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Comment by indiantinker | Hacker News Reader

DB is weird. They seem to make their own rules and then run the game and “dont tell the rules to anyone”. I was on my way to catch a flight from Munich to my home (Madrid). I didn’t knew that apparently at one point the train splits into two parts and the front part goes to the airport and the other part just goes to the nearby cattle farms and comes back in 3 hours.

Google Maps - No idea Citymapper - what? English announcement - nien.

Thanks to an old lady, who told me that i needed to switch coaches to go the airport. Madre mia!!

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We took that train, realised when we got to the other end of the line that we hadn't gotten where we expected, then turned back to the place where it separates. Waited for the next advertised train to airport (it's signalled on the electronic board as two separate entries; yes, it says "board whatever carriages for airport, and the rest for ...", or at least I assume it did, as it was in German of course; but again, it literally shows up as two different trains). Train arrives, stays there for a while (it's a big train, so the part in front of us didn't move so we didn't realise it had already separated), then after like 5-6 minutes it leaves. Only as it starts moving I notice that a small electronic board on the side of the carriage said "airport". The notice board then changes and obviously "both" trains disappear.

We were so lucky that we'd decided to go to the airport much earlier than we needed.

And don't get me started on the ticketing machines not accepting Visa, Mastercard, or Amex at the central station in Munchen. Or the web ticketing interface which was at least as annoying as the train to use.

American Express I get. No one uses that in Europe. Visa and Mastercard debit cards are what everyone uses and they work in all German ticket machines. You weren't trying to use a credit card where you?

What language do you expect the Germans to use?

I don't think the person expected the Germans to use a different language, only was saying that they weren't entirely sure what it said.

For a train going to an airport, English.

This is the norm around the world, especially with complicated situations like a train splitting in two.

Is it though?

Why should anywhere cater to my failure to learn their language and systems? It’s nice if they do but I don’t expect it.

If you want international travelers, English is the language to allow that.

Are you seriously asking why Airport infrastructure should support English or is it rhetorical?

If you are not a backwater that doesn't get any travelers, you should cater to tourists who, as a rule, do not speak your language. Even those tourists who do speak a few phrases will absolutely be unable to understand something as complex as a the train spilling up into two before going to the Airport.

> Why should anywhere cater to my failure to learn their language and systems? It’s nice if they do but I don’t expect it.

I certainly don't see this attitude from Germans in Spain.

> you should cater to tourists who, as a rule, do not speak your language.

Why should tourists be supported? Tourists are trashing my country nearly as badly as our largest industry (dairy). Without infrastructure they shouldn’t be encouraged.

I have no interest in having more.

We also have no trains, but I’d like that to change.

Lots of people use Amex in Europe. It's very popular as a business card.

I doubt that it is popular with the actual users, only with the company that they work for. When I had a company issued AMEX card the damn thing was practically useless. In fact even in the US there were plenty of places that wouldn't accept it.

I use an Amex as my primary and preferred personal card, and legitimately can't remember any place in the US where it wasn't accepted.

In Europe it is pretty hit or miss though, unfortunately.

AMEX cards are being used by both large and small businesses. It's accepted by hotels, restaurants, airlines, suppliers, utilities, etc... Small shops are of little importance.

> Small shops are of little importance.

Unless they happen to be selling something you want to buy.

As someone travelling for the first time in a while - Wise has changed travel for the better, and dramatically.

Managed 2 weeks in the UK without touching cash and the transactions between currency were inexpensive and quick.

Massive fan.

How were you using it? I have only ever used Wise for bank transfers. There are travel credit cards without any foreign transaction fees and that’s what I always use.

> How were you using it?

I’ve used it like a debit card/credit card. On phone and as a physical card for tap-and-go on transport. I’ve used it for booking accommodation bookings online too.

Fees are low/non existent and conversion rates good.

germans don't use credit cards. finding an automated ticket machine thst handles credit cards would be extremely rare.

DB machines have been accepting all sorts of cards for a long time (Visa, AMEX, Discover). Local vending machines might vary though.

Starting in 2026, support of digital payments is mandatory in Germany for all types of businesses. DB has been card-friendly for a long time.

