“Adults hide in the toilet” – train drivers report on ICE chaos

Created: 05/12/2022 13:28

By: Jakob Koch

Anyone who wants to catch a train despite having a valid ticket could sometimes be unlucky.

An ICE passenger reports strange scenes.

Hamburg – No train driver would wish for this scenario: Despite a valid ticket for the train, a ride is not possible.

This happens again and again, especially at peak times – incidents caused a stir nationwide in the summer, as the railway infrastructure was sometimes not designed for the 9-euro ticket rush.

And in Hamburg, too, the HVV was surprised by the rush for the 9-euro ticket - "quite a lot", it was said at the time.

Nevertheless, the ticket is seen as a success - the 49-euro ticket is intended to follow in his footsteps.

But back to the annoying train ticket chaos: An incident at the main station took many passengers by surprise.

One of them shared his bizarre impressions on Twitter, reports 24hamburg.de.

ICE at Hamburg Central Station overcrowded: "Adults hide in the toilet"

What happened?

"Spiegel" journalist Jan Petter was on a journey from Hamburg Central Station in the direction of Berlin.

He tweeted: "The ICEs Hamburg-Berlin are so overbooked that they cannot depart for 20-30 minutes.

The trains only come in at walking pace, DB staff and people without reservations should get out again," he wrote in a tweet on Sunday.

His addition has it all: "Adults hide in the toilet or block with suitcases." Such descriptions immediately ensured that the tweet was interacted with several thousand times.

Full platforms at the main train station in Hamburg are not uncommon (24hamburg.de assembly) © Nikito and Hanno Bode / Imago

Train chaos in Hamburg: no longer get a seat on the ICE despite a ticket – other countries do it better

"I stood in the middle of a colorful bunch of people, some of whom said they couldn't get the third or fourth train," writes the "Spiegel" journalist.

As a layman, you ask yourself: How can something like this happen?

The reason apparently lies in a lack of planning of the seating capacity - because: Whoever buys a ticket without a seat reservation is obviously not informed about the complete overload of the ICE.

The result are the scenes from the weekend in Hamburg.

Other countries are already further there.

In France, for example, there is a ticket with a fixed seat, which means that overcrowding on long-distance trains is not possible.

After train chaos in Hamburg, malice follows: "I know why I'm currently staying with the car"

Above all, malicious comments about the railways and the railway infrastructure in Germany rained down.

A selection:

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• "It must be that famous traffic turnaround..."

• "That is Germany"

• "I drive the car whenever I want, I have a seat..."

• "'3 hours full closure on the A3 sounds more attractive than that."

• "Well, are you looking forward to the abolition of combustion engines?"

• "I'm afraid that if connecting two big cities is already such a problem, people will still be driving for a very long time.

  Even if they know how harmful it is.

  You just don't do that kind of chaos to yourself."

• “I know why I am currently staying with the car.

  The train is currently still late, outdated, dirty and overloaded.”

So far, there has been no official statement from Deutsche Bahn itself on the incident at the main train station in Hamburg.

For train driver Jan Petter, the trip has at least had a happy ending: he changed trains at Altona station.