I love that announcement at Amsterdam central station that reads "Train ends at Bad Bentheim due to railway problems ABROAD". The Dutch way of saying, Sorry folks, it's not our fault, the Germans mucked this up... again.
The Swiss Federal Railways would also like you to know that all most all of the rail delays in there country are because of "incident in another country"
The Germans play exactly the same game on that route - last summer our train left Amsterdam over an hour late, the conductor was delighted to announce at every stop from Bad Bentheim onwards through to Berlin that it was due to delays IM AUSLAND!
Yeah, kinda the same thing for me in sweden (the trains are very often delayed here too tho) but trains from Norway or Denmark are late it just says "Late from abroad"
But wait your border control is also the worst in Europe these days if you have a non EU passport. And unlike several other EU countries they don't let the other similar countries (US, UK, Canada, Australia, Korea, Japan etc) use the egates. Over an hour to get through Berlin BER a few weeks ago, JFK is quicker than that!
I remember ten to twenty years ago DB was great. A german passenger told us recently that the terrible service today is due to a privatisation effort about ten years ago that cut back on spending massively in order to make it more efficient and thus profitable. True?
@@formulaic78 Pretty much. Turns out you can't 1) spend the same or less, 2) maintain or improve the quality of services, and 3) pay out profits to shareholders all at the same time. Who knew? Well, a lot of people did. But they were ignored.
EU is trying to make it easier for companies from other countries to deliver high speed rail across different countries, we'll see if they get competition.
When the Cologne-Frankfurt high speed ICE track was opened in the early 2000s they advertised it with "Die Bahn schenkt Ihnen eine Stunde" ("The rail company makes you a present of one hour") as it reduced the travel time between the two cities from about two hours to about one. Unfortunately that backfired quite quickly ...
@@gregessex1851 have not been traveling on that relation for quite a while, I don't remember any problems specific to that one. There are a few other, older, ICE tracks from the late 1980s that undergo heavy renovations right now, but K-FFM is not that old yet
As a British person whenever I'm travelling by train in Germany I do appreciate how Deutsche Bahn like to make me feel at home by ensuring that the trains are delayed or cancelled 🙂
For my honeymoon I travelled 1500 miles on trains from York UK to Bucharest, Romania. We stopped in London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague and Budapest before arriving at our final destination. We travelled first class the majority of the way, and that involved lovely meals, extra leg room, newspapers, snacks and free beer. Over the entire journey, we had 1 hour of delays - from York to London. Less than £400 per person for unlimited train travel for the entire trip (thanks Interrail). We booked miles in advance, reserved seats, and used one of the offers they run semi-regularly to save 25% off our tickets. You had unbelievably bad luck!
There is a much faster train route to Berlin. London > Brussels > Cologne > Berlin - takes a little under 9 hours. I've taken it about 4 or 5 times, and I recommend it.
Definitely the correct route to follow ... plus it goes through Aachen, and my Aachener grandfather was a locomotive engineer for the Paris-Berlin route from the German-Belgian border to Berlin and back again!
Having lived 26 years in Switzerland and the last 3 in the UK I think one of the biggest problems with UK trains is that they are run like budget airlines. The more in advance you buy your ticket the cheaper the ticket. And last minute tickets are often prohibitively expensive. In Switzerland there are occasionally deals but for the most part the price you pay is the same if you buy your ticket a month in advance or just before you board the train. Often in the last three years I thought it is a nice day I’d love to take the train into London only to look at the price and think no way am I paying that much. I suspect the UK trains lose a lot of business because of this pricing model.
They're run like budget airlines in that they're an essential commuter service being operated for-profit by the cheapest possible bidder because the government doesn't believe in funding infrastructure.
Well what I can say is that I rarely travel (at all) unless I have to, because then I either know in advance or have to cough up the money. The entire way of doing things honestly needs to be dismantled
@@evan The infrastructure is outdated. If my Nightjet train has problems, it is usually in Germany. But at least they accept my Öbb ticket on DB trains too. And if I am late, I can get compensation. Also, if a flight gets cancelled, it might be days until you can get on a flight.
@@ZaunpfahlsSpieleVideos It is 6 minutes, actually. Or rather, 5:59. For comparison: in Switzerland, a train is late if it arrives 3 minutes after the scheduled time.
As someone who went via train from around Frankfurt to Edinburgh I can say: I would happily do that again. Not only was is cheaper than a direct flight with way more luggage I could take, I just really liked the experience. I could do whatever I want, read something, watch something or just enjoy the scenery and getting to experience new trains Ive never been on was nice as someone who likes trains. Also getting to see the scenery change to more hilly when entering Scotland and traveling north was just really nice as well as just traveling through countries Ive never been in. All of that I wouldnt have been able to experience on a plane. The first train I took was at around 4am to Frankfurt and I arrived at somewhere around 7 to 8pm at my destination in Edinburgh. Traveling for 16h might not be for everyone considering a direct flight is 2h but I really enjoyed it and consider it an important part of my overall journey/experience.
this 0% chance a train from frankfurt to edinburgh was cheaper than a flight. lol flights are so cheap especially if you book ahead, i just went from belfast to barcelona for £30 return.
@@WookieWarriorz Im talking about a direct flight with luggage. Sure a non direct flight without luggage would have been cheaper but that would have eliminated the only upside to flying which is that its faster.
Did you buy this as one ticket? When I checked something like this in the past I would have had to take two or several tickets because the railway companies weren't connected. I'd be afraid that if my German train runs late and I miss my connecting train(s) and consequently I lose that ticket and have to repay. (btw same if you travel some distance on a local train on Deutschlandticket and then take a ticket with an ICE: if your local train runs late and you miss your ICE you lost your ticket and have to buy a new one)
Also, the plane fanboiz always omit the 2+ hours in advance that they have to arrive at an airport. From the UK to Benelux countries, going by train is a no brainer, it's WAY faster than going by plane.
You probably did not realise that there are very few cheap airlines between rich western European cities. For example, between Munich and Paris, Lyon and Toulouse, only Lufthansa or Air France. I like these airlines but they are far from cheap. For Munich-Lyon it's hard to find a plane ticket cheaper than the train (unless you book maybe 3 months in adv, I didn't try)
Pro-tip, if you're stuck in Hengelo and your long distance trains to Germany aren't working because Deutsche Bahn is being Deutsche Bahn, there is an hourly Westfalen Bahn local train that commutes (at local train speeds ofc) between Hengelo, NL and Bielefeld, DE. That train is designated as RB 61. I'd recommend using an App like Öffi, or DB Navigator to figure out alternative routes when Deutsche Bahn is being 2020s Deutsche Bahn.
@@rulipari It's an unexpected good app. I've been using it for my travel in the Netherlands (where I live). Luckily I get to use the app without the DB trains 🙂 PS: Unfortunately the DB Navigator app doesn't work as well in Belgium, and probably some other countries. The real-time data somehow doesn't always work correctly there, even when the local apps have it correct.
Nah. That's an aardvark in a fox costume. St Pancras is known word-wide for its 'secret' aardvark population. In fact, that's where the idea for 'secret aardvark' hot sauce originally came from. It was going to be 'St Pancras' hot sauce. But the guy making it visited the station for inspiration on the recipe, saw the aardvarks and thought, "Hold on..." Yeah. Ok; the fox was really cool.
I´m a train driver in Germany and your video made me laugh.... staff saw these problems coming years ago. Now everyone in the world is making videos about how bad our trains are.
But how are we British going to take the pi55 out of our friends in Germany if your trains DON'T run on time ?! We've lost a major steroeotype - help !! 🙂
It´s always the higher ups who don´t understand sh*t that are the issue. The technicians and people working "hands on" could tell you decades ago that it was wrong to defund the trains while subsidizing the car industry and highways with billions without any discussion whatsoever.
London to Berlin is 930km in distance. Those who think that taking a train, which crosses the Channel, Belgium and the Netherlands to finally reach Germany totally suck with maths, science and economics. The Japanese do not bother taking their shinkansen bullet train from Tokyo to Sapporo or Fukuoka, as both trips are a gruelling 9 and 6 hour ride respectively. The rational and more sensible Japanese simply take the ANA or JAL plane flight, taking less than 2 hours. 🇯🇵 ✈️
Which is weird because of the reputation Germany had for everything running on time even in the snow. I traveled extensively by train through Germany and had no problems circa 2015. So its sad to see it decline. But thats what happens when things get neglected. Happens all over the world.
In the past, people travelled at a more leisurely pace, often taking the boat train and simply enjoying the journey. For instance, 100 years ago, in 1925, the trip from London to Berlin by ferry and train typically took 18 to 24 hours, depending on the route and connections. The journey began with a train ride from London to the coast, which took around 1.5 to 2 hours (e.g., to Harwich or Dover). This was followed by a ferry crossing of 3 to 6 hours (to the Hook of Holland or Ostend) and then a train journey of 10 to 15 hours, depending on stops and connections. Without modern conveniences like laptops, passengers often read books or simply appreciated the experience. If we weren’t always rushing, we could take a relaxed trip to Berlin, stopping overnight in places like Amsterdam, visiting a museum, and enriching our lives in the process, rather than hurrying through. Great video!
Those people were socialites with passive income and nothing else to do, and most importantly, no alternative. But most of us need to work for a living and have very limited free time, hence the rushing and hurrying. As a University student with more time than money, I couldn't afford a flight but I could afford 14+ hours of my weekend traveling to and from my hometown with the train+bus just to see a friend who was going through a hard time or to celebrate my grandma's birthday. I wouldn't sweat skipping a few classes on Friday afternoon to catch an earlier train that would get me there at a decent time, or even attend 0 classes on a Friday to depart early and get to eat dinner with my family. Sometimes, on the way back, I would take the night bus that arrived on Monday morning having barely slept sitting up straight and if the bus got stuck in traffic, it was annoying but it wasn't a big deal because that wouldn't get me in trouble. In the summer, my friends and I would take a 3+ hour train/bus just to go to a party or a concert, stay out and about all night and take another 3+ hour long trip in the morning, exhausted but happy. As soon as we started working, that flexibility was gone and we cannot afford the slower and longer scenic route. The weekend is exactly from Friday 17:00 to Monday 09:00, and showing up after pulling an all-nighter in a bus will no longer cut it, I need to be well dressed and well rested, since the stakes are higher. Any day I want to add to my weekend, comes out of my vacation days... I wish I wasn't short on time all the time, but it's hardly a choice and more the reality we live in
I'm an old guy ,so you must be getting there too ,enjoying the trip trumps a hustled plane trip. Enjoy when you can .The reality ,being is all there is.
If taking the train to Berlin, the best way to do it is to go from London to Brussels and then pick up an overnight sleeper. This means that you don't feel the sensation of travelling for as long as you're asleep for most of it, you get to save money on accommodation, and there's less chance of the train getting delayed as the lower number of trains running overnight means less can go wrong! If you're making that journey, this would definitely be the way to do it, and is also a lot more competitive with airlines in terms of value!
What's even worse about the 58% Deutsche bahn delay statistic is that they don't count your cancelled train as delayed, since it didn't arrive delayed in Berlin (it just didn't arrive at all)
@@paul_ko that has not been my experience. I feel like at least one in three is cancelled when I try to get anywhere. Often there is a “replacement train” somewhere else where you then have to run with a heavy suitcase.
The rolling stock used in the Amsterdam - Berlin service is one of the oldest in the DB fleet. The seats are meant to recline normally, but are often broken.
Why did you go via Amsterdam? If you went via Brussels and Frankfurt then you would have saved at least two or three hours. It's the equivalent of flying from Berlin to London via Edinburgh.
I'm from Germany and I've been traveling by train for most of my life. I briefly had a car when I was young. Then 18 years later DB had degraded its service so much that I finally gave up and got a car again. I definitely see this as a step back in the grand scheme of things, but... I'm on time almost every time. Google Maps is extremely accurate. When I drive somewhere 2h away, I'll usually be there within 3 minutes of the predicted time, even though I have no control over red lights and traffic. When I used DB I couldn't even rely on a train even appearing at a station at all! Going to the airport meant I had to have AT LEAST one "buffer" train, i.e. go early enough that one train could be canceled and I'd still be there on time.
This is exactly what the CDU and FDP want you to do - CONSUME - BUY A CAR. That'S why they let the public transport systems (not just Deutsche Bahn) in utter decay.
Yes, but before Brexit you only had to show your British passport and you walked straight through. Now they have to check you haven't been in the EU (except Ireland) for more than 3 months out of the last 6, and then stamp your passport - and that takes 3 times as long.
If I was doing London-Berlin, I would do it by train, but I would probably change at Brussels and Cologne, it's quicker and the trains are more frequent and comfortable. But honestly if somewhere was within a day from London by train I would just take the train almost every time. I just find it so much more enjoyable.
agree with you ... and MY experience of Deutsche Bahn has bee mostly positive, though admittedly the last time I used my eurail pass in Germany was in 1993 ... I was still young then, but I do remember being happy with the rail travels.
It's also kind of the original route. Belgium arranged the Eurostar and the Thalys for the Netherlands only fairly recently. Brussels and Cologne are also way better cities to visit, where the real 'European culture' begins
When Evan mentioned trouble my mind instantly went to DB. Went to Hamburg last year. DB decided to change departing station 30 minutes before departing (the new station was 17 minutes away with metro), then cancelling our train entirely 20 minutes later, instructing us to board another train not going to our destination less than 5 minutes before that train leaving, dropping us of in the middle of nowhere without further information letting us wait about an our until another train arrived and picked us up. At one point all the Germans broke out in a song about their love for the wonderful DB. When we tried to file for compensation they informed us that they didn't owe us any because our train (the last one we changed to) was less than 30 minutes late, despite us arriving in Copenhagen almost 5 hours later than planned. 😂
Did you file within the app or did u ask a person? The person was wiring, of cause. Even without the app you usually get an email with compensation information is you are late for me than 2 hours. Otherwise it's easy to apply for compensation inside the app.