Yeah and already in 2025 it's quite common to be able to pay with a credit card in bars and restaurants too, which was almost unheard of a few years back. Of course these machines break all the time, and suddenly the business can only take cash. This seems to be a very specific problem that only happens in Germany.

I've never had trouble buying train tickets with a credit card in Germany. If I had to guess, your issue was that you were trying to use a card that didn't support chip-and-PIN or contactless payments.

> didn't support chip-and-PIN or contactless payments.

As opposed to... swiping the card?

Are there really cards out there that exclusively support that?

Prepaid gift cards (please note: those are not store issued) dont have chips and it is sometimes a problem to use them. But I doubt someone would buy a plane ticket with them.

A gift card isn't a credit card, though... ?

You are likely thinking of branded gift cards that are specific to one store (or one grouping of stores). An Apple or Target gift card, for example.

There are also gift cards that are credit cards. Or, really, debit cards. See “open-loop cards” at https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/more-than-you-want-to...

I am not sure if it counts as a debit or credit card, because from technology point of view the division is blurry.

They are perhaps prepaid debit cards. But you can change and set a pin on them just like on the old credit cards. Because that's what they are - old technology.

They dont have a chip, so you have to swipe them.

Some employers give those gift cards instead of cash and I think those cards use the older technology in order to be cheaper (the chip costs few cents to manufacture). After you clear your card balance you basically throw the card away (very ecological), but if they wanted they can also add more money to the same card again. They usually dont do it since people lose the cards, so they issue new ones. So you get a lot of plastic. Think of this as some pocket money every 3-6 months.

It says VISA on the card.

The companies could give cash, but due to some obscure law and psychological reasons they give cards. The card is still better than the paper sodexo gift cards they would give out years ago that were a pain to use since few shops accepted them. But still it is a pain, since you often end up with a small balance and you need to pay part with this gift card (to clean it up to zero) and part with cash.

Perhaps this is to facilitate the transition towards a cashless society and to provide the bundle of social benefits that companies advertise to stay competitive in the market and attract employees. Just like company shares or RSUs.

> A gift card isn't a credit card, though... ?

I supposed it's a matter of semantics, is a prepaid credit card that is gifted not a "gift card"?

If this story was more than a few years ago it's plausible that the card didn't have a chip. I still have a VISA debit card without a chip, and it was issued only two years ago.

Also chip-and-pin is mostly not enabled with American credit cards or card payment terminals

Chip and signature, which often means just the chip without further authentication.

EMV has multiple options. Many countries (including the US) chose the signature option for credit cards for convenience and use PINs only with debit cards. Before contactless payment apps became common, that was a major source of friction when using American credit cards in Europe.

I'd argue we picked it for legacy reasons - Americans are not used to the chip/pin concept, and adopted EMV very late because of a variety of legacy reasons (massive installed base of mag stripe equipment, and systems to deal with the inherent slightly higher fraud).

No the US stuck with signature for profit and cultural reasons. Europe also had a huge install of mag stripe equipment, and has the same fraud systems, what else do you think Europe was using before EMV was developed?

But Chip-and-PIN makes using credit cards marginally less convenient, and forces people to authenticate themselves to perform transactions, unlike swipes and signatures, something that many Americans don't like. The US is happy with crazy high fraud rates, and crazy high interchange rates (fees for using credit cards). Those interchange rates also fund all the fancy points and rewards programs in the US, and primarily are paid for by the poorest in society (who can't access those programs, but are still paying the interchange rates). Plus high interchange rates mean more money for banks and the card networks themselves.

The EU on the other hand capped interchange rates, so either banks had to get fraud under control, or pay for fraud out of their own pockets. I'll give you two guess which route they chose.

legacy reasons = cultural reasons

Americans are not used to the pin concept.

The legacy reasons are part of why we waited so long to adopt EMV - my belief is that the US had much higher density of credit card adoption which significantly delayed EMV/Chip adoption - to give you an idea, even in the mid 90's a place that didnt take a credit card was an exception rather than common.

I dont disagree with you about interchange rates etc - we should cap them - but as a high earner I'm also going to maximize what I can from that system while I can ;-)

> Americans are not used to the pin concept.

