General Discussion

Ever greater control ceded to incompetent bureaucrats has been an absolute disaster, and Germany has led the way. What used to be a reliable network of public transportation has become the joke of Europe.

Just yesterday, I had to travel from my office near Utrecht, NL back to my home near Düsseldorf. The train station in my town, by the way has been closed for most of the year, and through service on the route has been out for almost two years. So, I have to get a taxi to the airport train station, and go either north or south from there. The track from Oberhausen over to Arnhem (first major Dutch train station) is being worked on (again), and so, instead of the 1 hour 50 minute trip from Düsseldorf to Utrecht, I had to use a southerly route (involving getting up at 4:45 instead of 6:00), which adds an hour to the trip. That was "only" 20 minutes late, so I was there just before 10:00 AM, where I am usually there at 9:00. But then, there was the trip back.

The trip back was supposed to leave Utrecht at 4:26 PM and get in to the Düsseldorf airport station at 7:30 PM. But--it was a GERMAN train. We didn't even make it out of the Netherlands until after 7:30 PM. Then, due to "traffic complications," once in Germany, the train couldn't stop at the border station, because all routes north (i.e. Düsseldorf) were blocked. So, the train had to go all the way down to Köln, where I changed for a local train up to Düsseldorf and the Düsseldorf airport. that is usually a 40 minute trip. But after 15 minutes, the engineer said he had to conduct a technical review of the locomotive, so we would sit there for ten minutes in the middle of nowhere. I FINALLY made it to my station at around 22:30 (10:30 PM). Three hours late for a trip that was supposed to take just under three hours. A two hour trip took six hours. You'd think they took scheduling lessons from American Airlines.

THAT is what train travel in Central Europe has become. No more the image of Switzerland. More like Albania--AND, flying is, in many cases, cheaper !!