Being more than 1 hour late is worth 25%, being 2 hours late is 50%. The condition is that you had a single ticket from departure til arrival. Having more than one ticket means if you are late on the first leg and miss your connecting train, that's on you. Buying a new ticket then to just keep moving, being delayed again but not by 60 minutes yields no compensation. I don't know what's the case here, but the devil is in the details. If on a single ticket, you'd fill a form stating departure, via and arrival times originally planned, and point where that plan failed, and how and how late you arrived. At least that's what I know from Deutsche Bahn, which relied on paper-only workflow just until recently, but the law is for all EU trains.
@@hb-man I had one ticket from Hamburg to Copenhagen, they were obviously in the wrong and if I cared more I would have fought the issue and probably got compensated for the delay. Except that I couldn't be bothered to get all the details right with DB at that point. It just wasn't worth the time and effort.
12:00 for a 10-14 hour journey i'd recommend taking a sleeper train instead. The con is sleepers often get delayed for up to 2 hours so that needs to be factored in. On the plus side when you only need to arrive and don't care about being on time you won't notice the delay anyway, cause you're sleeping.
Have you watched the video? obviously not. Sleeper trains do not run from London to Berlin. He had gone from London -> Brussels -> Amsterdam -> Hengelo -> Bad Bentheim -> Berlin Where in those 5 stops does a sleeper train a) drive b) give you enough time to actually sleep in it, when every leg of the journey is 2 to 3 hours max?
@@Xingmey a) this was a general statement for train journeys taking over 10 hours. b) he could have booked a sleeper from Paris to Berlin. It's not even that expensive, you can get a couchette ticket for 55€ c) as MrRicememe correctly pointed out, there is also a Sleeper going from Brussels and Amsterdam to Berlin. Also others have pointed out that the London-Paris-Berlin or London-Brussels-via Aachen-Berlin routes would have been faster and more reliable. The videomaker replied that he only went via Amsterdam because it was the cheapest option at the time.
I thought (and also in my limited experience) that night trains don't often get delayed because they have built in so much buffer in their schedule - oftentimes, the train just stop on the way somewhere; if there is a delay on the way, it would usually just get absorbed by the buffer. This is also a way to make the journey a bit longer to accommodate people's sleep time, i.e. the train does not arrive at the destination super early morning.
As a Dutch living in Germany, past christmas I took the train from Hannover (DE) to Deventer (NL) to visit family, and I was honestly shocked we arrived exactly on time by the minute. Talking about a Christmas miracle.
I was thinking "how has he never seen cars on a train?" but then i remembered that I lived next to train tracks for most of my childhood so my experience is definitely not universal
For those looking for an image, they're called "Auto-rack". The american ones are all covered, very tall (like double stacked containers), and very unique looking.
I also grew up in a house within sight of a railway, in the '50s-60s, when shipment of new cars by rail became a thing. The auto carrier cars then were just open racks, not covered as now - great for target practice with rocks or weapons. Railroads were fairly prompt to figure that out.
Got the British experience at an international level. You haven't experience the full train experience until it's announced your train director has gone home in the middle of your train
I do just wanna point out that the locomotives on the IC-Berlin (Amsterdam Berlin) are actually owned by NS, not DB, so when they announced that there was a problem with the engine, it actually wasn’t DB’s fault.
@@hge437 I (DB Driver) get constantly dunked on aswell even when we're on time and everything works, despite us having a punctuality of 92.8% so people really have nothing to complain about. Especially because most delays are caused by the passengers and not seldomly by the same ones that then rant about the unreliability of the railway lol.
Did Eurostar from London to Brussels and back this past summer. To Brussels was terrific. From Brussels the train was delayed 2+ hours because of a stuck train in the Chunnel. And then stuck again for another hour due to kids on the tracks.
@@KingFinnch In the UK the national rail operator is liable for any injuries and deaths caused by track that was accessible to the victim. Plus we have electrified third rails which aren't fun to step on
The tiny bins are by the way because in the past you were allowed to smoke on the train and they were meant as ashtrays. And yes, after your car get pulled into the depot there will be staff cleaning it out!
That's so far in the past, these cars don't exist anymore. Train seats have been redesigned several times since. But I remember how suffocating it was to have to walk through the smokers car to get to the non-smokers car.
0:53 in fact, passport controls existed between U.K. and the continent before brexit because we weren’t in the Schengen area. (But I also do agree that brexit in general is a pile of poo) Great video again Evan 😊
She’s like an Easter egg. Always affiliated with/cameoing in cool stuff. Between Savannah brown and Bertie Gilbert, Jacob Collier, and this guy. Like wtf. Fr.
The wildlife in central London is crazy, compared to most other big cities. A few months ago I was wandering around King's Cross station late at night, waiting for a train. When I walked past the clock tower, I saw that there was a small group of mice, running around and playing in the closed-off glass area. They had crawled in through a small hole in the wall behind a power socket, which had presumably been left open when people who had been rewiring the tower had stopped work for the day.
The underground system is infested with mice. You see them from the underground platforms all the time, universally a sort of smoky grey colour. Also, for some reason, pigeons often seem to take an underground trip from Edgeware Road station to Bakers Street station. I've seen that often outside rush hour, and they can have a little snack on the way pecking around for broken crisps and the like on the carriage floor. Then there are the ring-necked parakeets in Hyde Park (and other places). However, the foxes take the biscuit for cocky behaviour. A friend had a den of them living under his garden shed in Acton. Out here in the Cotswolds, they are rather more cautious as the farmers have guns and there are many more big dogs about.
@@TheEulerID True there's often mice on the train tracks, but they're stuck down there. In Paris and New York you see giant rats. Makes me glad of the little mice.
Berlin has a flock of starlings that regularly use the S-Bahn to travel one or two stops from Hauptbahnhof (where they scavenge for food) to another station (where they nest).
In the US, the second most transported item by freight rail is cars. But no one ever sees that! They use "auto racks," which are yellow with corrugated metal doors.
I have a serious phobia of flying. (Iv been on at least 20 plus planes) but every time I land I say never again. Seeing your lady in sheer turmoil during turbulence really hit home. That’s how I feel even without the turbulence and it just ruins and makes the holiday experience unenjoyable. For this reason I love traveling via Eurostar. Yeah I know it takes longer and can be a bit more expensive but it’s so worth it for the mental health and overall experience and plus not touching cloth the entire time is nice 😂. The train for me is part of the fun of travelling. Not something I think I could ever say about flying. I just feel a sense of impending doom at all times. Anyways I’m rambling. Great video dude.
Amsterdam-Berlin isnt really the best route from London especially since they removed the dining car due to retiring the IC1 cars soon the better Route is London-Brussels-Koln-Berlin as thats all ICE's look up Seat61 for good Train advice
@@OtterBops being a brit living in Berlin I take this route all the time and it is great, tho I do normally break it in cologne or Brussels for a nights stay each way, which is fun too..
I had the night bus from London to Brussel and then the ICE via Køln. And I agree. That train journey was enjoyable. And Køln is also a cool city to have a break in.
I'm just over here at my home in the US state of Iowa, which feels like a completely different planet. Cars are king here, and drivers are generally very unskilled. I've been to Europe 3 times, and I consider myself lucky for that!
Even in Europe 90% of French or German households have a car or more. 70% of workers drive to work, 15% transit, 15% walk/bike. Sadly car is king everywhere. Here in MN the idea of not having car is silly. What is there to do in Ames?
In 2019 I flew from North Carolina via Heathrow to Sweden (American Airlines -> British Airways) to sail the Stockholm Archipelago with an expat friend of mine. Other friends in Berlin had long invited me to visit, so I booked a few days side trip on Easy Jet - round trip Stockholm-Berlin, including "priority boarding," for US $130! No frills but no hassle, either. Then back home thru Stockholm and London. Amazing experiences. Six flights, every one on time, but landed back in NC two hours too late to get to my home on the coast before Hurricane Dorian trashed it. Get a little, give a little....
American here... Seen entire trains of cars, as well as trains carrying various freight, as well as cars near where I live, as well as all over the US. I do not know how Evan never seen one around NJ.
It's so funny how everyone is shitting on DB but totally forgets that the loco failure was with a NS loco (dutch) and the delay of the third train is likely a fault of NS as well
Exactly. I don't think it's funny he was trying to be funny at the cost of DB, and I am not German. It would be nicer watching a video that is more accurate and you should double check before blaming someone
The plane only takes ‘less then two’ hours if you don’t factor in getting to the airport and the longer check-in times. Also if you fly you don’t get to see all the beautiful countryside.
You can get great views when descending to land. I do agree you need to factor in longer waiting times getting through security and customs when using a plane...in balance if the journey by train is more than 5 hours I'd opt for plane
Getting to and from the airport plus having to be there at least two hours prior can add about 4-5 hours to your trip. Then there's cramped seats, crowded airports, crazy long queues for check in and security, strict luggage rules (size, weight, liquids, food, etc). I'd take the train anytime I could afford to. The tax advantages for planes are criminal!!!
I've never had to wait at airport security more than 15 minutes. Planes overall are much faster than trains. 2 hours vs 8 often. Planes are amazing technology now they are safe, even when they were 20x riskier people still chose them in Germany. Why do people have this fetish for trains? Planes are best, by 3x, except not as green. But even a train across continent roundtrip costs 2000kg of CO2 overall, weekend vacations can NEVER be green flying or training . .. This guy going to Berlin for 4 days just emitted 2000kg of CO2, the jerk, the evil jerk, he just killed a Indian farmer who faces heatstroke by this polluting train jerk. Europeans are evil, if Russia invades yall deserve. Love Ghandi
I'm biased! I love trains, so I take them in preference to cattle class flights! We've done a lot of trains and loved them! Eg Ghan, Indian Pacific, Queensland Tilt, Rocky Mountaineer, Amtrac, EuroStar, Orient Express, Glacier Express, Bernina Express, Golden Pass, ICE (Including one which goes on a ferry!), TVG, Czech Republic, London to Edinburgh. Some of them take a day or more! Some are not about point A to point B travel but about tourists like us! European trains are very competitive with short plane trips within Europe. A 3-4 hour train trip competes on price, comfort and time against a 1 hour flight. 1. Trains leave from city centers. For planes add transport to airport 30mins to 1 hour, checkin close add 30mins to 2 hours, getting out of the plane, pick up baggage and get into city add 30mins to 90 mins. 2. Trains have more room, easy to get up and walk around, etc that plane cattle class. 3. Get to see more and maybe experience a bit more of foreign places. 4. Some people fear missing a flight, so book overnight at an airport. Add on that time and cost! London to Berlin is another issue. You certainly had experiences / delays / changes we've never had! If your objective was Berlin only, then air - even with the add on time and extra expenses - maybe was better for you. Regardless we flown from Australia to Munich and then used trains, ferries and planes to get to UK and back! Just a case of picking a combination which one will serve our objectives best. Our worst experiences were A. Connecting ICE to Eurostar in Brussels. The 90 minute gap disappeared in bad weather. Just made it. B. Getting from Victoria COACH station to Kings Cross Regional platforms. I allowed 2 hours. Coach was delayed 30 minutes. Made Kings Cross with 10 minutes to spare. Why? The underground is only about 10 minutes. The rest lost in bad / lack of signposting and us needing lifts for luggage instead of escalators. Lifts were out of the way with backtracking involved. The cost of a plane or train ticket is highly variable (time of day etc) and depends on when you book. Do your homework and one can easily be half the price of the other and vica versa. Unlimited passes are not the bargain they used to be but are worth considering. Shop around too. We've done London to Manchester for 16 pounds each by train. London to Southampton by bus for 5 pounds each. Amsterdam to London by loca train + local bus (line was part closed) + Ferry overnight + train to London Liverpool station. All for the heck of finding a different way to cross the channel! Oh, and consider which is more environmentally friendly!
Very thoughtful to give you the authentic Deutsche Bahn experience. Did you know that the whole city of Kassel is just Deutsche Bahn passengers stranded there, founding families and settling down while waiting for their connecting train to arrive?
Watching your friend white-knuckle it to London says it all. Yes, train delays are annoying, but there's nothing more stressful than the possibility your plane will fall out of the air a looooong ways to the ground. No, no, a thousand nos. But awe, you were so kind to let her squeeze your hand. Good man, sir.
What's interesting, though, is that both modes of transport are some of the safest in the world. The positive for air travel, though, is almost the entire trip is automated (it has been for many decades- the only things that aren't are takeoff, landing, and if there is major turbulence. Everything is preloaded on disks/pre-downloaded visa software packets and, only recently, were moved off of, I'm not joking, floppy disks... only in the last 5-10 years. Some are STILL operating safely on floppy disks). Rail travel has more room for human error as it's not automated, plus you have to add in obstacles on the ground (cars, animals, fallen trees, broken rail ties, etc.). I absolutely ADORE rail travel, but I just can't afford it in the UK (luckily, though, the UK government is not renewing the privatised rail contracts and are slowly re-nationalising the rail system, with completion of this happening by the end of 2025).
