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Comment by JonChesterfield | Hacker News Reader

Sounds alright really. Less dystopian than living in Google's car park. Doesn't work with dog or family and I'm not sure about being stuck near train stations at destinations, folding bicycle would improve things. Not remotely surprised that he's a programmer.

This is essentially living subsidised by the train company who didn't expect someone to take an unlimited train ticket quite that literally. One guy doing this could be interpreted as marketing. A hundred would focus the operator's mind on words like "fair use". Drawing attention to himself like this may mark the end of this experience.

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This kid is 17. What a chad! As long as he doesn't let less interesting people beat the creative spirit out of him, he's going to go places in life. I mean he's already doing so, about 800 miles worth of places per day

Or he just dwells on this one thing for the rest of his life like many others did before him...

In my exp if they're dwelling on one thing, they fell into it. Engineering a situation implies they worked out how to control things in their environment.

Not all environments are conducive to musterable control but when it lines up stuff can happen.

Great thing to do when you're young, why not. I slept on a mattress in a closet for a year. Standards increase as you age, not just because you can but because you get increasingly tired. I held out as long as I could, sleeping in cheap hostels when traveling, but after one night of drunk people coming into the dorm causing days of fatigue I realized it's time to up the standards. Or just not travel.

Does "Chad" have positive connotations now? When I was younger it was fairly derogatory.

I believe incels co-opted and elevated Chads (using it to essentially refer to guys who have sex) and it became memed outside of just the incel community.

https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/virgin-vs-chad-meme/

So it went from "asshole" to "asshole who has lots of sex" to "guy who has lots of sex"? That kind of makes sense.

Exactly! My understanding is the incels believe women are responding favorably to that asshole behavior thus the connection to the original meaning but also how it tied into their obsession. Not sure that way of thinking has worked out well for anyone save for being a redemption arc for the Chads of the world.

> Drawing attention to himself like this may mark the end of this experience.

Unlikely, the FAQ on the ordering page explicitly states that the Bahncard 100 can be used for "any number of trips": https://www.bahn.de/angebot/bahncard/bahncard100-1-klasse.

Also, 7714 Euros is expensive (it's more than I pay for a year's rent in a small appartment in Berlin for instance).

I guess he's eating the additional cost for a 1st class Bahncard 100 because the 1st class usually isn't as extremely overcrowded as the 2nd class.

7714 per year is 600 per month

€600/month In Dublin would get you a 1m2 closet and shit bucket

Granted, I have a fairly "old" rent contract from before Berlin became posh. I guess the kid looked at current rents in German cities and then figured out that a Bahncard 100 actually isn't such a bad deal if you don't also have to pay rent ;) And TBH, as a new experience I can understand him, but I wonder how long it will take until he grows weary of the lifestyle, German cities all look a bit run down and depressing when arriving by train. Props to him for giving it a try though.

To put this in context - The kid is 17. My daughter is 17 and she goes to school (11th grade) in Germany. I am an immigrant here so not sure how common this is in Germany but I assumed that kids at this age usually are in school. Kinda feels strange that someone so young is fending for himself and living in trains. Not saying it is bad, but just very uncommon. Also this is probably a "try it for a while" thing rather than the permanent / long-term lifestyle.

Or he could become a drifter and graduate to roomier freight train cars. Probably cheaper too.

I don’t know if that’s as viable a lifestyle in Europe as it is in the US, though.

I started college in the US at 16 (which is admittedly a bit early) but I'm not sure 17 is all that young. And, yes, this sort of feels like a gap year in Europe sort of lifestyle.

> I am an immigrant here so not sure how common this is in Germany but I assumed that kids at this age usually are in school.

It’s very common actually. As you probably know, Germany has a three tiered school system where kids move to after finishing elementary school at circa 10 years old.

Going to school is mandatory for 9 years here, regardless of graduation or not. You’ll leave Mittelschule after grade 9, so at 15-16. Realschule/mittlere Reife is usually finished after 10 total years in school, so at age ~16. Meanwhile gymnasium takes 12-13 years (depends on the state, our schools are weird), so you’d regularly be finished at 17-18 years old.

iirc the distribution across those three tiers is relatively even on average. That would mean that most are finished with the primary education at 17 or younger.

> Also this is probably a "try it for a while" thing rather than the permanent / long-term lifestyle.

Absolutely. I’m a bit of a train nerd myself, but even I wouldn’t consider this lifestyle for much longer. But as long as it’s fun for him, I bet he’s DB‘s most reliable service tester

It's also the perfect age to do something like that. No lifestyle inflation or real responsibility yet, so go and do something crazy while you're young and carefree.

