#lifehacks: train travel

Train travel is my preferred method of transport. It used to be air travel, but that is long gone. These are things that I do to make my trips less stressful and more enjoyable.

• If I absolutely need to arrive at a specific time, e.g., for a business appointment or have a connecting train to catch, I tend to take an earlier train.
  
  The DB (Deutsche Bahn) used to have a better record for being punctual. Now, it is not so, yet the DB app and passengers still schedule trips with 5-10 minutes to transfer from one train to another. When they miss a connection, they get really upset. I prefer to go one train earlier, so the likelihood of catching the second train or arriving for the business appointment is better.

• Always reserve a window seat. You do not know what beauty you will experience watching the landscape pass by.

• Book a seat in a department near the first-class department. I have no empirical data, but the bathroom tends to be cleaner in the first-class department.

• Bring a selection of snacks to eat along the way. Nothing too healthy, nothing too large or cumbersome to hold, nothing that is smelly. A bento box of delights and a few crispy or crunchy bits.

• (I'd like to say bring plenty of water. But I don't tend to drink while I am travelling because I do not really want to go to the bathroom. I know this is not healthy.) 

• It is better to pack two small suitcases rather than one large one. 

• This is especially true for older short people. Lifting a large suitcase up and down stairs can be particularly bad for your back. 

• Since I have short legs as well, one of the bags is so packed that I can sit on it while waiting for a train and then store it on the floor of my seat so I can rest my feet on it. This also means I can take off my shoes if I am resting them on the suitcase.

• The other small piece of luggage can be stored overhead. Generally, people will help more easily if you have a small piece of luggage to put overhead than they will if it is large.

• Make sure to have a notebook and pen on hand in case ideas pop up in your head.

• Download several podcasts and audiobooks because you might take a while to find the right thing to listen to. Your mood can change during a train journey. The same thing goes for selecting which books you bring.

• Sometimes, I bring something to work on. I find that working at the beginning of a journey for an hour or so is productive as well it helps me to get into the flow, the slowness of time whiling away.

• I like to bring some knitting with me. It keeps my hands occupied while I look out on the passing landscape, listening to a podcast or audiobook.

I feel as if a long train journey is partly an outward journey of being the observer. Looking out the window or people-watching. It is also partly an inward journey of sinking into a good book or even into a state of daydreaming.

I once met someone who took a seat beside me, put his attache case on his lap, stared ahead, and did not move a bit. After an hour or so, we got into a conversation. He said he travelled back and forth from Hamburg to Munich every week. He worked in Hamburg. His family was in Munich. He had tried everything to make the trip go quickly. In the end, he decided to make a list of things he wanted to think about, and that is what he did; he just let himself think. Amazing. 

Two young men

Witnessed on a train trip to Berlin this last weekend:

Two young men dressed in black hoodies share a two-person seat. They sit with their backs to each other. One is facing the window, while the other hangs his legs over the armrest into the aisle. They talk to each other over the clatter of the train and the blare of the music coming from their mp3 players. The conversation flows though they never once look over their shoulders at the other.

DB Holiday Cheer

I go to the train station to buy some tickets for two up-and-coming trips to Berlin. Late Friday afternoon. Crowded. One DB employee is trying to issue an old woman her tickets for her grandson’s visit over Christmas. She insists on paying for him to come up to visit her, while his parents insist on paying for the return trip. The old woman knows her grandson had a DB card (discount card), but she doesn’t know if the discount is 25% or 50%.

The DB employee patiently suggests that the woman should find out whether it is 25% or 50% before purchasing the ticket. The woman is obviously distraught at the prospect of having to come back again.

The DB employee sees the old woman’s disappointment and offers to let her call her daughter. She asks the woman for the telephone number. She doesn’t remember. Then... how about the name and address? The old woman says “Meyer” (like Smith) and the city, but she doesn’t know the street name. The DB employee checks an online telephone book on her computer for the name. She blinks twice. Then puts on a brave face, “Oh, there are a lot of Meyers in Fulda. Why don’t we start at the top. Does xxxx Ave. sound familiar?”

They were still at it, after I purchased my ticket and I am leaving. I’m a real Scrooge when it comes to Christmas. I’m glad the DB employee is not.

A Complete Puzzle

In the middle of nowhere, stands an insignificant train station on the periphery of a small, possibly equally insignificant, town of Buechen. The station consists of a nondescript grey cement-walled building surrounded by a slew of railway tracks on both sides. The building has two locked doors, two closed shuttered windows, and no one has been sighted going in or out of the building the last fifteen years.

On the south side of the building there are four railway tracks, but only two of the tracks have platforms. This did not stop the station master from posting a sign bravely stating “Tracks 1-4 in --> direction”. Trains, of course, can only arrive and depart from track/platform #1 or track/platform #4. No train has ever, in the entire history of the station arrived or departed from tracks #2 or #3, because, in essence they are just tracks-passing-in-the-night between the other two tracks.

This false designation of information, makes me wonder what was the self-important train official’s motivation in pulling the wool over the eyes of the central logistic engineering bureau. Maybe the central bureau pays their station masers a salary based the number of tracks they manage.

And that’s not all. On the north side of the train station there are six railway tracks. Can you guess how they are numbered?

The first track/platform is track # 140. Yes, that’s right. And hidden behind a thick hedge, ten yards away from the end of train station, are track #40 and track #41. The other three tracks are not numbered.

For someone who worked as an engineer for twenty years and has lived in Germany for nearly twenty-five years, the Buechen train station is, and will forever remain, a complete puzzle.

Gal's Weekend

Off to Berlin for an extended gals' weekend away. Nothing planned! Just an inclination to enjoy, relax, laugh, eat well, look at art, sit in cafés, and people-watch.

I love travelling. Most particularly, I love travelling on fast German trains. There is something about sitting on a fancy train that makes my mind boil over with ideas.