In India the villagers put piles of rocks on the tracks to get attention. Planes are inherently harder to interfere with than trains. I was in Florida a day and saw a truck take out a crossing arm of train, and then multiply that by 1000 crossings, makes one realize the sky is safer than busy ground. Its weird how our gut can be wrong, flying feels unsafer option.
There’s apparently a new Paris-Berlin service soon that might work better. Also, I did European Sleeper in 2023 and that was a fun trip, and worked well with Eurostar
That would probably take longer. Currently the best route is London-Brussels-Cologne-Berlin. Definitely better than the old IC wagons, but the former Thalys (now Eurostar) trains from Brussels to Cologne also don't have the best reputation.
@@Psi-Storm Paris-Berlin is advertised to take 8h8m, London-Paris is about 2h15m, so if we budget in at least a 1 hour layover (probably should do 3-4 hours just in case of delays), then it would take about 12 hours to do London-Paris-Berlin.
I’ve done London -> Brussels -> Köln and it was a breeze. However my journey from Köln to Hamburg was delayed by at least an hour. Without me doing anything at all they gave me a voucher for the inconvenience. You certainly wouldn’t get this in the UK. At least with DB (ICE trains) they aren’t as horrendously priced like UK train. For the cheaper advance fares, if delayed you can then jump on any. They both have infrastructure problems which will take a long time to fix
@ Sure but I have be pro-active about claiming which I have done many many times. Whereas I was making the point DB gave me a voucher without me doing anything to acknowledge their bad service
🤣🤣🤣 "we made special attention to the inflight security demonstration.... because u never know it might just differ from other planes before". I died at this.
Bit confused, why you did go via Amsterdam, you could have switched trains in Brussels, or get off the train in Rotterdam, and go to Utrecht and pickup the ICE.
Honestly, when you heard your train wouldn't be going past Bad Bentheim, I'd have checked if there were alternative connections to Berlin compared to taking it that far - I'd imagine taking the ICE down to Duisburg and then changing to one of the frequent ICEs from there to Berlin might have been faster then, and your ticket would be valuable due to the delay caused by the shortening. Though honestly I wouldn't have taken this route to begin with; Brussels/Amsterdam-Berlin is long enough to justify a sleeper train, after all. Also, how did you not find the power outlets on the DB IC? They're not even really hidden!
If you see train cars with thin sheet metal sides that are full of small holes, those are the cars that are used to carry cars from factories to distribution centers.
The cars on trains he is taking about in the video. Are tourists taking there own car, with them on the train to drive in Europe. From 1955 untill 2005 there used to be a network of Motorail services across the UK. For people to take take there car with them on the train. The England to France trains is the only route now. It is something you don't see in the USA. They are not cars being distributed for manufacture's.
@@grahamsmith9541 " It is something you don't see in the USA." We have an autotrain. Goes from the Washington DC to Florida, 17 hours. 🙂 Of course, most Americans would simply jump on an aircraft rather than travel for five or ten hours or more on the ground (unless they live out in the middle of nowhere; I'm a city dweller speaking of city dwellers). Just like there are 29 flights a day London to Edingburgh, we fly long distances also.
@@grahamsmith9541the US very much transports new cars by rail, the wagons are called autoracks. You wouldn’t know the train is transporting cars because it’s an enclosed wagon.
The DB seats will have a little handle under the front right edge of the seat. The seats contained all within this seat-casing recline with the handle only. The seats where the whole seat-casing reclines use this handle to slide the seat forward, and a separate lever to the side to recline seat back.
Schengen is actually very much part of the EU. Britain just negotiated yet another exception for them, back when they were in the EU. (As did a few countries that joined later, pointing to Britain as an example.) Freedom of movement is one of the four fundamental freedoms for EU citizens. (And yes, there are rules in Schengen that allow EU countries to close their borders again under certain circumstances, like fighting terrorism. And some, like Denmark, did exactly that. Or Germany, for some time. Etc…)
As said in other comments: (a) You didn’t need a passport before, a government ID (which the vast majority of Europeans have, compared to the UK), and (b) They need to stamp the passport and check for previous stamps now.
The fact that EU citizens even need a passport and are no longer allowed to travel to the UK on an ID card only has EVERYTHING to do with Brexit. Brexiters always talk about the EU being vindictive but we could consider this time the UK has been vindictive as they know very well that many EU citizens don't even have a passport. I don't have one and it would cost me €80 to get one.
If you insert foam earplugs in your ears before takeoff, you won't have your ears pop from the change in cabin pressure. The foam gradually equalizes the air pressure... much slower than the takeoff. Plus, you get sound dampening, so you don't have to be deafened from all the noise, either.
I can promise you there was charging for your laptop on every train, in rare exceptions it does not work, but every long distance train has 230V EU power sockets.
Often underneath the seat and hard to find. I think not all seats have them either do they? So if you were assigned to a specific seat, then you could be without power.
Doing that journey, I would’ve taken an overnight option: 🅰️ DutchFlyer boat train overnight to Hoek van Holland, metro and day train rest of the way. 🅱️ Eurostar to Brussels change for and overnight train to Berlin (European Sleeper or ÖBB NightJet on alternating days)
Never understood people who get tired travelling, unless they are driving obviously. I always feel refreshed after a journey not sure why. I have never heard anyone say the train is "better" than a plane in general. Europes train network is at least a viable alternative, not too expensive, better than places like the US or even Canada or south America, a great experience for seeing things along the way, and more environmentally friendly - as well as comfortable and everything else. But if you don't like travelling longer, nobody has ever said "you should take the train".
What do you mean? We have passenger trains here as well. We just don't use HSR. This train took 10 hours to go 681 miles, that's not HSR. 🙂 We have the ten hour train rides, and much longer than that. California Zephyr is a 52 hour ride from the Bay Area to Chicago, and it's a breathtaking view out the window. If you want to fast, a jet aircraft will get you in half the time that HSR would (SF to Chicago is 2123 miles....flying it's four hours; HSR would take over ten hours).
@@Bill32H-it3sv I'm so jealous, I wish I could move to the US too, I was there a few times this year and it's paradise compared to London or anywhere else in the UK.
It's more because airplanes are quite a bit faster. HSR from LA to NYC would take 14 hours. You can fly it in five or six hours. And yes, as we saw in the video, this is true in Europe as well. Not all their trains are HSR. So London to Berlin takes 10+ hours on the ground, when you can fly it in two hours. 🙂
@@neutrino78x but high speed trains could do NY-Chicago or Chicago-Denver in 3-4 hours. I dont think that built a HS line between LA and NY will have sense.
@@MarceloBenoit-trenes "speed trains could do NY-Chicago or Chicago-Denver in 3-4 hours." Nope. Show me the 790 mile (1271 km) HSR line -- whole length is HSR -- that has been built in Europe. And no I don't mean total railroad in the country. I mean specifically a railroad line that's a straight line, 790 miles (1271 km) long, that is HSR, where the train goes at HSR speeds the entire length. That would be an enormous expense. And a jet aircraft would STILL get there in HALF the time. You can fly NYC to Chicago in 2.5 hours. Four hours is NOT competitive. And to get to the four hours, the train MUST average 321 km/hr or faster. Not maximum speed but AVERAGE. The planned CAHSR here in California will not average that high of a speed. The TGV averages 173 mph (278 km/hr). So it would take at least 4.5 hours to get to Chicago. Otherwise the jet aircraft will beat it by an even wider margin. And remember, you have still only connected two major cities. For a nationwide HSR system like they have in France, you would need to link all major cities with HSR. If you admit that isn't feasible, thank you for conceding the argument.
yap can confirm as America there slightly hard to spot but they have slits, there also stacked and the front of the car that front basically swings open. i think they do have open ones as well but different company or railroad company uses them. there so people can't steal them or damage them by throwing rocks or steal catalytic converter which in 2021 each state had around 600-1,000 stolen, Washington had 3,379 stolen from cars becuase they use platinum, Rhodium, Palladium Platinum Price per Gram $30.18 €29.27 Rhodium per gram $150.30 Palladium Price per gram $30.88
Living in the Not London part of the UK I was really impressed by how joined up the local transport in Germany. I don't even have a bus to take me the 2 miles across town to the train station.
16:20 I used to have terrible ear problems with plane pressure changes too. Until I was taught how to equalise the pressure when scuba diving. Hold you nose while trying to breath out your nose, it opens up the blocked sinuses. Then wiggle your jaw left and right or in circles until the pressure equalises. Never had any trouble with ears again on planes.
That's actually the worst thing to do on a plane! The pressure is completely different and you can wind up bursting your eardrums. Wiggling your jaw bit is fine though.
While flying is cheaper and possibly less stressful, for me the train is the only way as I am terrified of flying. Plus I quite enjoy watching the trains go by and seeing the country side. Having a nap is also quite a good idea when on a long train journey. I recently did the Amsterdam to Berlin and then Berlin to Amsterdam journey via train. Our journey there was quite uneventful but our train on the way back was about 3 hours delayed!!!!! I am glad you portrayed both journeys and hope you enjoyed.
Railway car carriers are extremely common in the USA, it’s just that they are usually covered rather than exposed as seen at 3:23. This is possibly due to the vast distances freight trains often travel in the USA - and as such more of a need to protect the cargo in transit.
In a ~middle school physics test, we were supposed to name a method of movement with a constant speed. A classmate wrote „Trains, except for the Deutsche Bahn“
Paris is about : 300 km to London 600 km to Marseille 900 km to Berlin London is around 900 km to Berlin or Marseille as well. Train travels take : 2 hours between Paris and London (Eurostar ) 4 hours between Paris and Marseille (SNCF ) 7 hours between London and Marseille (Eurostar + SNCF) 8 hours between Paris and Berlin (SNCF + DB) with the new speed train line 12 hours between London and Berlin (Eurostar + DB) So maybe the train is not the issue there… And trains in France are boarded only 15 minutes before departure, with French people not knowing how to queue properly… Maybe that’s related : when people are culturally unable to wait in order and calm, train operators have to be exceptionally good to compensate.😂😂
To be fair, it takes 10h from London to Berlin. You just have to go from London to Brussel, than over Frankfurt and to Berlin. this has the advantengte to avoid most of the problemes with Ruhr valley and most of the time it is actually a high speed train like in France. For reference, that is actually a distance off about 1400km. The Problem in this case is the Evan just bought the cheapest connection and does not know how to work with DB. He even did not travel with an ICE, but an IC train. Once the train has enough delay or a cancletion you can do what ever you want. Take any train to you destination. In fact you probably could have been faster in Berlin, than if official arrival time by switching to a train to Cologne and than dircetly to Berlin or over Frankfurt to Berlin. The DB Navigator App is one of the best thinks you can have in any country. Sure the reason is, that DB has so many delays that they need something to mange it. But DB is superior to any other train operator in Europe, when stuff goes wrong. Try getting on another TVG without a seat reservation. And the TVG is not as comfortable as the ICE and quite cramped. The only real advantage the TVG has is, that it has it's own tracks and thus a lot less delays. But once you choice the real high speed tracks in german the ICE is actually a better product. But you just have to know what you are doing.
My wife used to have to travel from Bielefeld, Germany to London a lot, with here work site being near St. Pancreas station. Nearest regional airport is about a 45 minute drive from our place (and we didn't own a car at the time, totally relied on rentals for the little driving we did), nearest significant one -- Düsseldorf -- is about two hours regardless of you going by car or trains. So door-to-door, with the "get to the airport, get from the airport to the actual city center, airport check-in and security" overhead added, her taking a cab to the ICE station near our home (5min), then the ICE to Cologne, the Thalys form Cologne to Brussels, then the Eurostar to London, was actually a little bit faster than ICE to Düsseldorf Airport (which has its own ICE station nearby), SkyTrain transfer to the airport terminal, checkin, security theater, flying to Heathrow, taking the tube to London city. Not only did that save a little bit on time, it also allowed her to prepare for work on the trains to London (preferably making sure to reserve a seat with a table) and to do all the related reports on the way back.
In my experience they're good when they're on time and don't cancel your trip so you have to take a longer route, and definitely the cheapest option. I'd like to see Evan make a video on them!
Flixbus are okay as long as they don't crash. Last year, I think I am right in saying, a Flixbus coach crashed in Germany. I don't like the idea of placing my life in the hands of someone who may not be in the best of health or who may get sleepy on the autobahn and nod off . . .
Woop woop Hengelo represent! Interesting facts about the Hengelo trainstation, it was very severely bombed during WW2, by the brits, because it was the last stop before going into Germany. Or the first when entering from Germany. As recently as the 90's and maybe even 00's we dug up bombs around the station when renovating the bus stops and stuff.
I married a lovely lady from the NL who grew up in Hengelo. My first time experiencing Hengelo was a train from Schiphol to Hengelo Centraal. The first thing I saw/heard there were FC Twente fans singing while waiting for their train. One trip there (I went there 4 times in 5 years before we married and lived in the US) I had three weeks with my wife alone in her parent's house since they also were taking a vacation. We biked everywhere, and I loved it. Got to know so much of Hengelo and the surrounding area (300 km worth of riding). Alas, my father-in-law died, and my wife's mother sold the childhood home for some more appropriate digs. We may never visit Hengelo again. I will miss it.
Somebody did not do his homework. I live in Basel, Switzerland. I love traveling by train. I've made the trip from Basel to London via Paris many times. I stop for a 3 hour lunch in Paris. I traveled by train to Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Turin, Milan, Rome, Florence, and even Palermo. DB is the worst. I won't book a ticket unless it is direct point to point (say, Basel to Berlin or Zürich to Vienna via Munich). French TGV good. Trenitalia good. DB, avoid.
