I don't know what to make of this. Of course everyone has a right to be pissed off for losing time because of someone else's mistake, but at the same time the language is... I mean if you feel kidnapped because your train connection didn't work out I am not sure how you'd feel if you were really kidnapped. Was my family kidnapped when they were sitting for two hours in the airplane before takeoff because of xyz? No, it was just an unfortunate turn of events that happen from time to time when you fly.

German railways could be better, but at the same time it's nowhere near the level of complaining the average person makes, as in this article. I think it says more about the author than the company. "It's twenty minutes late, I consider this early". Despite the problems that exist, I wouldn't say I ever had the feeling of being relieved the train is only 20 minutes late. Especially not with local trains.

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tsimionescu 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> I mean if you feel kidnapped because your train connection didn't work out

It's not "your train connection didn't work out", it's "you were planning to go somewhere, and the train took you somewhere else entirely, much farther away than when you started, and gave you no way out of this, and not even an apology or explanation". This is absolutely comparable to a form of kidnapping.

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locallost 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes because after kidnapping you are always allowed to leave the vehicle you were kidnapped with and continue with your day.

Sorry, but no.

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tsimionescu 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If you got into an Uber and they took you to some completely different place, many km away from your destination, and didn't let you get out of the vehicle until they got there, would you not say that they kidnapped you? Would you not be tempted to call the police and press charges, even if they did tell you that they would let you go out once they reached their destination?

	▲	locallost 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You do understand how a train works? * It has tracks so it cannot go anywhere it wants to go * It can only let passengers go at certain places, these are called stations So no, I would not compare it to a random Uber driver that takes me somewhere random on a whim. I wouldn't call the police if an Uber took me on a different road if the original road was closed. Etc. Please start making sense, thank you. I'm done.

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abigail95 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If you want to continue the analogy via consequences, it's not a defense to kidnapping to say you let them go at the end.

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locallost 6 hours ago | parent [-]

For it to be a kidnapping there needs to be a realistic threat you will not be let go. Have a nice day.

	▲	abigail95 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Just so you know I was offended at the use of the term kidnapping from the article but for different reasons.

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microtonal 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Still, in Germany only 58.8% of the trains were on time in 2025 [1]. Maybe it's not as bad as the author states, but it's certainly valid complaining about it. I lived in Germany for five years and for longer stretches it was certainly very common to have a 30-60 minutes delay. A lot of my colleagues would even do trips like Stuttgart <-> Leipzig by plane because they hated traveling with DB so much.

[1] https://chuuchuu.com/2025wrapped

	▲	locallost 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I live in Germany and take the train all the time. There were always kind of clusters of issues, but lately I haven't had many problems, especially not major, don't really remember what the last time was I got any compensation for over an hour delay. The last time was maybe two years ago. I wonder sometimes how these things develop because if you're objectively pissed off that your train was delayed, I cannot imagine enjoying taking the plane, or even worse a car. Like I haven't had a plane take off on time in my life. I took only a few business trips with the car and was stuck in traffic every single time. So objectively despite experiencing issues with DB myself, it's a lot better than my experience with alternatives. Stuttgart - Leipzig has a direct connection, and in my experience the biggest reason for a delay is when you miss a connecting train. E.g. your train is 15 minutes late but you had only 10 minutes to change trains. So other than the train going out of service I honestly can't imagine what the issue would be. You sit for 4h, can work comfortably, it's quieter than anything else, you can have a coffee or a beer, a meal etc. etc. And then maybe you'll have a half hour delay, but you can get that with anything else also.