Nobody was. That's what happens when something new is invented, nobody is familiar with it until they're educated. Nobody in Europe were not used to the pin concept when Chip & PIN was originally created (except of course for access to ATMs, which I assume also existed in the US).

> my belief is that the US had much higher density of credit card adoption which significantly delayed EMV/Chip adoption - to give you an idea, even in the mid 90's a place that didnt take a credit card was an exception rather than common.

I don't know why you think Europe was any different, credit card adoption and acceptance in Europe matched that of the US in the 90s. Europe did take longer to hit the same levels of adoption as the US, but remember credit cards have been around since the 1950s, and were computerised in the 1970s. By the time you get to the 1990s, credit cards were pretty much ubiquitous across the entire western world. The US wasn't some futuristic bastion of banking technologies, if any thing, it was starting to fall behind. Today, US banking systems look comically outdated compared to anything you find in Europe.

Your "belief" for the reasons US banking tech lags so far behind the rest of the world are pretty easy to disprove with some fairly superficial research.

My point is we (in north america) often seem retain outdated technology because of early adopter problems - be it the T1 vs E1 conversation, how credit cards are processed, all of it. We tend to adopt V1 of a technology and have too much of an installed base to easily adopt the considerably improved V2.

And my point is that V1 technology for credit cards happened in the 1950s, V2 in the 1970s and by the time chip and pin came around, credit cards were hardly new technology anywhere in the western world.

Claiming that the US had too large of an install base for chip and pin to work would be like claiming the US had too large of a propeller air craft install base to adopt jet engines (also developed in Europe), but somehow the US managed that transition just fine. Americas failure to adopt chip and pin has nothing to do with legacy, and everything to do with US culture has a different relationship which money and how it’s spent.

In Europe people generally expect to be challenged when spending money using credit cards, and that’s always been true. So chip and PIN was always an easy to sell to consumers. In the US, people simply don’t expect to be challenged, and even get up upset when challenged, when using a credit card. So selling chip and PIN to consumers is much harder, especially when the US so happy to accept exploitative banking practices, and crazy high fraud rates.

> But Chip-and-PIN makes using credit cards marginally less convenient

Only because they chose to require the PIN every time. They could have instead have it depend on transaction amount and amount/transactions/time since the last PIN check like what we have for contactless now.

Very few Norwegian issued cards, if any, have a magnetic strip. It's too easily cloned.

Both my DNB and Nordea cards, as well as my personal and corporate Norwegian AMEX cards all have magnetic strip, and they’ve all been issued somewhat recently.

Yeah, but have they ever been used? Will they ever?

Not in Norway. But they very well might be abroad.

I’ve never received a debit or credit card in Norway without a magstrip. One of the points of having one is to use it in places abroad where chip or contactless isn’t implemented. It’s become thinner but the stipe is still there.

If you work near high field magnets, mag strips don’t last long. Chips are fine though so that’s another bonus.

> As opposed to... swiping the card?

People still do that? Are you posting to us from 20 years ago?

Yes, magnetic strips are easy to skim or erase.

Two years back the S-bahn ticket machines at the aiport only supported chip+pin, not contactless. Had to open my banking app to figure out my pin code, as I wanted to use my corporate Amex

A couple years ago, I was at a station waiting for a (delayed) ICE train. I couldn't buy a ticket at the machine or with the app, since the train had already departed (if it had been on schedule). The ticket machine also wouldn't take VISA / MasterCard, only the more common Girocard (most people still call it EC)

Later, in the train, when I asked the conductor to buy a ticket with my Girocard, he said "That's not a commonly used payment method" and asked for VISA, or cash (not having any to provide change, obviously).

For other readers' benefit: Girocard is not related to Girobank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girobank or using said Girobank's Girocard to pay bills or collect dole.

> And don't get me started on the ticketing machines not accepting Visa, Mastercard, or Amex at the central station in Munchen

Wow. You travel to a different part of the world without doing basic research. Hope you did not try stuffing USD on machines.

I would never expect a Western European country to not accept Visa and Mastercard. I say this as an Eastern European. But I do remember that in Germany (and Austria) it's not that accepted to pay by card.

