Hi All,
This weekend the DB ICE fire at Dierdorf, as well as a signal cable theft on the Belgium HS2 extention at Liège and then various other technical failures on the DB network added up to make a bit of a mess of the international, EC and IC trains this Sunday.
At Bruxelles, no ICE trains were expected to run, and at Köln the advice was pretty much turn up and go on the first available ICE connection with a similar situation at Frankfurt.
In Belgium there was a lengthy diversion via the SNCB regional train from Liège. This was the advised diversion from the SNCB staff and the route, with its two carriage regional train wasn't really appropriate to carry the numbers expected on multiple ICE international services.
I checked with the Thalys staff at Brussels, who were running their services into Germany via a diversion. They said they would not convey passengers holding a Eurostar or Deutsche Bahn ticket even with a 'CIV' identification on the tickets. We would have had to pre-book new tickets at over €200 on the day.
Are Thalys correct that they don't have to convey passengers who miss international connections? Even if the CIV rules do not cover this, I thought they were also a member of Railteam along with DB, SNCB and Eurostar and that they all had a reciprocal agreement to carry each others international passengers when things went up the spout?
Some Thalys staff implied it was a problem to do with pre-security checks, rather than a reservation issue? They were not good at explaining at all though. (it was not a language barrier problem.)
Must note: can't fault the Deutsche Bahn staff on the ground, who knew every alternative route and every connection and did their very best with some severely crowded ICE trains running on conventional routes - with extra staff on board to explain delays and compensation at the seats and fully stocked catering and of course beer. UK TOCs: take note.
This weekend the DB ICE fire at Dierdorf, as well as a signal cable theft on the Belgium HS2 extention at Liège and then various other technical failures on the DB network added up to make a bit of a mess of the international, EC and IC trains this Sunday.
At Bruxelles, no ICE trains were expected to run, and at Köln the advice was pretty much turn up and go on the first available ICE connection with a similar situation at Frankfurt.
In Belgium there was a lengthy diversion via the SNCB regional train from Liège. This was the advised diversion from the SNCB staff and the route, with its two carriage regional train wasn't really appropriate to carry the numbers expected on multiple ICE international services.
I checked with the Thalys staff at Brussels, who were running their services into Germany via a diversion. They said they would not convey passengers holding a Eurostar or Deutsche Bahn ticket even with a 'CIV' identification on the tickets. We would have had to pre-book new tickets at over €200 on the day.
Are Thalys correct that they don't have to convey passengers who miss international connections? Even if the CIV rules do not cover this, I thought they were also a member of Railteam along with DB, SNCB and Eurostar and that they all had a reciprocal agreement to carry each others international passengers when things went up the spout?
Some Thalys staff implied it was a problem to do with pre-security checks, rather than a reservation issue? They were not good at explaining at all though. (it was not a language barrier problem.)
Must note: can't fault the Deutsche Bahn staff on the ground, who knew every alternative route and every connection and did their very best with some severely crowded ICE trains running on conventional routes - with extra staff on board to explain delays and compensation at the seats and fully stocked catering and of course beer. UK TOCs: take note.