Correct, you had to flash your passport. Now you have to get it stamped so that the 90day-rule can be enforced. Will be digital with ETIAS, after you registered your fingerprints.
@@hepdepaddelPlus, a government ID was fine, you didn’t need a passport. Now that there are time limits, they need pages to stamp which only passports have. I know quite a number of people in the EU who don’t have a passport and just a government ID.
This train ride reminded me of a trip I took first with my oldest when she was a toddler, and then repeated when I took her and her brother who was an infant. I took the train because it was cheaper than flying, and the kids didn't have to spend 9 hours in car seats, and we didn't have to stop repeatedly with the kids. Especially to nurse the infant. It turned a 9-hour drive into a 15+ hour ride, but we could walk around and they could play. It was exhausting, and I did it by myself. Their dad drove down a few days later and drove straight through, and then we all drove back as a family. I don't know why this was a great idea.
I travelled from Prague to Berlin, then Berlin to Amsterdam by train. It was so much more relaxing than flying. The views (especially between Prague and Berlin) were beautiful. I think it was on DB.
Great video, Evan. Sorry you went through all that hassle with Deutsche Baum. Personally, I think anywhere that takes more than 6 hours by rail is better done by plane instead. Even 6 hours takes up a fair chunk of the day. Ideally, I’d want to be spending no more than about 4 and a half hours travelling by train which incidentally is how long it takes to get Amsterdam from London by rail (Edinburgh too). As for Germany, it is theoretically possible to get to Cologne from London by train in 4 and a half hours but you have a tight 20 minute connection in Brussels and DB to contend with. There is a Eurostar train from Brussels to Cologne but this adds another hour to your journey from London. Even so, it may be more reliable than DB so it’s probably worth the extra hour.
I like trains. For me personally the sweat spot for long distance rail is about 150-600 km. Any trip less then 150 km is mostly good by local/ regional rail, busses etc. Anything longer takes mostly too much time as long as there is no sleeper train. Your trip has been more then 900 km crossing a real border (with emigration and unnecessary stuff like that) making it a pretty inconvenient trip by train. Even for me. One thing that eases longer trips is splitting up the trip. Take half a day in Amsterdam when you have the time. You arrived there at noon. Go to a bakery, get a coffee and get some work done. Then finish the trip on the sleeper train and arrive the next morning in Berlin. Or you take a morning train (6 or 8 am) and arrive in Berlin by noon or in the early afternoon. By the way, you caught one of a couple of lines in the whole DB network that still uses the old IC coaches without a power socket at the seat. This train should have been replaced for quite some time by the new Talgo trainsets. These start service on your route (hopefully) in summer.
The Train vs. Plane is not just that the airlines get HEAVILY subsidized, it is also that you have varied dedications to the train services, based on countries. Germany had the issue of Deutsche Bahn getting gov handouts like mad in the past, SUPPOSEDLY to go into Maintenance - and instead, the money was used to build up Schenker Logistics (mostly lorry based) in the whole world, to the point Schenker was making money like mad, which then was put back into Schenker, instead of that money then mostly going BACK to Germany to fund the infrastructure maintenance and upgrades. Another issue is: In Germany, maintenance needs to be paid for by the owner of the track (most is owned by Deutsche Bahn). If they conveniently let it degrade to the point where it can't be salvaged anymore, and needs to be rebuilt, the REBUILD cost is paid by the government.
What is your source for saying planes are heavily subsidized? Heavily? No they aren't. Trains are the bigger subsidy. I love trains but they are costly.
... Not taxing aviation fuel is not a "subsidy". The govt doesn't tax walks, is that a subsidy? . . . . The truth is aviation only requires runways at either end of trip most of them built decades ago, the govt don't need to do much now.... Govt did hand out money to all transport companies around Covid, and also pays for airplane research -- if that's $15b a year among 300m adults that's $50 per person subsidy. But NW Europe built high speed rail for about $1500b in grants or govt guarantees divided among 150m that's $10000 a person. Yes, $10000, it's that high, train tracks don't just fall free from sky... Soooo to say aviation is the govt subsidy problem is silly. Google Chinese train debt and you'll see govt is throwing far more money at trains .. . . . ... It's just weird how high speed trains and ALSO local transit get far more govt subsidy, yet few complain about that side in the car vs noncar debate. For example, each daily rider of a local train gets about $3000 a year subsidy from govt (300days x 2 daily x $5 avg subsidy), but each car driver costs govt under $300, yet people say "cars are subsidized". Transit is the subsidy pig. There should be a phrase, "Yes this side gets some unfair help but not much and other side is 10x far worse". . . . . . . I admit aviation pollutes like 2000kg co2 for long cross continent trip, vs HSR counting construction is less at 1000kg, but that's a separate issue. and frankly BOTH are a lot of pollution, and any week trip to other side of continent is awful for climate. OVERALL a West European on avg causes 8000kg CO2, having HSR at 1000kg a trip if done monthly is adding a lot so damn all these yuppies taking these monthly long trips for fun or profit. .... Everyone knows noncar people fudge the facts. In Europe car miles and plane miles havent dropped showing train investment didn't solve much. 90% of E European households have a car or more, that's how bad are noncar options, the people still choose to blow $15000 to not have to rely on them. I have no car, I sweat and get looks by all y'all in cars, but I dislike the false claims of utopia and success. Planes and cars are pretty great and low cost for govt, that's just facts. Or y'all can walk like me.
@mostlyguesses8385 of course it's a subsidy. Do you realise how much airlines aren't paying by having reduces taxes on fuel compared to every comparable other mode of transport? Not to mention the absurd situation of the American airlines, who are never allowed to go bust thanks to constant chapter 11 rescues where they just get to write off their debt and carry on, tax breaks on aircraft construction, etc. Ps your figures on rail subsidy are just plain random since they vary country by country. Eg Swiss subsidies are more than twice as high as French per km travelled. No one is saying cars are subsidised as far as I'm aware. The externalities of car use obviously are, however, from the infrastructure, to entire cityscapes built around them, to emissions.
@@agentbananaukIt's not a matter of lacking headcount, but quite the opposite. DB InfraGo (the German rail network operator) have literally plenty of incompetent and ignorant managers and employees who make it impossible for any railway operator to be even remotely punctual.
The oldest data I could find quickly were for 2009, that year long distance DB trains were punctual 81.2%. Last year that number was 62.5% (apparently at least a 21-year record low). Meaning, last year, twice as many trains were late compared to 2009.. Of course, this based on the 5 min 59s definition, the ratio could be different if a different threshold was used.
Brexit has nothing to do with passport control at St. Pancras Evan. When the UK was in the EU it was outside the Schengen area, so passports have always been required. It would have been nice if you had shown a screen at the end of the video giving details of the total transport costs incurred.
Disingenuous as before Brexit it was a cursory glance to make sure you were an EU national, now it's biometric passport checks and stamping of passports. This happens upon departure from the UK and upon arrival in the EU. Result - increased waiting times. And then there's ETIAS.
Took the London > Brussels > Cologne > Berlin train this summer as a party of 4. It was a long journey, but we all had a great time. It was taken as part of Euroticket and we went on the Vienna, Budapest, Prague, Strasburg and then Paris to head back home. We had just over three weeks - no issues at all, and will happily do it again.
Advantages of trains in Europe: 1) Where you board and where you arrive are probably closer to your hotel. 2) By taking an overnight train, you can save the cost of one night’s hotel by sleeping on the train.
It initially improved vastly on the routes I normally travelled (West Coast mainline). But the overall number of passengers has increased and that has caused problems.
Wait but the loco breaking down and the second train from Hengelo being late are NS‘s faults, since they operate the trains until the border and it’s their loco. Only the coaches are from DB.
@@raileon I think the biggest problem is finding (and routing back) the specially qualified personnel. Like drivers and conductors. Because the scheduled personnel is on the delayed train...
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
I love that announcement at Amsterdam central station that reads "Train ends at Bad Bentheim due to railway problems ABROAD". The Dutch way of saying, Sorry folks, it's not our fault, the Germans mucked this up... again.
The Swiss Federal Railways would also like you to know that all most all of the rail delays in there country are because of "incident in another country"
@@hens0w guess which other country that usually is...
The Germans play exactly the same game on that route - last summer our train left Amsterdam over an hour late, the conductor was delighted to announce at every stop from Bad Bentheim onwards through to Berlin that it was due to delays IM AUSLAND!
I had the very same announcement "railway problems ABROAD", but that was in France - a polite (or sarcastic) way not to name Deutsche Bahn 😂
Yeah, kinda the same thing for me in sweden (the trains are very often delayed here too tho) but trains from Norway or Denmark are late it just says "Late from abroad"
Put simply "Everything was awesome until the Deutsche Bahn came into play!".
As a German, I feel that. Strongly.
But wait your border control is also the worst in Europe these days if you have a non EU passport. And unlike several other EU countries they don't let the other similar countries (US, UK, Canada, Australia, Korea, Japan etc) use the egates. Over an hour to get through Berlin BER a few weeks ago, JFK is quicker than that!
I remember ten to twenty years ago DB was great. A german passenger told us recently that the terrible service today is due to a privatisation effort about ten years ago that cut back on spending massively in order to make it more efficient and thus profitable. True?
That was exactly my experience last time I took the Eurostar, everything perfect till we hit DB
@@formulaic78 Pretty much. Turns out you can't 1) spend the same or less, 2) maintain or improve the quality of services, and 3) pay out profits to shareholders all at the same time. Who knew? Well, a lot of people did. But they were ignored.
EU is trying to make it easier for companies from other countries to deliver high speed rail across different countries, we'll see if they get competition.
Deutsche Bahn is so nice. They always give passengers ample time to become familiar with a train station.
Even discover new train stations, when the train stop there for unexpected reasons.
@@Chocolate-wb1bu I also like how you can get familiar with their on board restaurant waiting for the staff to get off their phones to “serve” you.
When the Cologne-Frankfurt high speed ICE track was opened in the early 2000s they advertised it with "Die Bahn schenkt Ihnen eine Stunde" ("The rail company makes you a present of one hour") as it reduced the travel time between the two cities from about two hours to about one.
Unfortunately that backfired quite quickly ...
@@hartmutholzgraefe What is the story with that line. Everytime I travel it, they have to reduce speed or go the old slow scenic route.
@@gregessex1851 have not been traveling on that relation for quite a while, I don't remember any problems specific to that one. There are a few other, older, ICE tracks from the late 1980s that undergo heavy renovations right now, but K-FFM is not that old yet
As a British person whenever I'm travelling by train in Germany I do appreciate how Deutsche Bahn like to make me feel at home by ensuring that the trains are delayed or cancelled 🙂
They just need to increase the price to make it the real UK experience 😂
Why go then??
@@johnsmith-mq4eq work, it pays the bills.
@@johnsmith-mq4eq cheaper
And riding on the left track.
For my honeymoon I travelled 1500 miles on trains from York UK to Bucharest, Romania. We stopped in London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague and Budapest before arriving at our final destination.
We travelled first class the majority of the way, and that involved lovely meals, extra leg room, newspapers, snacks and free beer.
Over the entire journey, we had 1 hour of delays - from York to London. Less than £400 per person for unlimited train travel for the entire trip (thanks Interrail). We booked miles in advance, reserved seats, and used one of the offers they run semi-regularly to save 25% off our tickets.
You had unbelievably bad luck!
There is a much faster train route to Berlin. London > Brussels > Cologne > Berlin - takes a little under 9 hours. I've taken it about 4 or 5 times, and I recommend it.
On a more reliable route to beat.
I took that route in advance last year but needed to stay overnight in Brussels…was totally worth it
Why not just do London > Paris > Berlin? Less changes
Definitely the correct route to follow ... plus it goes through Aachen, and my Aachener grandfather was a locomotive engineer for the Paris-Berlin route from the German-Belgian border to Berlin and back again!
@@tytn9978That's soo incredibly cool!! 😮
Between what years was he active?😊
Having lived 26 years in Switzerland and the last 3 in the UK I think one of the biggest problems with UK trains is that they are run like budget airlines. The more in advance you buy your ticket the cheaper the ticket. And last minute tickets are often prohibitively expensive. In Switzerland there are occasionally deals but for the most part the price you pay is the same if you buy your ticket a month in advance or just before you board the train. Often in the last three years I thought it is a nice day I’d love to take the train into London only to look at the price and think no way am I paying that much. I suspect the UK trains lose a lot of business because of this pricing model.
Except the prices are high at their "lowest".
They're run like budget airlines in that they're an essential commuter service being operated for-profit by the cheapest possible bidder because the government doesn't believe in funding infrastructure.
Similar in Germany.
But in Germany you can get a MfG at least - there isn't that culture in the UK.
Well what I can say is that I rarely travel (at all) unless I have to, because then I either know in advance or have to cough up the money. The entire way of doing things honestly needs to be dismantled
As far as i can tell from this video all the delays and changes were in europe. His london to amsterdam departed and arrived on time
Hearing you name-drop Deutsche Bahn was all the justification I could have needed for taking a flight back
HOW ARE THEY THAT AWFUL THO IT'S THEIR ONE JOB
@@evan DB doesn't stand for Dismally Broken for no reason y'kno
@@evan The infrastructure is outdated. If my Nightjet train has problems, it is usually in Germany. But at least they accept my Öbb ticket on DB trains too. And if I am late, I can get compensation. Also, if a flight gets cancelled, it might be days until you can get on a flight.
@@nikolettkovacs2884 I've never taken it, is it really so bad, I don't think it could possibly be worse than British trains.
