but… why? i reserved the seat. there were no seats available in the rest of the train. would they rather i sat on the floor?
there was an older woman who tried to sleep next to the door in an adjoining car. she had to move every time the train stopped. that seems insane to me.
You reserved the seat, but didn’t have a valid ticket for first class. So yes, either stand,sit on the floor until another seat becomes available, have a meal in the dining car, or take another train if you have a flexible ticket. (You don’t need a reservation to board the train, and some people travel on season tickets or flexible fares where you can choose freely any train).
If you want to be guaranteed a seat buy a reservation in your class
You can pay a surcharge to upgrade your ticket. But the seat reservation just reserves a seat, not the right to travel in that class or on that train without a valid ticket. It’s not linked to a ticket or a name
Most people also prefer to sit on the floor or stand than to not travel on that service and be forced to wait an hour or two
In other countries like France, Italy or Spain it’s like Airplanes on their long-distance services, everyone with a ticket is assigned a seat. And the reservation is linked to the ticket. But in central Europe we fortunately don’t do it this way (with the exception of Poland and Sweden).
(In France and Spain they do this even on some regional services, but their national operators forget sometimes that they are Railways and not Airlines)
i want to add that this was a long-haul night train (münchen to hamburg), so no dining car, few stops, and a travel time of about 9 hours. in that circumstance, selling more tickets than there exists seating seems negligent. the bathrooms were all closed, there were no sleeping cars, there was a police inspection at four in the morning, people were propped up against every wall in the train trying to sleep in peace… it is without exception the worst experience i’ve ever had on a train, and i was once stuck in jörn for four hours in a train car without electricity in -30 weather.
i don’t understand how the separate reservation system is better in any way.
this is what i meant about the rules thing: it is expected that you know how it works, nobody will tell you, and if you do it wrong you will be yelled at and/or fined. i would much rather that the site told me “hey, you need a first-class ticket for a seat reservation in first class”.
You know there is a Long Haul Night train between Munich and Hamburg with real Beds, Showers and complimentary breakfast. Or sleeping Pods if you’re on a budget.
Can you honestly justify seats in the first class being left empty, while people in the second class have nowhere to sit? There’s so many ways to improve the situation here without anyone actually being hurt. Can’t we all take a step back and see how crazy this actually this?
Well you can always avoid sitting on the floor by paying the 5€ for seat reservations for the entire journey during the time of booking. And if it tells you there that no more seats are available you can make an informed decision on how badly you want to be on this service and if you want to pay the first class fare.
Long-distance train journeys are unfortunately not subsidized by our moronic government so the state operator needs to earn back the money to operate the train or there will be no long distance train anymore in the future.
And our traffic minister just hiked track charges for them by 30%
So you just see absolutely no issue with those seats being kept empty while people don’t have anywhere to sleep. Cool, not a sign of a broken system at all.
but… why? i reserved the seat. there were no seats available in the rest of the train. would they rather i sat on the floor?
there was an older woman who tried to sleep next to the door in an adjoining car. she had to move every time the train stopped. that seems insane to me.
You reserved the seat, but didn’t have a valid ticket for first class. So yes, either stand,sit on the floor until another seat becomes available, have a meal in the dining car, or take another train if you have a flexible ticket. (You don’t need a reservation to board the train, and some people travel on season tickets or flexible fares where you can choose freely any train).
If you want to be guaranteed a seat buy a reservation in your class
You can pay a surcharge to upgrade your ticket. But the seat reservation just reserves a seat, not the right to travel in that class or on that train without a valid ticket. It’s not linked to a ticket or a name
Most people also prefer to sit on the floor or stand than to not travel on that service and be forced to wait an hour or two
In other countries like France, Italy or Spain it’s like Airplanes on their long-distance services, everyone with a ticket is assigned a seat. And the reservation is linked to the ticket. But in central Europe we fortunately don’t do it this way (with the exception of Poland and Sweden).
(In France and Spain they do this even on some regional services, but their national operators forget sometimes that they are Railways and not Airlines)
i want to add that this was a long-haul night train (münchen to hamburg), so no dining car, few stops, and a travel time of about 9 hours. in that circumstance, selling more tickets than there exists seating seems negligent. the bathrooms were all closed, there were no sleeping cars, there was a police inspection at four in the morning, people were propped up against every wall in the train trying to sleep in peace… it is without exception the worst experience i’ve ever had on a train, and i was once stuck in jörn for four hours in a train car without electricity in -30 weather. i don’t understand how the separate reservation system is better in any way.
this is what i meant about the rules thing: it is expected that you know how it works, nobody will tell you, and if you do it wrong you will be yelled at and/or fined. i would much rather that the site told me “hey, you need a first-class ticket for a seat reservation in first class”.
You know there is a Long Haul Night train between Munich and Hamburg with real Beds, Showers and complimentary breakfast. Or sleeping Pods if you’re on a budget.
Check it out the next time. Nightjet.com
It’s operated by the Austrian state railways
Otherwise the separate reservation system makes international train ticketing easier and allows for greater flexibility.
That’s just common knowledge in most of European Countries. I can understand that this might confuse visitors who are used to air travel
Can you honestly justify seats in the first class being left empty, while people in the second class have nowhere to sit? There’s so many ways to improve the situation here without anyone actually being hurt. Can’t we all take a step back and see how crazy this actually this?
Well you can always avoid sitting on the floor by paying the 5€ for seat reservations for the entire journey during the time of booking. And if it tells you there that no more seats are available you can make an informed decision on how badly you want to be on this service and if you want to pay the first class fare.
Long-distance train journeys are unfortunately not subsidized by our moronic government so the state operator needs to earn back the money to operate the train or there will be no long distance train anymore in the future.
And our traffic minister just hiked track charges for them by 30%
So you just see absolutely no issue with those seats being kept empty while people don’t have anywhere to sleep. Cool, not a sign of a broken system at all.
It’s pure bullshit. We’ve told ourselves “things must be this way for efficiency”, yet we’ve merely commoditized casual cruelty.
People who like trains with Mandatory Reservations are People who never take the train regularly