I would recommend to any kid - if they can afford it/have the proper support system - to take off a year after finishing school and just explore. And if you need money, do try some freelancing and see if it suits you. And if you're done, you can always enter the 9-to-5 grind by entering the workforce proper.

And if you have a kid near you in your life, can afford it, and have no kids of your own, consider setting aside a little bit of money every month for this purpose. It really doesn't have to be a lot every month as it adds up (just make sure to invest it to not lose it to inflation).

> German cities all look a bit run down and depressing when arriving by train

Not only by train unfortunately. Pretty much all of the post war modernist construction didn’t age well at all. Ironically, the most beautiful parts of most cities are often the ones that were reconstructed or somehow preserved.

There is literally nothing [0] available in Dublin City to rent for 600/month.

0 - https://www.daft.ie/property-for-rent/dublin-city?showMap=fa...

That is for renting a whole property. You will have to share with someone for €600 per month. Try the "Sharing" option in Daft for that.

Lowest I'm seeing in Blanchardstown for a room is €160 (the lower amounts are twin shares)

Lowest I'm seeing in all of Dublin is €140 once you exclude twin rooms, monday-to-friday terms and whatever "Dublin Host Families" is

I have sneaking suspicion those are per week prices

yep sorry I meant the polar opposite of how that post read! There's hardly anything remotely near Dublin that's in the sub 600 range was my point.

But you're cherry picking a city with a housing crisis (and a shit, corrupt government with no planning skills).

You can get a one-time train ticket from Dublin to a cheaper place for a fraction of that.

€600 doesn't stretch very far anywhere in Ireland these days; you'd struggle to find a room for a fraction of 600 in a location where you can walk to a train to Dublin. Mightn't be possible at all tbh.

> Unlikely, the FAQ on the ordering page explicitly states that the Bahncard 100 can be used for "any number of trips"

They can change that though (if there's a material cost impact to them of this). They could just say from next year that you're capped at N journeys per month or something, where N is a very large number for anyone other than someone trying to live on trains.

...or they could just increase the Bahncard price, but it is already sort of a luxury item aimed mainly at businesses. It's at least more expensive than a more traditional "single lifestyle" (at least outside of popular cities). I don't think they'll run into the problem of the Bahncard 100 becoming too popular and being used to "live on the train".

In any case, it get this article generated a lot more sales than this guy could ever cost. Trains are a lot like hotels. You want to fill every spot you can, even at low marginal value because marginal cost is all but zero.

Tell me you're a landlord without telling me you're a landlord.

"How dare this fucker weasel his way out of giving me 50% of his income! That's MY money!"

How do you do that and not screw over someone who has to make two transfers each way to work?

Also, 7714 Euros is expensive (it's more than I pay for a year's rent in a small appartment in Berlin for instance)

I've heard Berlin is very expensive. I guess it's overblown like some other places I've lived that have a reputation for being "very expensive": if you're really looking, you can find affordable options, but the reporting data is being mostly skewed by outrageously expensive outliers.

Berlin is a very odd city for renting. There are so many protections for renters. I have a friend who's parents bought a place there while she was doing her PhD. She got a roommate who was starting a PhD at the same time. This friend has since done a PostDoc in the US and worked nearly 5 years here (read: the original rate was set a while ago). Meanwhile, her old-roommate refuses to move out, pay more in rent or pay for utilities. Through a combination of ignoring messages (knowing that no one is in the country) and citing every renter protection one can, this person continues to pay only ~500 euro/month for rent + all utilities.

It doesn't help that her parents live in a different EU country and need to use Russian-German lawyers, who seem to be fine taking money even if they can't do much.

I imagine that cases like this have driven up the rent prices quite a bit.

I imagine that cases like this have driven up the rent prices quite a bit.

Can you elaborate on why you imagine this?

I just mean that strict controls over the ability to raise prices & not letting the landlord terminate the lease after a 12-month cycle has ended would likely effect the calculations done by landlords.

A landlord may want a high price to 1) bake in future raises, if they can't be done year to year and 2) a filter to only rent to people with high paying jobs in an attempt to avoid situations where someone doesn't leave because they'll never find something as cheap.

To be clear, this is my inductive reasoning after asking this friend many questions in disbelief at her situation. I can't say definitively that this is a cause of higher rents. Nor do I mean to imply that there aren't bigger effects.

Are you in a rent-controlled apartment? It seems an ok price for a single room available now, but not an easy price to get for a new arrival in Berlin.

>7714 Euros is expensive (it's more than I pay for a year's rent in a small appartment in Berlin for instance)

What apartment can you still get for less than 640 Euros in Berlin today?

The apartment you got several years ago and still have.

That's why I said "which you can get" not "which you already have" ;)

Is the rest of Germany cheaper? That's wild, my student room in Holland ten years ago cost not much less than that.