@@evanit's a state owned monopoly so they basically have no competition, they don't have to be up to scratch
FYI the 58% on time performance of Deutsche Bahn does not take cancelled trains into consideration. Because a cancelled train isn't delayed, right?
lmao
@@evan also a train is on time in a +- 5 minute window of the stated arrival time according to DB.
It's like living in the Soviet union
@@ZaunpfahlsSpieleVideos thats fair on a long distance train
@@ZaunpfahlsSpieleVideos It is 6 minutes, actually. Or rather, 5:59.
For comparison: in Switzerland, a train is late if it arrives 3 minutes after the scheduled time.
As someone who went via train from around Frankfurt to Edinburgh I can say: I would happily do that again. Not only was is cheaper than a direct flight with way more luggage I could take, I just really liked the experience. I could do whatever I want, read something, watch something or just enjoy the scenery and getting to experience new trains Ive never been on was nice as someone who likes trains. Also getting to see the scenery change to more hilly when entering Scotland and traveling north was just really nice as well as just traveling through countries Ive never been in. All of that I wouldnt have been able to experience on a plane. The first train I took was at around 4am to Frankfurt and I arrived at somewhere around 7 to 8pm at my destination in Edinburgh. Traveling for 16h might not be for everyone considering a direct flight is 2h but I really enjoyed it and consider it an important part of my overall journey/experience.
this 0% chance a train from frankfurt to edinburgh was cheaper than a flight. lol flights are so cheap especially if you book ahead, i just went from belfast to barcelona for £30 return.
@@WookieWarriorz Im talking about a direct flight with luggage. Sure a non direct flight without luggage would have been cheaper but that would have eliminated the only upside to flying which is that its faster.
Did you buy this as one ticket?
When I checked something like this in the past I would have had to take two or several tickets because the railway companies weren't connected. I'd be afraid that if my German train runs late and I miss my connecting train(s) and consequently I lose that ticket and have to repay.
(btw same if you travel some distance on a local train on Deutschlandticket and then take a ticket with an ICE: if your local train runs late and you miss your ICE you lost your ticket and have to buy a new one)
Also, the plane fanboiz always omit the 2+ hours in advance that they have to arrive at an airport. From the UK to Benelux countries, going by train is a no brainer, it's WAY faster than going by plane.
You probably did not realise that there are very few cheap airlines between rich western European cities. For example, between Munich and Paris, Lyon and Toulouse, only Lufthansa or Air France. I like these airlines but they are far from cheap. For Munich-Lyon it's hard to find a plane ticket cheaper than the train (unless you book maybe 3 months in adv, I didn't try)
Pro-tip, if you're stuck in Hengelo and your long distance trains to Germany aren't working because Deutsche Bahn is being Deutsche Bahn, there is an hourly Westfalen Bahn local train that commutes (at local train speeds ofc) between Hengelo, NL and Bielefeld, DE. That train is designated as RB 61.
I'd recommend using an App like Öffi, or DB Navigator to figure out alternative routes when Deutsche Bahn is being 2020s Deutsche Bahn.
Isn’t Bielefeld that town everyone jokes it doesn’t exist?
It's so fun that the DB weirdly has one of the best transit apps I've ever used, although knowing DB kinda reveals why they need a good app.
@@hubbadubba6063 I went to university there, and you are correct.
I do not remember the Zentrum whatsoever. No kidding.
@@rulipari It's an unexpected good app. I've been using it for my travel in the Netherlands (where I live). Luckily I get to use the app without the DB trains 🙂
PS: Unfortunately the DB Navigator app doesn't work as well in Belgium, and probably some other countries. The real-time data somehow doesn't always work correctly there, even when the local apps have it correct.
@@hubbadubba6063 that's 'cause it doesn't
I love the fox in St Pancras!!😊😊😊😊
Ironically, foxes are safer in London than in the countryside, as we have no toff tossers hunting them.
Nah. That's an aardvark in a fox costume.
St Pancras is known word-wide for its 'secret' aardvark population.
In fact, that's where the idea for 'secret aardvark' hot sauce originally came from. It was going to be 'St Pancras' hot sauce. But the guy making it visited the station for inspiration on the recipe, saw the aardvarks and thought, "Hold on..."
Yeah. Ok; the fox was really cool.
Bad fox
I´m a train driver in Germany and your video made me laugh.... staff saw these problems coming years ago. Now everyone in the world is making videos about how bad our trains are.
But how are we British going to take the pi55 out of our friends in Germany if your trains DON'T run on time ?! We've lost a major steroeotype - help !! 🙂
It´s always the higher ups who don´t understand sh*t that are the issue. The technicians and people working "hands on" could tell you decades ago that it was wrong to defund the trains while subsidizing the car industry and highways with billions without any discussion whatsoever.
London to Berlin is 930km in distance. Those who think that taking a train, which crosses the Channel, Belgium and the Netherlands to finally reach Germany totally suck with maths, science and economics.
The Japanese do not bother taking their shinkansen bullet train from Tokyo to Sapporo or Fukuoka, as both trips are a gruelling 9 and 6 hour ride respectively. The rational and more sensible Japanese simply take the ANA or JAL plane flight, taking less than 2 hours. 🇯🇵 ✈️
Which is weird because of the reputation Germany had for everything running on time even in the snow. I traveled extensively by train through Germany and had no problems circa 2015. So its sad to see it decline. But thats what happens when things get neglected. Happens all over the world.
In the past, people travelled at a more leisurely pace, often taking the boat train and simply enjoying the journey. For instance, 100 years ago, in 1925, the trip from London to Berlin by ferry and train typically took 18 to 24 hours, depending on the route and connections. The journey began with a train ride from London to the coast, which took around 1.5 to 2 hours (e.g., to Harwich or Dover). This was followed by a ferry crossing of 3 to 6 hours (to the Hook of Holland or Ostend) and then a train journey of 10 to 15 hours, depending on stops and connections. Without modern conveniences like laptops, passengers often read books or simply appreciated the experience. If we weren’t always rushing, we could take a relaxed trip to Berlin, stopping overnight in places like Amsterdam, visiting a museum, and enriching our lives in the process, rather than hurrying through. Great video!
Those people were socialites with passive income and nothing else to do, and most importantly, no alternative. But most of us need to work for a living and have very limited free time, hence the rushing and hurrying.
As a University student with more time than money, I couldn't afford a flight but I could afford 14+ hours of my weekend traveling to and from my hometown with the train+bus just to see a friend who was going through a hard time or to celebrate my grandma's birthday.
I wouldn't sweat skipping a few classes on Friday afternoon to catch an earlier train that would get me there at a decent time, or even attend 0 classes on a Friday to depart early and get to eat dinner with my family.
Sometimes, on the way back, I would take the night bus that arrived on Monday morning having barely slept sitting up straight and if the bus got stuck in traffic, it was annoying but it wasn't a big deal because that wouldn't get me in trouble. In the summer, my friends and I would take a 3+ hour train/bus just to go to a party or a concert, stay out and about all night and take another 3+ hour long trip in the morning, exhausted but happy.
As soon as we started working, that flexibility was gone and we cannot afford the slower and longer scenic route. The weekend is exactly from Friday 17:00 to Monday 09:00, and showing up after pulling an all-nighter in a bus will no longer cut it, I need to be well dressed and well rested, since the stakes are higher. Any day I want to add to my weekend, comes out of my vacation days...
I wish I wasn't short on time all the time, but it's hardly a choice and more the reality we live in
I'm an old guy ,so you must be getting there too ,enjoying the trip trumps a hustled plane trip. Enjoy when you can .The reality ,being is all there is.
If taking the train to Berlin, the best way to do it is to go from London to Brussels and then pick up an overnight sleeper. This means that you don't feel the sensation of travelling for as long as you're asleep for most of it, you get to save money on accommodation, and there's less chance of the train getting delayed as the lower number of trains running overnight means less can go wrong! If you're making that journey, this would definitely be the way to do it, and is also a lot more competitive with airlines in terms of value!
What's even worse about the 58% Deutsche bahn delay statistic is that they don't count your cancelled train as delayed, since it didn't arrive delayed in Berlin (it just didn't arrive at all)
Long-distance trains in Germany are rarely canceled, tbf. Delays are much more serious of an issue
@@paul_ko that has not been my experience. I feel like at least one in three is cancelled when I try to get anywhere. Often there is a “replacement train” somewhere else where you then have to run with a heavy suitcase.
If you see the DB logo, just do not buy the ticket. Would you take a 50/50 chance with unknown worst case scenario? No. Avoid.
The rolling stock used in the Amsterdam - Berlin service is one of the oldest in the DB fleet. The seats are meant to recline normally, but are often broken.
But there is power, between the seats, iirc
yup, it'll be replaced by the new ICE L sets in a few months
Why did you go via Amsterdam? If you went via Brussels and Frankfurt then you would have saved at least two or three hours. It's the equivalent of flying from Berlin to London via Edinburgh.
And it's on more reliable routes in better condition.
It's actually the flight from London to Düsseldorf that goes via Edinburgh - this happened at least once😅
I rather go to Edinburgh again than rely on DB
I thought the same thing.
Price was low. As low as the flight.
FYI: Even before Brexit, you have ALWAYS needed to go through passport control when entering or leaving the UK.
But not customs.
And ETIAS is about to mean fingerprint checks.
Brexit - more shit every year.
Yeah, but it was a quick peek at the outbound and inbound checking points, now it's WAY longer.
I'm from Germany and I've been traveling by train for most of my life. I briefly had a car when I was young. Then 18 years later DB had degraded its service so much that I finally gave up and got a car again. I definitely see this as a step back in the grand scheme of things, but... I'm on time almost every time. Google Maps is extremely accurate. When I drive somewhere 2h away, I'll usually be there within 3 minutes of the predicted time, even though I have no control over red lights and traffic. When I used DB I couldn't even rely on a train even appearing at a station at all! Going to the airport meant I had to have AT LEAST one "buffer" train, i.e. go early enough that one train could be canceled and I'd still be there on time.
@@metacob this is sad 😔
Germany weirdly trying to become the US has happened once before, and it didn't go very well
This is exactly what the CDU and FDP want you to do - CONSUME - BUY A CAR.
That'S why they let the public transport systems (not just Deutsche Bahn) in utter decay.
0:52 passport control isn't because of brexit...UK was never in Schengen.
True but then Schengen would have been good.
Yes, but before Brexit you only had to show your British passport and you walked straight through. Now they have to check you haven't been in the EU (except Ireland) for more than 3 months out of the last 6, and then stamp your passport - and that takes 3 times as long.
@@RichardFraser-y9t_And still would be._
One thing that did change was being able to use just any kind of government issued official photo ID, now it's a passport.
Many in the Schengen area now do passport checks, I was checked between Germany and Denmark
If I was doing London-Berlin, I would do it by train, but I would probably change at Brussels and Cologne, it's quicker and the trains are more frequent and comfortable. But honestly if somewhere was within a day from London by train I would just take the train almost every time. I just find it so much more enjoyable.
If you do London-Berlin this way you can also stop off at Wuppertal, and ride on the incredible Schwebebahn.
This is the route I would use too. Makes far more sense to me.
agree with you ... and MY experience of Deutsche Bahn has bee mostly positive, though admittedly the last time I used my eurail pass in Germany was in 1993 ... I was still young then, but I do remember being happy with the rail travels.
can confirm, did this back from berlin and it took about 10hrs, no delays & it’s a high speed train from Köln iirc
It's also kind of the original route. Belgium arranged the Eurostar and the Thalys for the Netherlands only fairly recently. Brussels and Cologne are also way better cities to visit, where the real 'European culture' begins
When Evan mentioned trouble my mind instantly went to DB. Went to Hamburg last year. DB decided to change departing station 30 minutes before departing (the new station was 17 minutes away with metro), then cancelling our train entirely 20 minutes later, instructing us to board another train not going to our destination less than 5 minutes before that train leaving, dropping us of in the middle of nowhere without further information letting us wait about an our until another train arrived and picked us up. At one point all the Germans broke out in a song about their love for the wonderful DB. When we tried to file for compensation they informed us that they didn't owe us any because our train (the last one we changed to) was less than 30 minutes late, despite us arriving in Copenhagen almost 5 hours later than planned. 😂
Did you file within the app or did u ask a person? The person was wiring, of cause. Even without the app you usually get an email with compensation information is you are late for me than 2 hours. Otherwise it's easy to apply for compensation inside the app.
@KarMa-ws3ll I e-mailed, I explained and they informed. By then I had given them enough of my time.
Being more than 1 hour late is worth 25%, being 2 hours late is 50%. The condition is that you had a single ticket from departure til arrival. Having more than one ticket means if you are late on the first leg and miss your connecting train, that's on you. Buying a new ticket then to just keep moving, being delayed again but not by 60 minutes yields no compensation.
I don't know what's the case here, but the devil is in the details.
If on a single ticket, you'd fill a form stating departure, via and arrival times originally planned, and point where that plan failed, and how and how late you arrived. At least that's what I know from Deutsche Bahn, which relied on paper-only workflow just until recently, but the law is for all EU trains.
@@hb-man a single ticket is the condition, exactly.
@@hb-man I had one ticket from Hamburg to Copenhagen, they were obviously in the wrong and if I cared more I would have fought the issue and probably got compensated for the delay. Except that I couldn't be bothered to get all the details right with DB at that point. It just wasn't worth the time and effort.
