Just flew half way around the globe without pre-booked tickets (stand by, staff travel). No problem and quite smooth.

Got to Germany and wanted to cover the last 250 km with a pre-booked ticket with a single train on German #rail (#DeutscheBahn) from FRA airport.

What a nightmare and disaster! Some #DB reps were *very* helpful (in their attempts, esp. as we were travelling with our special needs daughter and lots of luggage). But they were equally p*ssed off by the broken system. If it was at least affordable enough ... but no. Really quite pricey, too (without any special tickets/cards one doesn't have coming for a visit from abroad).

The only bonus: Our son had never been on a 'proper' train. And he was excited to the max. Bouncing around and doing a dance with ever train entering/leaving the station. And on the 'short' (in time) bit riding the ICE bullet train doing F1 racing car speeds he was quite thrilled as well.

Now I believe #KiwiRail is superior in reliability and service to German rail!

It's embarrassing to live in a country where people can honestly say 'if I was rich I'd take the train'.

In the 1980s we had a passenger rail system that could get your from one end of the country to the other, on an ordinary worker's wage. But after more than 4 decades of corporatisation and underinvestment, intercity trains are marketed as a scenic tourist attraction, and only the well-heeled can afford a ticket to ride them.

(1/?)

#PublicTransport #MassTransit #trains #KiwiRail #TransRail

This short video about the sunsetting of "A Box" at Wellington Railway Station is well worth a watch. As a bittersweet window into the working lives of the otherwise invisible KiwiRail workers who keep our rail systems running smoothly;

https://peertube.nz/w/fx4Sfge5mPAWQyC4aQBAet

But also as a snapshot of how little development our rail systems have had since most of it was corporatised in 1991, and renationalised in 2008. Some of the gear in A Box is almost a century old.

(1/2)

#rail #PassengerRail #KiwiRail