He's not the only one though. I read about a guy that spends his whole days in trains, driving the whole day through Germany. They accounted for that, I'm sure. It just these people are in, what, the 0.000001% or something?

He's subsidized by the state and other passengers, not the company.

>It just these people are in, what, the 0.000001% or something?

Exactly. It's not comfortable, it's not safe and cozy, it's not that cheap that homeless people would buy the BahnCard 100 that you couldn't find some form of cohabitation for a similar price.

And then there's the constant strikes as of now, so you might go days without shelter or need to pay for hotels which adds up quickly.

I'd say this is a rounding error

> it's not safe and cozy

What's unsafe about it?

Ending up at "random" train stations at weird times with all your experience belongings

He sounds like a confident young man; not one who quivers at the thought of travelling.

Being a confident young man can be pretty disastrous if you end up in wrong place wrong time. "The world is my oyster" levels of confidence can get you in trouble really fast. Not that it is the most likely scenario in Germany, but it is not a place where you can completely drop your guards everywhere all the time. Though I guess he is aware of the risks and acts accordingly.

Given that he mostly seems to travel by high speed train (ICE) every station he could possible end up unintentionally would be a relatively major one

Unless there was severe disruption, of course - since the lines have been so well standardised in Germany, ICE trains can travel on local lines too, so you could theoretically end up in the middle of nowhere if the train service was redirected mid-journey.

That's not guaranteed in Germany. Even places like Marburg have (had?) ICE connections passing through.

He sleeps in public train coaches (sometimes under the seats, if you look at his blog). This means he spends at least 6 hours a day unconscious - and vulnerable - in a public place that anyone can enter. Arguably less safe than sleeping at home behind a locked door.

Very arguably. Presuming the train has cameras, staff and other people on it, it could be argued it's safer than sleeping in a house.

it could be argued but then again you could argue that I'm actually the King of England. there is no question a private space would be better, and cameras or bystanders won't do jack for you until after the attack has started.

Or staff. Even if they are super efficient they 1) will never be there when the attack starts 2) will most probably not risk their own safety if the attack is violent 3) will call the police at the next station, since it doesn't make sense stopping the train in the middle of nothing. The best way of being safe is to avoid attacks in the first place. Being in a locked, enclose space (where you and you only control the lock) is much safer than being in a public space that anybody can occupy.

Armed train robberies are not all that common in Germany though.

In his position, train robberies aren't the first problem that comes to mind. Just somebody stealing my backpack with all my earthly possessions.

Statistically still quite unlikely I guess, and in any case, he would know better than any of us because he's the one who slept exclusively on trains for 1.5 years ;)

How is it unlikely, i know plenty of people personally that had something stolen in the high speed train in Germany while they weren't looking. And he's sleeping in the train every day.

Well, sounds like the people you know are not the brightest. Usually they make announcements on the stations where thefts occur to watch your belongings. (Usually where the train stays for 10-20 Minutes). I also don't know anyone who has gotten something stolen on the train personally.

Don't be a dick. It's easy to lose stuff to theft. It's got nothing to do with being bright.

It's even easier to forget stuff on the train and blame it onto theft

Again, nothing to do with brightness of a person

Pretty easy to reduce the chances of that with a lightweight cable lock. Just lock it around a seat post or armrest. A combination lock on the main compartment of his backpack would stop casual pilfering too.

Theft is though

DB Fernverkehr which sells the tickets and operates the long distance trains is not directly subsidized by the public (even if ultimately the public owns the company), by EU and German law. There may be some subsidies coming in indirectly via the infrastructure, but that would be more so the case for buses.

Great addition, thanks! DB is so complex, I have no clue where subsidies are applied and where not. I just imagined they'd have some tax cuts or something

All fair points, but I don't think the company minds that much. His average price is low especially for 1st class, but they do have a small number of cheap tickets you can get if you book fast enough or there isn't much demand. I once booked an 8-hour international 1st class ride for 35 euros. The full price was something like 250. There is for sure a threshold where it would be too many people, but I don't think they'd mind a few more people dropped 8k on this. First class is not that full and 8k is 8k.

On a personal note, I like trains, but not that much. One downside is that it's not guaranteed that he spends all his time in one train. It can be a bit of a distraction to have to switch trains. And also a bit tiring. Although since he I guess rides without a real destination he can just pick a train that goes across Germany, something like Hamburg - Freiburg.

>I once booked an 8-hour international 1st class ride for 35 euros.

If you book like 2-3 weeks ahead, there's plenty of 35 EUR first class tickets on the Warsaw-Berlin trains.

The marginal cost of the journey is tiny. If he didn't pay the £8500 then the trains would still run.

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