eager to do patrols. As a counterpoint, I was once stopped by German police on the highway near Hannover - far, far away from any border, and asked the same questions you were asked. I'm from the Netherlands, and I travel into Germany many times a year, by all kinds of means of transport. I've been stopped near the border (also on a train, much like your story actually) exactly once. You just had bad luck. Finally, while the Schengen treaty has a lot to say about freedom of movement, there's no section about welcome hugs.