pitastrudl

Me and @lapor@toot.si were part of the Hackertrain event group of travellers, the Didoplocus group, certianly a good example of how to reach the goals of meeting lots of people during a train ride to FOSDEM. Hope I got most of the info correct.

During the ride we found out that the Nightjet delay was caused due to a knife fight on the tracks, so the train stayed at Ausburg and went back to Münich at some point so we were stationary for 6 hours. Well, herd instincts kicked in and since most went at catching the transfer we followed too and made it to Köln anyways. At Köln we went to the DB travel helpdesk to get some sort of replacement for the tickets so the controller on the last train to Brussels would not charge us for a new ticket.

This journey felt like a game of persistence, when does one give up? We went to the in front of the station with the other unfortunate souls and waited. It was an hour before the information reached us that the buses should come in an hour. During the wait, we mingled with others waiting, met some of the companions that slept in our compartments, people going to FOSDEM and just moved around to keep warm.

By this time 2 hours have passed. Some have taken a cab to Liege over the border, some went and tried their chances with the next ICE that was coming soon. At this point trust was broken with anything that has to do with train tracks. It felt like an eternity waiting outside in the cold. Finally a bus, 1 bus, has arrived, took 40 minutes to board and leave, then no bus for a while.

We arrived in Brussels 11 hours later, arrival time was supposed 9am but arrived at 8pm, personal record I must say, me and @kri parted ways, I went to get some ingredients to bake a strudel and a cake for a friend celebrating their birthday the next day at FOSDEM. This journey was quite something but it did make us temporarily bond togehter with other travellers sharing the comically bad situation due to so many circumstances piled together.

@edward@hachyderm.io thats a shame, that tower looks stunning!

When we boarded the next train we realized shortly after departure that we have forgotten in the whole chaos, to ask for our tickets back in since in Nightjets if you have a printed out ticket, they usually take it with during the travel for whatever reasons, this has been the case for many times I've gone on one. We kinda panicked, since I had only a photo of the ticket and @lapor@toot.si had just a receipt stating the tickets he should have in order. ⬇️

On the platform we slowly recognized most people from our Nightjet and bonded a bit over our adventure being hopefully finally over. We boarded the ICE train, even found a seat and left Köln. We stopped in Aachen Hbf which was maybe 30 minutes or so away and were standing there for a while untill the lights went out... "The train has broken down, it is not compatible with the Belgian electricity system, there will be replacement busses in front of the station".

Information flowed through the group of people like a mesh, you'd overhear some things and then pass them a long other groups, hoping for more. The information tricked as following: - The busses are blue from , there are 10 of them - The busses have to be turned around due to construction - The busses are coming, they got stuck somewhere - The busses are not going to Brussels but to Liege, a town just after the border Each time, you were not sure if the buses were actually coming

Two more came, filled up and left as well. The next one arrived which we finally managed to get on, after 3 hours waiting outside and I was not even sure if it fit everyone inside. To note, lots of people also left the station in search for alternatives so the final group size was much less than 3 hours ago.

It felt good to finally sit somewhere warm for the next hour but the obsessive checking for connections did not stop as we had to catch the next train in Liege or wait outside again for an hour. When we arrived at the station, people ran to the station and some of us luckily caught the train thanks to someone holding the door. At this point we were numb from the journey and just trying to forget the whole thing.

@froderik@hachyderm.io At least some indeed, the ICE 16 is cancelled but not the 314, so i think that is the one that will bring us to Brussels. http://b-europe.com/ <- strike info

others that we are still in Munich which is 455km from our destination. We quickly packed up, got some information on which train to take next and got our breakfasts which we had to eat out in the cold since they had to empty the train, a less than welcome awakening. A worthy note, me @lapor@toot.si who travelled together got physical tickets for the first time since we got some special discount from our provider (Slovenske Železnice). ⬇️

The train controller knew about the Nightjet situation and gave us no flack. The next hour or so were spent on trying to see what connections to take. The controllers suggestion was to exit at Mannheim Hbf and board the train ICE 202 to Köln but that had a 7 minute transfer time which it was already getting late, We were unsure why would we take it anyways since the 692 goes to Köln anyways. ⬇️

The helpdesk person did not understand why we had to give our Nightjet tickets and there was a slight language barrier. Only when another English speaking employee and the manager? arrived we decoded the situation and told us there is not much they can do, which I understand the constraints of the system. They did however write down a hand written and stamped note that "Customer No. 1 had a photo of the ticket and Customer No. 2 had a receipt of the ticket" and

the rest I assume it was some words to plead to let us ride. It was reassuring to have at least something when no options were present before. We the rest of the time to have pizza and visit the Köln cathedral which is absolutely massive. Since the Belgian strikes cancelled some ICE trains to Brussels from Köln we did not have many options left, the next available connection was the ICE 314.

@linos@graz.social Ah yeah that, I heard then afterwards that was the issue, thanks for the info. I was talking about the train situation with some fellow FOSDEM goers on the 692, were you there too?

@kirschner@mastodon.social @fsfe@mastodon.social thanks ! I was hovering around as well at FOSDEM, maybe we cross paths next time :).