12:00 for a 10-14 hour journey i'd recommend taking a sleeper train instead. The con is sleepers often get delayed for up to 2 hours so that needs to be factored in. On the plus side when you only need to arrive and don't care about being on time you won't notice the delay anyway, cause you're sleeping.
Have you watched the video?
obviously not.
Sleeper trains do not run from London to Berlin.
He had gone from
London -> Brussels -> Amsterdam -> Hengelo -> Bad Bentheim -> Berlin
Where in those 5 stops does a sleeper train a) drive b) give you enough time to actually sleep in it, when every leg of the journey is 2 to 3 hours max?
@@Xingmey you can definitely take a sleeper from brussels or amsterdam to berlin.
European Sleeper Bruxelles - Amsterdam - Berlin - Dresden - Praha ?
@@Xingmey a) this was a general statement for train journeys taking over 10 hours.
b) he could have booked a sleeper from Paris to Berlin.
It's not even that expensive, you can get a couchette ticket for 55€
c) as MrRicememe correctly pointed out, there is also a Sleeper going from Brussels and Amsterdam to Berlin.
Also others have pointed out that the London-Paris-Berlin or London-Brussels-via Aachen-Berlin routes would have been faster and more reliable. The videomaker replied that he only went via Amsterdam because it was the cheapest option at the time.
I thought (and also in my limited experience) that night trains don't often get delayed because they have built in so much buffer in their schedule - oftentimes, the train just stop on the way somewhere; if there is a delay on the way, it would usually just get absorbed by the buffer. This is also a way to make the journey a bit longer to accommodate people's sleep time, i.e. the train does not arrive at the destination super early morning.
As a Dutch living in Germany, past christmas I took the train from Hannover (DE) to Deventer (NL) to visit family, and I was honestly shocked we arrived exactly on time by the minute. Talking about a Christmas miracle.
I mean, two thirds of German long-distance trains do arrive on time...Not great, but not terrible
LONDON FOX!!!!! My greatest joy since moving here
Vave londoners legalised foxes or something?
Read "Rivers of London" Foxglove Summer ;-)
You probably have seen a train carrying cars in the US. They're in covered cars and it's hard to tell what they are unless you know what to look for.
Everyone has seen a train carrying cars, they just don't realize it as you've said.
I was thinking "how has he never seen cars on a train?" but then i remembered that I lived next to train tracks for most of my childhood so my experience is definitely not universal
For those looking for an image, they're called "Auto-rack". The american ones are all covered, very tall (like double stacked containers), and very unique looking.
Yeah, I've seen trains with cars on them. I think this fellow just was away from home for too many years and forgot haha
I also grew up in a house within sight of a railway, in the '50s-60s, when shipment of new cars by rail became a thing. The auto carrier cars then were just open racks, not covered as now - great for target practice with rocks or weapons. Railroads were fairly prompt to figure that out.
Got the British experience at an international level. You haven't experience the full train experience until it's announced your train director has gone home in the middle of your train
Why yes I love spending 4 hours at Castle Cary before getting a replacement bus
Living vicariously through you and others, all of whom I sincerely appreciate from the comfort of my living room. Thanks, Evan.
My favourite DB feature: Not missing your connecting train because it’s also 50min late….
I do just wanna point out that the locomotives on the IC-Berlin (Amsterdam Berlin) are actually owned by NS, not DB, so when they announced that there was a problem with the engine, it actually wasn’t DB’s fault.
Who is this NS guy?
@@elzabethtatcher9570 NS (Nederlandse Spoorwegen) is the Dutch national rail operator
@@SebastianD334 thanks
well, it's just popular nowadays to dunk on DB whether it's actually their fault or not 😅
@@hge437 I (DB Driver) get constantly dunked on aswell even when we're on time and everything works, despite us having a punctuality of 92.8% so people really have nothing to complain about. Especially because most delays are caused by the passengers and not seldomly by the same ones that then rant about the unreliability of the railway lol.
Did Eurostar from London to Brussels and back this past summer. To Brussels was terrific. From Brussels the train was delayed 2+ hours because of a stuck train in the Chunnel. And then stuck again for another hour due to kids on the tracks.
it was very odd to learn that the UK has weirdly high track security with all the fencing, cuttings, and hedgerows blocking access to the track
Trespassing seems to be a worldwide problem, judging by the amount of graffiti one sees on and around railways, wherever they are.
@@KingFinnch In the UK the national rail operator is liable for any injuries and deaths caused by track that was accessible to the victim. Plus we have electrified third rails which aren't fun to step on
Once you get on a train which has any involvement with germany it all starts to go terribly wrong
@@agentbananauk only if it's traveling eastbound..
The tiny bins are by the way because in the past you were allowed to smoke on the train and they were meant as ashtrays. And yes, after your car get pulled into the depot there will be staff cleaning it out!
That's so far in the past, these cars don't exist anymore. Train seats have been redesigned several times since.
But I remember how suffocating it was to have to walk through the smokers car to get to the non-smokers car.
0:53 in fact, passport controls existed between U.K. and the continent before brexit because we weren’t in the Schengen area.
(But I also do agree that brexit in general is a pile of poo)
Great video again Evan 😊
Dodie is so me on a plane during turbulence. Glad you were there to help her through it. (:
Never mind the plane or the train - THAT’S DODIE!!!!! ❤❤❤
Glad to see someone else noticed. I had to stop and rewind the video to make sure I wasn't seeing things.
She’s like an Easter egg. Always affiliated with/cameoing in cool stuff. Between Savannah brown and Bertie Gilbert, Jacob Collier, and this guy. Like wtf. Fr.
The wildlife in central London is crazy, compared to most other big cities.
A few months ago I was wandering around King's Cross station late at night, waiting for a train.
When I walked past the clock tower, I saw that there was a small group of mice, running around and playing in the closed-off glass area. They had crawled in through a small hole in the wall behind a power socket, which had presumably been left open when people who had been rewiring the tower had stopped work for the day.
The underground system is infested with mice. You see them from the underground platforms all the time, universally a sort of smoky grey colour. Also, for some reason, pigeons often seem to take an underground trip from Edgeware Road station to Bakers Street station. I've seen that often outside rush hour, and they can have a little snack on the way pecking around for broken crisps and the like on the carriage floor. Then there are the ring-necked parakeets in Hyde Park (and other places).
However, the foxes take the biscuit for cocky behaviour. A friend had a den of them living under his garden shed in Acton. Out here in the Cotswolds, they are rather more cautious as the farmers have guns and there are many more big dogs about.
@@TheEulerID True there's often mice on the train tracks, but they're stuck down there. In Paris and New York you see giant rats. Makes me glad of the little mice.
Berlin has a flock of starlings that regularly use the S-Bahn to travel one or two stops from Hauptbahnhof (where they scavenge for food) to another station (where they nest).
@@gerdforster883 Bird trains when? One day they're going to need to get charged....
In the US, the second most transported item by freight rail is cars. But no one ever sees that! They use "auto racks," which are yellow with corrugated metal doors.
I have a serious phobia of flying. (Iv been on at least 20 plus planes) but every time I land I say never again. Seeing your lady in sheer turmoil during turbulence really hit home. That’s how I feel even without the turbulence and it just ruins and makes the holiday experience unenjoyable. For this reason I love traveling via Eurostar. Yeah I know it takes longer and can be a bit more expensive but it’s so worth it for the mental health and overall experience and plus not touching cloth the entire time is nice 😂. The train for me is part of the fun of travelling. Not something I think I could ever say about flying. I just feel a sense of impending doom at all times. Anyways I’m rambling. Great video dude.
I love that Dodie taught you the HOT TO GO dance on the train 🙌😂
Amsterdam-Berlin isnt really the best route from London especially since they removed the dining car due to retiring the IC1 cars soon
the better Route is London-Brussels-Koln-Berlin as thats all ICE's
look up Seat61 for good Train advice
Good tip, thanks!
totally agree!
I was literally about to comment this. The Amsterdam-Berlin route is slower and far less reliable.
@@OtterBops being a brit living in Berlin I take this route all the time and it is great, tho I do normally break it in cologne or Brussels for a nights stay each way, which is fun too..
I had the night bus from London to Brussel and then the ICE via Køln. And I agree. That train journey was enjoyable. And Køln is also a cool city to have a break in.
You can see a lot more things out the window than on a plane. I think train travel is more exciting.
Apart from take off and landing most flight views are tedious. I still prefer the quicker journey by air though
If they bother to clean the windows...
I'm just over here at my home in the US state of Iowa, which feels like a completely different planet. Cars are king here, and drivers are generally very unskilled. I've been to Europe 3 times, and I consider myself lucky for that!
Even in Europe 90% of French or German households have a car or more. 70% of workers drive to work, 15% transit, 15% walk/bike. Sadly car is king everywhere. Here in MN the idea of not having car is silly. What is there to do in Ames?
In Europe most households have a car and cars are standard transportation
the second he mentioned Deutsche Bahn I knew he was in trouble 😂😂
In 2019 I flew from North Carolina via Heathrow to Sweden (American Airlines -> British Airways) to sail the Stockholm Archipelago with an expat friend of mine. Other friends in Berlin had long invited me to visit, so I booked a few days side trip on Easy Jet - round trip Stockholm-Berlin, including "priority boarding," for US $130! No frills but no hassle, either. Then back home thru Stockholm and London. Amazing experiences. Six flights, every one on time, but landed back in NC two hours too late to get to my home on the coast before Hurricane Dorian trashed it. Get a little, give a little....
American here... Seen entire trains of cars, as well as trains carrying various freight, as well as cars near where I live, as well as all over the US. I do not know how Evan never seen one around NJ.
It's so funny how everyone is shitting on DB but totally forgets that the loco failure was with a NS loco (dutch) and the delay of the third train is likely a fault of NS as well
remember it's always the Germans fault
Exactly. I don't think it's funny he was trying to be funny at the cost of DB, and I am not German. It would be nicer watching a video that is more accurate and you should double check before blaming someone
The plane only takes ‘less then two’ hours if you don’t factor in getting to the airport and the longer check-in times. Also if you fly you don’t get to see all the beautiful countryside.
You can get great views when descending to land. I do agree you need to factor in longer waiting times getting through security and customs when using a plane...in balance if the journey by train is more than 5 hours I'd opt for plane
@ Only if you have a window seat. Otherwise not so much.
@@ffotograffydd a fair point
Getting to and from the airport plus having to be there at least two hours prior can add about 4-5 hours to your trip. Then there's cramped seats, crowded airports, crazy long queues for check in and security, strict luggage rules (size, weight, liquids, food, etc). I'd take the train anytime I could afford to. The tax advantages for planes are criminal!!!
I've never had to wait at airport security more than 15 minutes. Planes overall are much faster than trains. 2 hours vs 8 often. Planes are amazing technology now they are safe, even when they were 20x riskier people still chose them in Germany. Why do people have this fetish for trains? Planes are best, by 3x, except not as green. But even a train across continent roundtrip costs 2000kg of CO2 overall, weekend vacations can NEVER be green flying or training . .. This guy going to Berlin for 4 days just emitted 2000kg of CO2, the jerk, the evil jerk, he just killed a Indian farmer who faces heatstroke by this polluting train jerk. Europeans are evil, if Russia invades yall deserve. Love Ghandi
I'm biased! I love trains, so I take them in preference to cattle class flights!
We've done a lot of trains and loved them!
Eg Ghan, Indian Pacific, Queensland Tilt, Rocky Mountaineer, Amtrac, EuroStar, Orient Express, Glacier Express, Bernina Express, Golden Pass, ICE (Including one which goes on a ferry!), TVG, Czech Republic, London to Edinburgh.
Some of them take a day or more! Some are not about point A to point B travel but about tourists like us!
European trains are very competitive with short plane trips within Europe. A 3-4 hour train trip competes on price, comfort and time against a 1 hour flight.
1. Trains leave from city centers. For planes add transport to airport 30mins to 1 hour, checkin close add 30mins to 2 hours, getting out of the plane, pick up baggage and get into city add 30mins to 90 mins.
2. Trains have more room, easy to get up and walk around, etc that plane cattle class.
3. Get to see more and maybe experience a bit more of foreign places.
4. Some people fear missing a flight, so book overnight at an airport. Add on that time and cost!
London to Berlin is another issue. You certainly had experiences / delays / changes we've never had! If your objective was Berlin only, then air - even with the add on time and extra expenses - maybe was better for you.
Regardless we flown from Australia to Munich and then used trains, ferries and planes to get to UK and back! Just a case of picking a combination which one will serve our objectives best.
Our worst experiences were
A. Connecting ICE to Eurostar in Brussels. The 90 minute gap disappeared in bad weather. Just made it.
B. Getting from Victoria COACH station to Kings Cross Regional platforms. I allowed 2 hours. Coach was delayed 30 minutes. Made Kings Cross with 10 minutes to spare. Why? The underground is only about 10 minutes. The rest lost in bad / lack of signposting and us needing lifts for luggage instead of escalators. Lifts were out of the way with backtracking involved.
The cost of a plane or train ticket is highly variable (time of day etc) and depends on when you book. Do your homework and one can easily be half the price of the other and vica versa. Unlimited passes are not the bargain they used to be but are worth considering. Shop around too.
We've done London to Manchester for 16 pounds each by train. London to Southampton by bus for 5 pounds each. Amsterdam to London by loca train + local bus (line was part closed) + Ferry overnight + train to London Liverpool station. All for the heck of finding a different way to cross the channel!
Oh, and consider which is more environmentally friendly!
Very thoughtful to give you the authentic Deutsche Bahn experience. Did you know that the whole city of Kassel is just Deutsche Bahn passengers stranded there, founding families and settling down while waiting for their connecting train to arrive?
