trains

Last time I was in Bavaria and needed to go to a town about an hour away from Cologne. I decided to take the ICE, mixed with some regional express trains to get there. Seemed fine.

First ICE was delayed and I missed the connection. Went to the Information Office and got a separate route. Sounded good as I only needed one change instead of two. Well, turned out, the train was late again and I missed my connection again. I was now about 2-3 hours late already, in a planned 5.5 hour journey.

Then I waited for the next train and it was cancelled. There was no train scheduled for another 1.5 hours so I went to the pub next to the train station to watch some of the World Cup football final that I missed because of this mess. Walked out again to the platform. No information at all but I just stayed waiting. No information coming in at all at the platform but I saw something online about a train coming in "soon". That info disappeared again.

I had been waiting in 0°C weather for about 1.5 hours on the platform already and after the beers at the pub, I needed to take a leak. Went to go for a piss, come back to the train already at the platform, literally 3 minutes later, and I almost missed it.

In the end, I was at my final stop about 7 hours after the planned time. Never again. Plane would have cost less and I'd have been there a lot quicker.