Hey now, you have to read the details in the train booking, or if you think you need help - go to the Info desk - which is for sure there for you at most of the main train stations - they should have explained to you that you should switch locations on the carriage, because after all, trains can be split up… as any good German knows.

And also about the cards, just use cash, I mean, come on. Visa some local coins at the airport lounge or wherever…

This just happened to me a couple days ago trying to get from Luxembourg to Heidelberg, got on what I thought was the right train at a transfer but was apparently the wrong half, announcement only in German, rushing to find a spot for luggage in packed train and getting scolded by various Germans and we missed it. 3 hours of travel to end up back in Luxembourg and we got a very expensive rental car to get to our next couple destinations, not proudest travel moment. Next train we took was easiest possible scenario, Nuremberg to Munich, one train no transfers, assigned carriage, app helpfully shows you where to stand, arrived with time to spare. Except the platform changed as train was arriving, announcement again only in German, asked an attendant if train on other platform was our train, “No that train is on platform 9” rush up and down platform 9, carriages and train number don’t match ask another attendant if the original train on the other platform is ours, says you have no time, jump on that train, it is right but we are on opposite side of train and walk through the entire train with luggage again with various Germans giving scolding looks. Peaceful way to travel.

Ir you download the Deutsche Bahn App, chances are about 50% that it will tell you if your platform changes. Better than nothing.

Splitting trains is a quite common thing in Germany (though more long distance) and communicated in the official app.

If third party apps don't show that information that's on their part. Usually it's also said after departure inside the train by the conductor, though maybe just on long distance trains.

Yes, although quite often they forget not everyone speaks German.

I once had a bit of Schadenfrunde while travelling in Netherlands, having the conductor telling us to switch trains in Dutch, and all my German fellow travellers wondering what it was all about.

Well it's generally a good idea to ask a fellow traveller when you hear an announcement you don't understand. Especially if it doesn't use words you've commonly heard before. And maybe tell them instead of having Schadenfreude?

Which is what happened next.

The point was that even in international trains inside Germany, announcements related to trains problems are only done in German.

I speak it fluently, including some variations, however most travellers do not.

I also remember there used to be ticket machines in NRW only in German, about 20 years ago.

I wonder what's the level of mutual ineligibility between DE<>NL (probably DE is easier to NL) but it's funny how Germans sometimes seem to play dumb and not understand a thing in NL

As a German speaker, spoken Dutch REALLY trips me up because of small pronunciation differences in almost every word. Written Dutch is way closer.

The Dutch seem to understand German better, but my Dutch friends credit that more to education and exposure.

they have access to german tv and watch it.

I don't know about the Dutch but apparently the Flemish don't understand German without having learned it at school.

I speak both some German and some Dutch (as nth languages, I can understand them fine but speaking is hit and miss) and sometimes I don't notice which is which and answer in the wrong language, to me they're almost the same language with a different accent. I translate the German into some Frenglish mess for my Flemish friends to help them understand and it works great.

Your Dutch friends have it right: In German high schools you don't get Dutch, Polish or Czech as a rule but you do get French and English. But in Dutch schools you do get German.

dutch is a bit harder to understand. like some german dialects that not every german understands either, like swiss german, luxemburgian or friesian (also spoken in the northern parts of the netherlands), or plattdeutsch.

i grew up in austria and in the north of germany so i got an early appreciation for understanding dialects. yet learning dutch took me a few months of staying in the netherlands. on the other hand when i visited luxemburg people were shocked that i could understand them when they spoke amongst each other

Frisian is not a dialect, and is not usually spoken outside of Frisia (the Dutch province). In German Ostfriesland they do speak a German dialect with Frisian roots.

i was simplifying. the difference between dialect and language is fluid. plattdeutsch (low german) is also considered a language, as is luxembourgish. frisian btw is also spoken in nordfriesland (in schleswig-holstein) and there are a few speakers of saterfriesish which is the last remaining dialect of east frisian.

I'm German, I don't speak Dutch. But I was able to follow a Dutch tour guide in Den Haag just fine when she was explaining things in Dutch. She kindly repeated everything in English for my benefit (I was the only foreigner) even though I told her I understood her just fine in Dutch.