Watching your friend white-knuckle it to London says it all. Yes, train delays are annoying, but there's nothing more stressful than the possibility your plane will fall out of the air a looooong ways to the ground. No, no, a thousand nos. But awe, you were so kind to let her squeeze your hand. Good man, sir.
What's interesting, though, is that both modes of transport are some of the safest in the world. The positive for air travel, though, is almost the entire trip is automated (it has been for many decades- the only things that aren't are takeoff, landing, and if there is major turbulence. Everything is preloaded on disks/pre-downloaded visa software packets and, only recently, were moved off of, I'm not joking, floppy disks... only in the last 5-10 years. Some are STILL operating safely on floppy disks).
Rail travel has more room for human error as it's not automated, plus you have to add in obstacles on the ground (cars, animals, fallen trees, broken rail ties, etc.).
I absolutely ADORE rail travel, but I just can't afford it in the UK (luckily, though, the UK government is not renewing the privatised rail contracts and are slowly re-nationalising the rail system, with completion of this happening by the end of 2025).
In India the villagers put piles of rocks on the tracks to get attention. Planes are inherently harder to interfere with than trains. I was in Florida a day and saw a truck take out a crossing arm of train, and then multiply that by 1000 crossings, makes one realize the sky is safer than busy ground. Its weird how our gut can be wrong, flying feels unsafer option.
There’s apparently a new Paris-Berlin service soon that might work better.
Also, I did European Sleeper in 2023 and that was a fun trip, and worked well with Eurostar
That would probably take longer. Currently the best route is London-Brussels-Cologne-Berlin. Definitely better than the old IC wagons, but the former Thalys (now Eurostar) trains from Brussels to Cologne also don't have the best reputation.
@@Psi-Storm Paris-Berlin is advertised to take 8h8m, London-Paris is about 2h15m, so if we budget in at least a 1 hour layover (probably should do 3-4 hours just in case of delays), then it would take about 12 hours to do London-Paris-Berlin.
I’ve done London -> Brussels -> Köln and it was a breeze. However my journey from Köln to Hamburg was delayed by at least an hour. Without me doing anything at all they gave me a voucher for the inconvenience. You certainly wouldn’t get this in the UK.
At least with DB (ICE trains) they aren’t as horrendously priced like UK train. For the cheaper advance fares, if delayed you can then jump on any. They both have infrastructure problems which will take a long time to fix
In the UK you can claim a part refund for a delay over 15 minutes.
@ Sure but I have be pro-active about claiming which I have done many many times. Whereas I was making the point DB gave me a voucher without me doing anything to acknowledge their bad service
6:44 Honestly the super loud cackle I just let out 😂😂😂
🤣🤣🤣 "we made special attention to the inflight security demonstration.... because u never know it might just differ from other planes before". I died at this.
Bit confused, why you did go via Amsterdam, you could have switched trains in Brussels, or get off the train in Rotterdam, and go to Utrecht and pickup the ICE.
Probably because there's now (very new) a direct train line going from Amsterdam to Berlin.
@@LuxalpaBerlin Amsterdam is not new.
Direct. Only one change. Very low price
@@Luxalpa The Intercity Berlin is not new? It has ran since the fall of the Berlin Wall…
@@deywanhamer4864 The Eurostar (as well as the Thalys) are new for the Netherlands. Belgium arranged these for the Netherlands only recently
Honestly, when you heard your train wouldn't be going past Bad Bentheim, I'd have checked if there were alternative connections to Berlin compared to taking it that far - I'd imagine taking the ICE down to Duisburg and then changing to one of the frequent ICEs from there to Berlin might have been faster then, and your ticket would be valuable due to the delay caused by the shortening.
Though honestly I wouldn't have taken this route to begin with; Brussels/Amsterdam-Berlin is long enough to justify a sleeper train, after all.
Also, how did you not find the power outlets on the DB IC? They're not even really hidden!
In America the trains carry vehicles, cars trucks etc in enclosed train cars so the public never really sees the vehicles...
I love the auto train! So much more comfortable than dealing with airports.
If you see train cars with thin sheet metal sides that are full of small holes, those are the cars that are used to carry cars from factories to distribution centers.
The cars on trains he is taking about in the video. Are tourists taking there own car, with them on the train to drive in Europe. From 1955 untill 2005 there used to be a network of Motorail services across the UK. For people to take take there car with them on the train. The England to France trains is the only route now. It is something you don't see in the USA. They are not cars being distributed for manufacture's.
@@grahamsmith9541
" It is something you don't see in the USA."
We have an autotrain. Goes from the Washington DC to Florida, 17 hours. 🙂
Of course, most Americans would simply jump on an aircraft rather than travel for five or ten hours or more on the ground (unless they live out in the middle of nowhere; I'm a city dweller speaking of city dwellers).
Just like there are 29 flights a day London to Edingburgh, we fly long distances also.
@@grahamsmith9541the US very much transports new cars by rail, the wagons are called autoracks. You wouldn’t know the train is transporting cars because it’s an enclosed wagon.
4:53 Hahahaha Played this in my Head at every Suitcase mention, glad it made an appearance
The DB seats will have a little handle under the front right edge of the seat. The seats contained all within this seat-casing recline with the handle only. The seats where the whole seat-casing reclines use this handle to slide the seat forward, and a separate lever to the side to recline seat back.
Passport control has nothing to do with Brexit. The UK was never part of the Schengen Agreement, which is a separate thing from the EU.
However soon the UK eTA and the ETIAS will be in force, and it is a consequence of Brexit that it will affect UK-EU travel.
Schengen is actually very much part of the EU. Britain just negotiated yet another exception for them, back when they were in the EU. (As did a few countries that joined later, pointing to Britain as an example.) Freedom of movement is one of the four fundamental freedoms for EU citizens. (And yes, there are rules in Schengen that allow EU countries to close their borders again under certain circumstances, like fighting terrorism. And some, like Denmark, did exactly that. Or Germany, for some time. Etc…)
As said in other comments: (a) You didn’t need a passport before, a government ID (which the vast majority of Europeans have, compared to the UK), and (b) They need to stamp the passport and check for previous stamps now.
The fact that EU citizens even need a passport and are no longer allowed to travel to the UK on an ID card only has EVERYTHING to do with Brexit.
Brexiters always talk about the EU being vindictive but we could consider this time the UK has been vindictive as they know very well that many EU citizens don't even have a passport. I don't have one and it would cost me €80 to get one.
If you insert foam earplugs in your ears before takeoff, you won't have your ears pop from the change in cabin pressure. The foam gradually equalizes the air pressure... much slower than the takeoff. Plus, you get sound dampening, so you don't have to be deafened from all the noise, either.
Need to remember this one, I'm basically always screwed with the air pressure in planes. So thanks for the tip!
I can promise you there was charging for your laptop on every train, in rare exceptions it does not work, but every long distance train has 230V EU power sockets.
Yeah, I guess he was already too tired to even look. To be fair, the plugs are not exactly placed in your face.
Often underneath the seat and hard to find.
I think not all seats have them either do they? So if you were assigned to a specific seat, then you could be without power.
@@RyanHellyer At least for the seats at a table, I don't recall there ever not being one.
Sometimes they replace them with USBs to charge phones. I noticed hotels do that too...
@@RyanHellyerNot of all seats have them in the sense that there might only be one outlet for every two seats.
Doing that journey, I would’ve taken an overnight option:
🅰️ DutchFlyer boat train overnight to Hoek van Holland, metro and day train rest of the way.
🅱️ Eurostar to Brussels change for and overnight train to Berlin (European Sleeper or ÖBB NightJet on alternating days)
Never understood people who get tired travelling, unless they are driving obviously. I always feel refreshed after a journey not sure why.
I have never heard anyone say the train is "better" than a plane in general. Europes train network is at least a viable alternative, not too expensive, better than places like the US or even Canada or south America, a great experience for seeing things along the way, and more environmentally friendly - as well as comfortable and everything else.
But if you don't like travelling longer, nobody has ever said "you should take the train".
dodie! As someone who lives in America I'm still super jealous of your ability to travel by train
What do you mean? We have passenger trains here as well. We just don't use HSR. This train took 10 hours to go 681 miles, that's not HSR. 🙂
We have the ten hour train rides, and much longer than that. California Zephyr is a 52 hour ride from the Bay Area to Chicago, and it's a breathtaking view out the window. If you want to fast, a jet aircraft will get you in half the time that HSR would (SF to Chicago is 2123 miles....flying it's four hours; HSR would take over ten hours).
@@Bill32H-it3sv You honor us, my friend. 🙂 Citizen yet? 🙂
@@Bill32H-it3sv I'm so jealous, I wish I could move to the US too, I was there a few times this year and it's paradise compared to London or anywhere else in the UK.
Your summation of the subsidizing of airlines perfectly describes why American Passenger Rail fell apart between 1960-1980.
It's more because airplanes are quite a bit faster. HSR from LA to NYC would take 14 hours. You can fly it in five or six hours.
And yes, as we saw in the video, this is true in Europe as well. Not all their trains are HSR. So London to Berlin takes 10+ hours on the ground, when you can fly it in two hours. 🙂
@@neutrino78x but high speed trains could do NY-Chicago or Chicago-Denver in 3-4 hours. I dont think that built a HS line between LA and NY will have sense.
@@MarceloBenoit-trenes at what cost?
@@aamaldev494 Ever looked at the actual cost of flying?
@@MarceloBenoit-trenes
"speed trains could do NY-Chicago or Chicago-Denver in 3-4 hours."
Nope. Show me the 790 mile (1271 km) HSR line -- whole length is HSR -- that has been built in Europe.
And no I don't mean total railroad in the country.
I mean specifically a railroad line that's a straight line, 790 miles (1271 km) long, that is HSR, where the train goes at HSR speeds the entire length.
That would be an enormous expense.
And a jet aircraft would STILL get there in HALF the time. You can fly NYC to Chicago in 2.5 hours. Four hours is NOT competitive.
And to get to the four hours, the train MUST average 321 km/hr or faster. Not maximum speed but AVERAGE. The planned CAHSR here in California will not average that high of a speed.
The TGV averages 173 mph (278 km/hr). So it would take at least 4.5 hours to get to Chicago.
Otherwise the jet aircraft will beat it by an even wider margin.
And remember, you have still only connected two major cities. For a nationwide HSR system like they have in France, you would need to link all major cities with HSR.
If you admit that isn't feasible, thank you for conceding the argument.
Loved this video. More like this. Watched from Beginning to end. 🕶️
"Zänk ju for träwelling wiz Deutsche Bahn!"
my understanding is that the USA has wagons to carry cars by train, however they are fully enclosed so you wouldn't see cars on the train in passing
yap can confirm as America there slightly hard to spot but they have slits, there also stacked and the front of the car that front basically swings open. i think they do have open ones as well but different company or railroad company uses them.
there so people can't steal them or damage them by throwing rocks or steal catalytic converter which in 2021 each state had around 600-1,000 stolen, Washington had 3,379 stolen from cars becuase they use platinum, Rhodium, Palladium
Platinum Price per Gram $30.18 €29.27
Rhodium per gram $150.30
Palladium Price per gram $30.88
Yeah, I've never seen an open one before.
Living in the Not London part of the UK I was really impressed by how joined up the local transport in Germany. I don't even have a bus to take me the 2 miles across town to the train station.
If you want public transport integration Switzerland is one of the best
Germany still beats the UK hands down when it comes to urban transport, outside London it's pretty woeful compared to continental Europe.
@@Croz89 yep the UK steal the good urban transport from Germany. The bus stop next to my house might be useful then.
16:20 I used to have terrible ear problems with plane pressure changes too. Until I was taught how to equalise the pressure when scuba diving.
Hold you nose while trying to breath out your nose, it opens up the blocked sinuses. Then wiggle your jaw left and right or in circles until the pressure equalises. Never had any trouble with ears again on planes.
That's actually the worst thing to do on a plane! The pressure is completely different and you can wind up bursting your eardrums. Wiggling your jaw bit is fine though.
While flying is cheaper and possibly less stressful, for me the train is the only way as I am terrified of flying. Plus I quite enjoy watching the trains go by and seeing the country side. Having a nap is also quite a good idea when on a long train journey. I recently did the Amsterdam to Berlin and then Berlin to Amsterdam journey via train. Our journey there was quite uneventful but our train on the way back was about 3 hours delayed!!!!! I am glad you portrayed both journeys and hope you enjoyed.
Railway car carriers are extremely common in the USA, it’s just that they are usually covered rather than exposed as seen at 3:23. This is possibly due to the vast distances freight trains often travel in the USA - and as such more of a need to protect the cargo in transit.
In a ~middle school physics test, we were supposed to name a method of movement with a constant speed. A classmate wrote „Trains, except for the Deutsche Bahn“
Well, you see, the speed of deutsche bahn is actually often constant. Not to say it’s positive, however.
Paris is about :
300 km to London
600 km to Marseille
900 km to Berlin
London is around 900 km to Berlin or Marseille as well.
Train travels take :
2 hours between Paris and London (Eurostar )
4 hours between Paris and Marseille (SNCF )
7 hours between London and Marseille (Eurostar + SNCF)
8 hours between Paris and Berlin (SNCF + DB) with the new speed train line
12 hours between London and Berlin (Eurostar + DB)
So maybe the train is not the issue there…
And trains in France are boarded only 15 minutes before departure, with French people not knowing how to queue properly…
Maybe that’s related : when people are culturally unable to wait in order and calm, train operators have to be exceptionally good to compensate.😂😂
To be fair, it takes 10h from London to Berlin. You just have to go from London to Brussel, than over Frankfurt and to Berlin. this has the advantengte to avoid most of the problemes with Ruhr valley and most of the time it is actually a high speed train like in France.
