Deutsche Bahn’s incompetency at its best.

We’re having a heck of a bachelor party trip back home after going to Oktoberfest in München.

We were on a packed ICE train from Frankfurt to Brussels. When entering our wagon, we noticed it was super hot when compared to the other wagons. One stop later they decided to evacuate the wagon and put the remaining people in the empty seats and hallways in other wagons. The conductor was very rude about it all and showed little to no patience even though people were complying.

10-15 minutes later they announced that the airco was ‘fixed’. The conductor also apologised for his behaviour and named some factors that contributed to the situation, one of which was he was alone instead of a team of 3-4. We were allowed to go back to the wagon where we quickly realized that the airco wasnt fixed. Even better, intercom was down too.

Upon arriving in Köln with already 30 minutes delay, they announced that the wagon with the malfunctioning airco would have to be permanently evacuated in order to leave the strain station and we had to rejoin the other wagons. 2 problems:

1. Köln was packed with people to get onto our train because apparently, Deutsche Bahn had been cancelling ICE trains to Brussels since 13:00. All the wagons were even more fully packed so we were literally and physically unable to go to other wagons.

2. The intercom was busted and we didnt get the message to evacuate until an employee came in our wagon to tape all the seats off.

The whole wagon was reluctant to leave the wagon because that meant leaving the train and rejoining in other wagons without the assurance of whether or not there were enough spots for everyone. After about an hour, the police showed up and they evacuated the entire train.

Everyone was initially told to get the next ICE or take a Thalys (= pay extra since this is another company). Keep in mind we were on a 2 hour delay at this point.

Later at the info stand (around 19:30), they told us they would deploy 4 busses to take all passengers from Köln to Brussels at 21:00 because the remaining ICE trains to Brussels were either fully booked or also cancelled.

Around 21:00 the first bus showed up. It stayed there until a second bus showed up at a bit past 22:00. Out of 4 buses, only 2 actually showed up. Most people were able to be seated so not a total disaster but still not what they had told us.

At least we could get home now, thankfully.

Or could we?

After about 50 km in the trip, 1 bus broke down. Their solution: transfer all the passengers onto the other bus. So at the moment of writing we’re travelling with 100+ people in what seems like typical public transport bus at 75 km/h on the highway.

At this rate, I’m just hoping to actually get to Brussels safely.

Thanks for the wonderful travelling experience Deutsche Bahn! We’ll be sure to leave a review.

TL;DR; DB cancelled our train supposedly due to issues with airco in one of the wagons. All later trains to Brussels were either fully booked or also cancelled.
Their solution was to organize 4 busses at 21:00 of which only 2 actually showed up more than an hour late. After 50km, one bus broke down and we’re forced to go ahead with 100+ passengers on one bus (half standing upright in the walkway) going 75 km/h on the highway with 150 km to go.

by Namusake