You have to "adjust your ears" a bit but I think if you know German and English then you can understand Dutch just fine if it's not slang.

It also depends on the particular dialect a German speaks. Dutch is effectively old German before all the various alterations and "reforms" to the German language that were instituted to create fragmentation between the germanic people of Europe, i.e., English, Dutch, Germans, Austrians, Swiss, Belgians throughout the ~16th-20th century by aristocrats driving wedges between peasants between kingdoms and dukedoms in order to define their own nations/ethnicities through language and culture so their royal families could rule over and would find it difficult to associate with each other. It is one of the things that also contributed to the fragmentation of Germany before unification, language barriers that even created unique cultures between sides of a valley that were in different dukedoms.

A similar thing has caused the tension between the germanic and Romance languages that followed the Roman border line N to S that separates Europe.

Ironically, technically speaking, there are seemingly more similarities between British English, i.e., Anglican German and current High German due to various perversions and "reforms" of the German language over the last many decades, in order to drive the Germanic people away from each other.

If the EU were a serious and legitimate institution, there would be an effort to implement reforms that nudge English, Dutch, and present day German all towards better mutual intelligibility, NOT diversion from each other through perversion and "simplification", or what seems to be a pollution and destruction of the current German and Dutch language through what at least Germans have a term for, "Verdenglichung", i.e., the portmanteau of German (De..) and English, prefixed with "ver...", meaning the transformation or application of.

Do you seriously believe that the German spelling reforms were done to "drive the Germanic people away from each other"? If so that's quite the insane conspiracy theory you got yourself there. And lmao at "Anglican German".

I can barely follow German and I've been taught it in high school for a couple of years. I would not expect a German person to understand Dutch.

How dare they speak their own language in their own country on a regional train

They can. But they should also not be assholes with everybody else. And no not just local trains, I got information in English exactly zero times when there were huge delays on international trains. And it happened 2 times from 3 when I tried to cross Germany by train. And Germans (and Austrians btw) are terrible with this, even compared to others. The German site at my multinational company at the time was the only site on Earth which had to introduce an internal regulation about mandatory English, because they just switched to German all the time even when there were people on the call from different countries. I’m living now in Wien, and they are terrible with this even in friendly environments.

YMMV. I worked in three different German startups in Berlin and I almost never heard anybody speaking German in the company, even though more than half of the people were from Germany. Maybe it's different in bigger companies, or outside Berlin?

You are comparing different environments. Inside a startup or a multinational it will obviously be quite common.

But you can't expect low level bureaucrats from a transportation company to start speaking english when it is not required to perform the job.

I was answering to this part:

> The German site at my multinational company at the time was the only site on Earth which had to introduce an internal regulation about mandatory English, because they just switched to German all the time even when there were people on the call from different countries.

Oh yeah, it was for the parent

I would rather say older companies, and Berlin is definitely a different beast. That’s the only place where I had similarly good experience in Germany/Austria, and heard consistently good hearsay regarding this. It’s still way worse averagely than Nordic countries, Netherlands, or even some Eastern European countries. And here, I specifically mean when they can speak English, they just choose not to.

Yeah. I know, I'm from Finland originally. People in Berlin are quite often just rude, but it's just something you have to deal with when living in this city.

I've been living in Berlin for 15 years now, and every time I visit Finland I'm shocked when for example the cashier in the supermarket smiles to me and is friendly. Are they mocking me, is this a joke? It takes a few days to adapt.

Naturally living in Berlin means you learn to hate and love your city at the same time. You hate so many things in here, and when you travel, you're happy to come back because the place you were in of course misses all the unique aspects of Berlin.

I think you still should be able to expect a bit of accommodation on trains that cross country borders or go to airports.

The EU makes travel between EU countries as easy as travel between US states. You can just get on a train from Germany to Spain without any prior planning.

It's also unusual given how much English you'll hear in Germany nowadays (at least in major, tourist-attracting cities) in just about any other context.

Too much English. I noticed this indoctrination way back when they released Ice Age over there for kids. The title wasn't even translated into German.