For reference, that is actually a distance off about 1400km. The Problem in this case is the Evan just bought the cheapest connection and does not know how to work with DB. He even did not travel with an ICE, but an IC train. Once the train has enough delay or a cancletion you can do what ever you want. Take any train to you destination. In fact you probably could have been faster in Berlin, than if official arrival time by switching to a train to Cologne and than dircetly to Berlin or over Frankfurt to Berlin. The DB Navigator App is one of the best thinks you can have in any country. Sure the reason is, that DB has so many delays that they need something to mange it. But DB is superior to any other train operator in Europe, when stuff goes wrong. Try getting on another TVG without a seat reservation.
And the TVG is not as comfortable as the ICE and quite cramped. The only real advantage the TVG has is, that it has it's own tracks and thus a lot less delays. But once you choice the real high speed tracks in german the ICE is actually a better product. But you just have to know what you are doing.
6:10 DB meet Evan, Evan meet DB.
My wife used to have to travel from Bielefeld, Germany to London a lot, with here work site being near St. Pancreas station. Nearest regional airport is about a 45 minute drive from our place (and we didn't own a car at the time, totally relied on rentals for the little driving we did), nearest significant one -- Düsseldorf -- is about two hours regardless of you going by car or trains.
So door-to-door, with the "get to the airport, get from the airport to the actual city center, airport check-in and security" overhead added, her taking a cab to the ICE station near our home (5min), then the ICE to Cologne, the Thalys form Cologne to Brussels, then the Eurostar to London, was actually a little bit faster than ICE to Düsseldorf Airport (which has its own ICE station nearby), SkyTrain transfer to the airport terminal, checkin, security theater, flying to Heathrow, taking the tube to London city.
Not only did that save a little bit on time, it also allowed her to prepare for work on the trains to London (preferably making sure to reserve a seat with a table) and to do all the related reports on the way back.
Try by bus. Flixbus go from London to practically anywhere!
In my experience they're good when they're on time and don't cancel your trip so you have to take a longer route, and definitely the cheapest option. I'd like to see Evan make a video on them!
Flixbus are okay as long as they don't crash. Last year, I think I am right in saying, a Flixbus coach crashed in Germany. I don't like the idea of placing my life in the hands of someone who may not be in the best of health or who may get sleepy on the autobahn and nod off . . .
Woop woop Hengelo represent! Interesting facts about the Hengelo trainstation, it was very severely bombed during WW2, by the brits, because it was the last stop before going into Germany. Or the first when entering from Germany. As recently as the 90's and maybe even 00's we dug up bombs around the station when renovating the bus stops and stuff.
I married a lovely lady from the NL who grew up in Hengelo. My first time experiencing Hengelo was a train from Schiphol to Hengelo Centraal. The first thing I saw/heard there were FC Twente fans singing while waiting for their train.
One trip there (I went there 4 times in 5 years before we married and lived in the US) I had three weeks with my wife alone in her parent's house since they also were taking a vacation. We biked everywhere, and I loved it. Got to know so much of Hengelo and the surrounding area (300 km worth of riding).
Alas, my father-in-law died, and my wife's mother sold the childhood home for some more appropriate digs. We may never visit Hengelo again. I will miss it.
There's a ska song about Hegelo Hengelooo
Somebody did not do his homework. I live in Basel, Switzerland. I love traveling by train. I've made the trip from Basel to London via Paris many times. I stop for a 3 hour lunch in Paris. I traveled by train to Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Turin, Milan, Rome, Florence, and even Palermo. DB is the worst. I won't book a ticket unless it is direct point to point (say, Basel to Berlin or Zürich to Vienna via Munich). French TGV good. Trenitalia good. DB, avoid.
BREXIT didn’t result in passport control. I’ve taken the train from London to Paris, twice and before BREXIT and there was still passport control.
But there was no customs checks before Brexit. And it's about to get worse with the fingerprint scanning for ETIAS.
Correct, you had to flash your passport. Now you have to get it stamped so that the 90day-rule can be enforced. Will be digital with ETIAS, after you registered your fingerprints.
@@hepdepaddelPlus, a government ID was fine, you didn’t need a passport. Now that there are time limits, they need pages to stamp which only passports have. I know quite a number of people in the EU who don’t have a passport and just a government ID.
This train ride reminded me of a trip I took first with my oldest when she was a toddler, and then repeated when I took her and her brother who was an infant. I took the train because it was cheaper than flying, and the kids didn't have to spend 9 hours in car seats, and we didn't have to stop repeatedly with the kids. Especially to nurse the infant. It turned a 9-hour drive into a 15+ hour ride, but we could walk around and they could play. It was exhausting, and I did it by myself. Their dad drove down a few days later and drove straight through, and then we all drove back as a family. I don't know why this was a great idea.
I travelled from Prague to Berlin, then Berlin to Amsterdam by train. It was so much more relaxing than flying. The views (especially between Prague and Berlin) were beautiful. I think it was on DB.
Great video, Evan. Sorry you went through all that hassle with Deutsche Baum. Personally, I think anywhere that takes more than 6 hours by rail is better done by plane instead. Even 6 hours takes up a fair chunk of the day. Ideally, I’d want to be spending no more than about 4 and a half hours travelling by train which incidentally is how long it takes to get Amsterdam from London by rail (Edinburgh too). As for Germany, it is theoretically possible to get to Cologne from London by train in 4 and a half hours but you have a tight 20 minute connection in Brussels and DB to contend with. There is a Eurostar train from Brussels to Cologne but this adds another hour to your journey from London. Even so, it may be more reliable than DB so it’s probably worth the extra hour.
I like trains. For me personally the sweat spot for long distance rail is about 150-600 km. Any trip less then 150 km is mostly good by local/ regional rail, busses etc. Anything longer takes mostly too much time as long as there is no sleeper train.
Your trip has been more then 900 km crossing a real border (with emigration and unnecessary stuff like that) making it a pretty inconvenient trip by train. Even for me.
One thing that eases longer trips is splitting up the trip. Take half a day in Amsterdam when you have the time. You arrived there at noon. Go to a bakery, get a coffee and get some work done. Then finish the trip on the sleeper train and arrive the next morning in Berlin. Or you take a morning train (6 or 8 am) and arrive in Berlin by noon or in the early afternoon.
By the way, you caught one of a couple of lines in the whole DB network that still uses the old IC coaches without a power socket at the seat. This train should have been replaced for quite some time by the new Talgo trainsets. These start service on your route (hopefully) in summer.
The Train vs. Plane is not just that the airlines get HEAVILY subsidized, it is also that you have varied dedications to the train services, based on countries. Germany had the issue of Deutsche Bahn getting gov handouts like mad in the past, SUPPOSEDLY to go into Maintenance - and instead, the money was used to build up Schenker Logistics (mostly lorry based) in the whole world, to the point Schenker was making money like mad, which then was put back into Schenker, instead of that money then mostly going BACK to Germany to fund the infrastructure maintenance and upgrades.
Another issue is: In Germany, maintenance needs to be paid for by the owner of the track (most is owned by Deutsche Bahn). If they conveniently let it degrade to the point where it can't be salvaged anymore, and needs to be rebuilt, the REBUILD cost is paid by the government.
What is your source for saying planes are heavily subsidized? Heavily? No they aren't. Trains are the bigger subsidy. I love trains but they are costly.
@@mostlyguesses8385this isn't true given vastly reduced fuel duties on air travel.
... Not taxing aviation fuel is not a "subsidy". The govt doesn't tax walks, is that a subsidy? . . . . The truth is aviation only requires runways at either end of trip most of them built decades ago, the govt don't need to do much now....
Govt did hand out money to all transport companies around Covid, and also pays for airplane research -- if that's $15b a year among 300m adults that's $50 per person subsidy. But NW Europe built high speed rail for about $1500b in grants or govt guarantees divided among 150m that's $10000 a person. Yes, $10000, it's that high, train tracks don't just fall free from sky... Soooo to say aviation is the govt subsidy problem is silly. Google Chinese train debt and you'll see govt is throwing far more money at trains .. . . . ...
It's just weird how high speed trains and ALSO local transit get far more govt subsidy, yet few complain about that side in the car vs noncar debate. For example, each daily rider of a local train gets about $3000 a year subsidy from govt (300days x 2 daily x $5 avg subsidy), but each car driver costs govt under $300, yet people say "cars are subsidized". Transit is the subsidy pig. There should be a phrase, "Yes this side gets some unfair help but not much and other side is 10x far worse". . . . . . .
I admit aviation pollutes like 2000kg co2 for long cross continent trip, vs HSR counting construction is less at 1000kg, but that's a separate issue. and frankly BOTH are a lot of pollution, and any week trip to other side of continent is awful for climate. OVERALL a West European on avg causes 8000kg CO2, having HSR at 1000kg a trip if done monthly is adding a lot so damn all these yuppies taking these monthly long trips for fun or profit. ....
Everyone knows noncar people fudge the facts. In Europe car miles and plane miles havent dropped showing train investment didn't solve much. 90% of E European households have a car or more, that's how bad are noncar options, the people still choose to blow $15000 to not have to rely on them.
I have no car, I sweat and get looks by all y'all in cars, but I dislike the false claims of utopia and success. Planes and cars are pretty great and low cost for govt, that's just facts. Or y'all can walk like me.
@mostlyguesses8385 of course it's a subsidy. Do you realise how much airlines aren't paying by having reduces taxes on fuel compared to every comparable other mode of transport? Not to mention the absurd situation of the American airlines, who are never allowed to go bust thanks to constant chapter 11 rescues where they just get to write off their debt and carry on, tax breaks on aircraft construction, etc.
Ps your figures on rail subsidy are just plain random since they vary country by country. Eg Swiss subsidies are more than twice as high as French per km travelled.
No one is saying cars are subsidised as far as I'm aware. The externalities of car use obviously are, however, from the infrastructure, to entire cityscapes built around them, to emissions.
As someone who dislikes airports, planes and anything to do with that, as well as fear them, taking a Train is my favourite way to go abroad :)
6:43 that one sentence basically explained why everything went wrong in your trip lol
20 years ago, there were hardly any delays on the German system.
Then they thought why do we need to run at 125% staffing level, let's cut it to 80% and save money.
@@agentbananaukIt's not a matter of lacking headcount, but quite the opposite.
DB InfraGo (the German rail network operator) have literally plenty of incompetent and ignorant managers and employees who make it impossible for any railway operator to be even remotely punctual.
The oldest data I could find quickly were for 2009, that year long distance DB trains were punctual 81.2%. Last year that number was 62.5% (apparently at least a 21-year record low). Meaning, last year, twice as many trains were late compared to 2009.. Of course, this based on the 5 min 59s definition, the ratio could be different if a different threshold was used.
Brexit has nothing to do with passport control at St. Pancras Evan. When the UK was in the EU it was outside the Schengen area, so passports have always been required.
It would have been nice if you had shown a screen at the end of the video giving details of the total transport costs incurred.
Disingenuous as before Brexit it was a cursory glance to make sure you were an EU national, now it's biometric passport checks and stamping of passports. This happens upon departure from the UK and upon arrival in the EU. Result - increased waiting times. And then there's ETIAS.
11:21 I thought this was two completely different shots for a second and I wondered why he decided to edit in a picture of the table lamp
It was artsy
Took the London > Brussels > Cologne > Berlin train this summer as a party of 4. It was a long journey, but we all had a great time. It was taken as part of Euroticket and we went on the Vienna, Budapest, Prague, Strasburg and then Paris to head back home. We had just over three weeks - no issues at all, and will happily do it again.
Advantages of trains in Europe:
1) Where you board and where you arrive are probably closer to your hotel.
2) By taking an overnight train, you can save the cost of one night’s hotel by sleeping on the train.
I worked for the UK railway for 32 years, It went down hill after privatisation
Yeah like £80 for 150 mile return trip these days with railcards. Absurd
I agree , I hate using trains now
It initially improved vastly on the routes I normally travelled (West Coast mainline). But the overall number of passengers has increased and that has caused problems.
That's the punchline.
Something good, something something something, privatisation, something bad.
100% I did 41 years
In the US, automobiles are shipped in enclosed freight cars. They were shipped in open air 50 years ago, but that just seems kind of crazy.🤷
Wait but the loco breaking down and the second train from Hengelo being late are NS‘s faults, since they operate the trains until the border and it’s their loco. Only the coaches are from DB.
The trains often arrive so delayed from Germany that they can't depart without a delay
@ NS could use replacement trains like SBB
@@raileon I think the biggest problem is finding (and routing back) the specially qualified personnel. Like drivers and conductors. Because the scheduled personnel is on the delayed train...
Love your vibe and attitude in this one Evan. "If you do so please...I did not please."😂
Evan: "but then everything got bad..."
me: "oh no, how come?"
Evan: "Deutsche Bahn"
me: "...ah, that explains it"
"As a Brit [...] 192cm tall"
He lies! He's not a Brit as no Brit worth their salt even comprehends how tall that is.
aside from my cousin who is a giant
6'3" in proper / freedom units
Most Brits know how tall that is, we’ve been teaching the metric system since the 1960s. 😂
@@AndrewRoberts11 Good man.
@@ffotograffydd not in height though, I've never heard anyone from Britain use cm instead of feet and inches