Erratic Deutsche Bahn services make our commutes a misery. Luckily, their meaningless announcements are an art form
My favourite excuse is an expression that might one day be emblematic of contemporary Germany. I hear Deutsche Bahn wants staff to stop using it, but it can’t banish it from our minds. Verzögerungen im Betriebsablauf – “operational delays” – is meaningful and meaningless in a way that only the German language allows. One day it might even become one of those golden words co-opted into the English language – like zeitgeist or schadenfreude. (Let’s retire Blitz, a word that is jaded and overused in sport, politics and beyond.)
Verzögerungen im Betriebsablauf is the magic phrase for not getting anywhere fast while also suggesting everything is full steam ahead. It is sinister in a beautiful way. It is a phrase Kafka might use if he were writing today, a perfect description of a situation where no one can do anything but everyone is busy.
During my last trip to Germany I made the mistake of traveling by train. My scheduled train got canceled and the next one would come in 1 hour.
I decided to wait and when the time came, no train showed up, the display said the train would arrive on platform 5, the announcement said it was platform 5, their app said platform 5 but nothing showed up.
About 10 minutes after the scheduled time I went to the ticket office to ask what happened, their answer was a “maybe it went through another platform”.
I went to Germany by train. At the first German stop, the train was declared “not up to DB standards” and cancelled (sold for scrap, I assume).
I mean, the train was exceptionally terrible, unlike any I went by with ČD. People were crammed in 3 coaches instead of 4, there was no A/C and the doors between coaches could not close, so I leaned on my luggage and held my bike propped up against a handlebar at the door I entered, all in noise such that people needed to gesture or show each other notes on phones. The train was apparently German-made, though.
However, way better trains get routinely rejected by DB. Why not just say „auf eigene Risiko einsteigen“ instead of „Raus“ and get people to their destination?