"Das Boot"

English has been in a hegemonic position over German for the past sixty years, not vice versa.

The majority of popular German language films tend to have English language titles when aimed at the English market, and nearly always when aimed at children: "Goodbye Lenin", "Run Lola Run" etc. I was pretty amazed at "Ice Age", because it would be easy and concise to translate.

The regional trains usually have announcements in the language of the neighboring country when they get close to the border

It was an international connection train, ICE, between Amsterdam and Cologne....

So Dutch and German? Actually, those ICE are staffed by Dutch NS personnel until Köln where they swap with their German DB colleagues. Usually that means Dutch and German messages from Amsterdam to Köln (sometimes English too), and German afterwards.

Or.. english-speaking people forget not everyone speaks english. If you go to another country you have to learn a bit about how things are done there, ask for help, etc.., most people consider this a normal part of traveling.

Great advice which I assume you follow to the letter.

idk man, I get it's nice if things are clear for you, but it's misplaced IMO to have this level of entitlement over people speaking their mother tongue in their own country

I hope you get to learn Portuguese well enough that my fellow country folks never force themselves to speak any other language, in case you happen to visit us, if not, oh well.

I am fluent in several European languages and dialects, human languages is second nature alongside learning programming languages.

As for entitlement, the expectations on international trains crossing borders aren't the same as local trains, which I left out from the comment, it was an ICE after crew change.

It seems to me long-distance transportation services should make the most important announcements in the second language most likely to be understood by international travelers. In Europe, that usually means English.

> Yes, although quite often they forget not everyone speaks German.

Do you complain when announcements in your home country are given in exclusively non-German languages?

This is a bad faith argument. English is (like it or not) the international language. If you want tourists to understand what's happening, do announcements in your local language and in English.

Making announcements in German in the US makes little sense.

How convenient for monoglot English speakers!

It is still stupid.

They still get it wrong quite often. Worst case is when the train arrives in reverse cart order, and the carts are labeled wrong. Bonus points if your reserved seat is in a cart that's missing.

Reserved seat in a missing cart is boring - 95% of the time you'll find an empty seat. Much more fun is a reserved bicycle rack in a cart that's missing. The number of bicycle racks is limited, and they're quite often sold out.

Are we really living in a world where you need to have the official app - any app! - to ride a train?

I suppose it isn’t required technically, you can still purchase tickets at the stations. But oh boy, the “official” app for the Shinkansen in Japan might be the worst piece of garbage I have ever used.

Proper push notifications for train line delays are quite nice, and unfortunately half of us own phones that decided to shoot PWAs in the back of the head (there's still no vibrations for iOS PWA notifications?), so here we are.

Side note: as of now, I have 14 various "travel" apps installed on my phone. Buses, trains, local buses, etc. In every EU country and city there's something else being used.

If you can read a modicum of German wasn't this sort of thing on the timetables in a standard way pretty much forever?

Had something similar from Nuremberg to Suhl and accidentally ending up in Bad Kissingen for a bit.

But I don't think DB is unique in this weirdness.

Back in the UK, I think something similar happens on routes going past Gatwick; I've only heard English announcements on that train despite the airport being one of the ones serving London.

Plus, one time I was on a work trip to Liverpool (via London), and somewhere around Nottingham or Crewe a fellow passenger asked me when we'd be getting to "Liverpool Street": https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Liverpool+Street+Station,+Lo...

There's also the way my first leg home from university was Aberystwyth to Birmingham New Street, but the train regularly terminated early (Shrewsbury? Or was it Wolverhampton?) to game the rules.

What language would you pick first, if you're going to add non English to London trains?

The problem with UK announcements is that they are piped to multiple places in the station, which is all hard surfaces and produces lots of reverberation and echo. This often makes them hard to understand even for natives. Also there are some stations with really terrible old speakers , such as horn speakers.

Arabic?

I'd ask the airports themselves for the nationalities of the tourists departing through them, and specify whichever secondary language was most relevant for trains likely to be used by tourists accessing those airports accordingly.

