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I was robbed on the train from Zurich to Vienna. Even with the 3 door locks, somehow a thief was able to open the door and go through all my belongings without waking me. It is much more common than ÖBB would like people to know, and they do absolutely nothing about it once reported. I loved taking the night train, but I'm not sure I would recommend it, based on the chance of getting robbed alone

If a hotel chain uses pictures from one hotel to advertise another, that's false advertisement.

OBB should be held to the same standard.

Yes and I did bring this up when I wrote a complaint to the ÖBB after my trip. They offered a certificate for another trip but I would have rather just had some cash back.

We took the Zürich to Amsterdam connection on Thursday evening and were told that the couchette wagon that we had booked was not available once we were on the platform. It was replaced by an SBB first class coach. Those are usually nice but not for an 11 hour ride. Furthermore, the lights don't dim that much so it was hard to sleep. My pregnant wife resorted to sleep on the floor. The breakfast that comes with a couchette booking was also missing. We were not offered any compensation and were told to write to OeBB.

Write them and list all that wasn't as advertised. It takes a long time for a reply and you will probably only get a coupon but the more people complain the more likely they will stop these shenanigans.

This is what I did and they gave me a coupon for at least part of what I paid but I have no use for it as I almost never travel to Austria.

> Additionally from Amsterdam to Zürich 3 people got robbed while still in the Netherlands. This train is reservation only, they could at least lock the doors or something to prevent criminals from boarding.

compartments can be locked, locking up the entire train and having the entire boarding process be bottlenecked on ticket inspectors seems highly impractical

Having the ticket control at station building before accessing the platform (airport alike) can be very fast when efficiently done.

ok, just quickly change the entire layout of every station in Central Europe to have ticket control

Amsterdam Central Station already has this infrastructure for the train to the UK.

On exactly 1 platform out of 15 though, and it took several years to rework all the access routes to and from that platform. It is also already much too small for all the extra capacity it will need when Eurostar intends to start using longer trains.

>On exactly 1 platform out of 15 though

Given the relative frequencies of domestic trains vs. international sleeper trains I'm not sure this is a problem.

ideally yes but i don't think it can be done with the current organizational structure of the european rail network. not consistently, only bilaterally

There is already a bottleneck on these trains because the staff need to bring you to the compartments. Unlike regular trains there is a lot of staff (one per carriage).

Boarding in Zürich you can only enter in one door for the sleeper.

Also most stations are exit only and no new passengers can board.

> There is already a bottleneck on these trains because the staff need to bring you to the compartments.

No, that's just not how it works most of the time with ÖBB, not even in Nightjet. I walk in and the ticket inspection happens later. Yes there's staff outside with NJ to sort you in, but you can walk around them. At no point are they a real bottleneck.

That wasn't the case when I entered at Zürich HB at 22:30.

I've taken that route in a couchette car twice. I haven't had any issues and didn't find the quality of the service to be any different than other NightJets. I mean, it's not exactly luxury travel (in a couchette car), but I have nothing to complain about.

I'm not a fan of the fact that ÖBB couchette compartments don't have locks on their doors. But the sleeper cabins do. Were the people who were robbed in a sleeper?

> I'm not a fan of the fact that ÖBB couchette compartments don't have locks on their doors

The ones I know have both a turning lock that can be opened from the outside by the conductor or anyone else with a wrench (so more of a protection against someone mistakenly stumbling into your compartment in the middle of the night), as well as a deadbolt that can't be opened from the outside without ripping it apart.

I'm guessing this is what happened to me. I was robbed overnight in a sleeper car, which I assumed was safe because there were literally 3 locks on the door. This seems to be a pretty common occurrence

I'm not sure why your toilets link goes up a video of a cute cat sleeping. Not that I mind. Has it been taken down?

I think I fixed it now, lol

One-off anecdotes are not evidence of systemic problems. What evidence do you have that any of what you described is common?

Multiple commenters describe taking the OBB night train and speak highly of it.

Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37810476

Apparently it's location specific.

> However, the different forms of downgrades and downgrades affect the destinations differently. Most of the downgrades from sleeping to couchette carriages were available to La Spezia. Double downgrades – i.e. from sleeping to seat carts – are hard to find in the data. Downgrades or night-chair downgrades or night-chair hooks meet the Zurich destination. A downgrade from compartment cars to large-capacity cars was again almost standard in the last two months at the Bregenz destination

Problems with the Zürich <-> Amsterdam line are constantly in the news[1]. I was not the only person on this train that had issues. I voiced mine at a later time directly with ÖBB unlike others that complained to the staff which were not at fault here. It is a systematic problem and the nigthjet in this state should not be offered if they can't keep it up to a minimum standard.

I don't have a problem with a 1970's train but then don't sell me a trip in a modern rail car with a 360 walkthough on the website when it isn't what I am getting. Working toilets (With toilet paper) is the only thing I would expect on a 9 hours trip, everything else I don't care about.

[1] https://www.travelnews.ch/on-the-move/24452-viel-aerger-mit-...

[2] https://www.blick.ch/schweiz/zuerich/aargauer-erlebt-nachtzu...

I cannot believe that I had a better experience taking the Amtrak in the US than you had with ÖBB :D

Anecdotes - either yours or theirs - are not evidence of overall problems or quality.

They are evidence, but due to selection effects they're generally a small amount of evidence (with the amount depending on the expected size of relevant population - in this case passengers seeing this HN story).