Train

With its well-known technology, it’s not surprising that Germany has some options for fast trains. So it’s easy to travel within places in Germany as the railway infrastructure is very good.

Of course the service travel is in correlation with the price. The faster the train is, the price is expensive. And the slower ones are cheaper. For example: From Bremen to Frankfurt using fast (and of course, expensive) train could take 3,5 h travel.

ICE, one of the fast trains

While using the cheaper ones could take more than 7 h! For comparison, driving from Bremen to Frankfurt only takes about 4 h!! So yes, it’s complicated in deciding which train that we should take. Especially if you travel alone, sitting on the train for a long times can make you feel uneasy or even nervous. You have to be well-equipped with whole bunch of self-entertainment like books, songs and movies in iPod, or even making Origami…!

RB, one of the slow trains

You have to think wisely whether the cheaper price is worth it comparing to all the boredom and the opportunity to spend time longer at the place of your destination.

Train Seats
In Germany, if you buy a train ticket, that’s just for the fare cost and not including the seat. To get a seat, you have to pay extra. I’d rather to pay extra € 2 for a seat rather than walking along all the wagons to find one. But most of people tend to do the later.

And if you want to do this, you also have to know the route as reserved seats are written with detail travel. For example if you travel from Bonn to Bremen and you find a reserved seat with Köln-Dortmund written on it, that means this ‘empty’ seat will only available from Bonn to Köln and then the person that has reserved it will come. Another example, if you travel from Bonn to Köln and there’s empty reserved seat with ‘Dortmund-Bremen’ then you can seat there without worry. Once I tried to take a train without seat reservation and I end up have to move my seat 3 times!!!

But this seat problem only applies for the fast train. The slow train doesn’t even have seat number. You can just seat everywhere in an empty seat.

Train Punctuality
Although is not as worse as in Indonesia, the train is frequently late. But the term late in here means less than 5 minutes while in Indonesia it might be late for hour.

Once when I was in Frankfurt central station, I keep hearing the announcement that some trains are delayed. That must be a special day!

When I visit my friend in Sankt Wendel, I have to take fast train and continued with slow train. And when I have to go back, actually I am late to arrive in the station. But Thank God, the slow train is also late for 3 minutes so I don’t miss my connection!! Imagine, if I have missed it, I have to pay extra to get into the next scheduled train…!!!