If I had to guess, French, German, or Spanish, in that order. But it may well be that e.g. Heathrow has a lot more Arabic, Stansted gets a lot more German, and Gatwick gets a lot more French, Luton gets the Spanish tourists, and City is mostly business trips or something.

You're correct about the acoustics, but foam panels are a thing that can be installed (or not) independently of this.

This is pretty common in other countries. I almost got screwed multiple times by SNCF (french trains) where they don't announce which half of the train goes where on the speakers. Even in the official app, it's buried deep: for some reason, it's under "Travel Details" and not "Train Details".

It was partially on me because there are assigned seats and carriages, but I was late and had to jump in the train. But still no vocal announcement of "cars x to y go to z, the others go to w".

Hah! We had the same situation taking a train from Marseille to Paris. Looked at the seats, entered the proper carriage, sit down, and at the next stop someone came and told us we took their seats. I was like 'this is 74B' (or whatever), 'the ticket is for that seat', until someone managed to tell us that we got in the wrong part of the train, and we need to move forward.

Now, the train itself was two trains connected together, and at the next stop we literally had to run like 100 meters or so to make it on time to enter the front part, because there was engine near the end/stop.

Not sure would the 2nd half of the train depart, but it was super stressful experience.

> Travel Details

Where the train is going being a ’detail’ is completely hilarious.

When was this? Took the train (S1) last week and every single screen at the stations and in the train explains this in detail and there are probably 20 announcements both in German and English telling everybody which coach goes to the airport and which to Freising.

It's not that complicated.

(Also, the S8 is usually quicker anyway...unless you somehow ended up at Laim, Moosach or Feldmoching.)

Those announcements in English have been in place for 20 years. Neither train to Munich airport (S1, S8) goes to cattle farms. Tourists can get confused if they're unaware in which part of the train they sit.

Completely agree. They even recruited a native BBC level English speaker as the voice actor for the announcements.

Splitting trains is not uncommon. Generally for Amtrak there will be two conductors one for each part of the train. On the platform both conductors will tell you which part of the train goes where. They often check tickets more frequently than usual just to make sure you are on the right part of the train.

Train splitting is quite acceptable when the customer service is alright.

I'm pretty sure there should be english announcements. Maybe they were broken. You also get this information via the displays on the wagons and on the screens inside. There is a bus/train from Freising to the airport every 10 min that takes 15min, so you are not trapped there for hours. Google maps also has all the public transport connections available for navigation. That it does not support certain things like train splits or instant train changes is not DBs problem.

The preferred way to get to the airport is via S8 (not S1). Idk how one could push/guide people more to take this one. S8 does not split and it definitely has announcements in english. They also prioritize keeping S8 running above anything else.

I'd also recommend buying tickets via app, not via ticket machines.

It’s likely some utilitarian reason, i.e. sacrifice the riders on the train for the good of all the other schedules.

This is the one benefit of living in an overly-litigious country that has news media which can pick up on a story like this. They’d rather have the masses suffer to avoid the legal fees and bad press, so instead of sacrificing a train, they’d make everyone’s lives worse overall.

I’m not arguing for utilitarianism, though. Ir allows dictators to thrive.

I think you're reading a bit too much into this

In general the S-Bahn in Munich is a massive s*t show I can report more info about this if needed. However, in the S1 going to the airport (the train you took) it is quite well described that the train splits and it's both on German and in English.

The Munich S-Bahn is usually a delight compared to the Paris suburbian RER.

To be fair (and I am not fan of DB and many other rail companies), DB is not the only rail system that splits trains, and it is rather clearly indicated, but you have to 1) expect something like trains that split at specific stops and 2) know what you are looking for on a ticket or billboard, partially because indicating that, especially far in advance is a bit of a UI/design challenge.

Also, I believe you were trying to write "nein". But why would you expect an English announcement in Germany on a German train? Google Maps? What does that have to do with that; it's an unofficial and only like an 80% solution.

Yeah, the S1 from Munich to the airport splits regularly, and you have to be in the rear half of the train. The first time (as a not-perfect-German-speaker) I'd have missed it but for the kindness of another traveller.

Now, at least, the announcements are also in English, which frankly is very positive - that DB are improving anything noticeable. (And to be clear, Bavaria/Germany are absolutely not given to accommodating non-German speakers, like, ever.)

DB is infinitely better than Trenitalia. I once took the train equivalent of what airlines call a code-share from Venice to Munich and Trenitalia just straight-up forgot half the train somewhere. It was a total gong show.

But then you already entered the wrong train. The destination of a train is usually clearly written on the train, unless it's a very old one where it's not visible on every coach

I agree that it's not that intuitive that a line can have multiple end stops (like Stuttgart - Munich ends in both Stuttgart and Munich, depending on the direction you are entering?

I guess you took the S1 S-Bahn. Yes, it always splits in Neufahrn. Part of the train goes to the airport, the other section to Freising (a cute University city, by the way)

That is indicated on the platform screens before getting on the train. It tells you which part of the train goes where so you know which wagon to take.

I found it also not very intuitive first time I took it. But hey, when travelling there’s always local peculiarities to take care of ;)

Hamburg has a similar arrangement, however they make a very clear and unmistakable audio announcement in both English and German.

im.surprised this not to be the case in Munich??

Strong disagree. For most parts travelling is a non-event these days.

A train that splits, on the way to the airport where there will be a lot of non-german speaking people, and for some reason only shows it on the platform is insane.

Having a train that splits on that route is already bad enough, but you HAVE to emphasize it on the train.

I know that I need to pay attention to this, because I've grown up with DB pulling all sorts of fucked up shit, but we should not accept that this is reasonable.

From the top of my head I know three cities which have peculiarities when it comes to public transportation to the Airport. In two cases, it's obvious they do this to push the private train to foreigners, at 5x the ticket rate.

Can you share which cities these two are?

Stockholm (SL Bus/Train via Märsta 47kr vs. Arlanda Express 340 SEK)

Vienna (S-Bahn S7 4.40 EUR vs. City Airport Train 24.90 EUR)

While with the Stockholm one, the public transport option is cheap but a little bit more complicated (there are convenient medium priced options too), the Vienna one is really just branding and a non-obvious exit to the train station.

Ah, Stockholm. Been there as a student, went to Uppsala the day I was flying from Arlanda, and the only trains to the airport were the insanely expensive Arlanda Expresses. Had to take the normal train to Märsta, then walk the five kilometers to the airport. Fun times.

London for sure. All three of the Stanstead, Gatwick and Heathrow Express services are an absolute rip off compared with the alternatives that don’t take much longer.

Many people use them out of ignorance, expense accounts or they have the disposable income not to care.

This sort of used to be the case with Heathrow Express in London. There was a lot of signage that suggested to the unwary that Heathrow Express was the "right" way to get into London. Now, especially with the Elizabeth Line, while you can save a few minutes with Heathrow Express, that's really not a cost-effective alternative for a lot of people. (And Piccadilly may be a better option depending on your luggage and where you are staying.)

There are announcements inside the train. Nowadays also in English.

You get repeated hints like 20 times outside and inside the train. Announcements (also in english, recorded, by an english native speaker, repeatedly), the train displays explain it and when you get to the station where the train splits, every display in that train shows you whether you're in the right carriage and you get an extra announcement exclusive to the carriages that go somewhere else that you should change now if you want to go to the airport.

This really is the original poster's problem.

I had similar experience only in Poland. Where this part of the train goes was posted on the glass window on the doors. Somehow I missed it and went to a city I didn't intend to.

That fucking Sbahn is the bane of the existence of many tourists. It happens so much that there‘s now a bus line from those cow fields to an airport. You will be late.

Same we missed the right stop on our way back to France. We just managed to get in a train going the other way but dB personal almost ticketed us a penalty...

Your ticket was without assigned seat? Because if there was assigned seat, surely the seat would be in the correct carriage?

> surely the seat would be in the correct carriage?

You’d think so but you’d be surprised how un-joined-up things can be.

There's only local trains to Munich airport. Those don't have seat numbers.

I am German and the three times I took an ICE from Cologne to Berlin and then back, EACH TIME I boarded at a wrong wagon. The entire system, their app, the signages at the tracks... it is all complete and utter dogshit.

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