If you live in Germany, one of your favorite pastimes has to be complaining about the national train service, Deutsche Bahn. The trains are often a bit dirty (especially the regional trains) and they are often a few minutes late, which isn't aided by the company policy to call trains that leave less than six minutes after their stated departure times as punctual. If you've ever had the singularly unpleasant experience of catching a small train that has been overrun by a bunch of school children, one of whom is affected by motion sickness, you can be tempted to swear off the entire enterprise as hopeless and decide that renting a car is a far better option. I've been there. After spending all. day. long. on a train, it's difficult to appreciate the efficient train service. Despite all this, Deutsche Bahn actually represents the best that Germany has to offer.

This article from Germany's public television station is about security standards at German train stations following the Thalys attack last week. It points out that higher security standards that would make train stations more like airports are entirely unrealistic. I wholeheartedly agree. One of my favorite things about train travel in Germany is how simple and efficient it is. To ride on a train, you simply purchase a ticket from a kiosk, then take the stairs up to the platform and get on your train. You don't have to present your ticket at any point in the train station. You don't have to figure out how to work the ticket turnstile to get onto the platform because they do not exist in Germany. The German train system works on a good deal of good faith and common sense.

Tickets are checked after you are sitting in your seat and the train has started moving. The conductor enters the car and says "Jemand zugestiegen?" (Any new passengers?). If your ticket hasn't been punched yet, you hold out your ticket. After that, you can ignore the conductor whenever s/he comes through the car. (Unless you cross national boundaries, but that's another story.)

For me, the ticket check was always a bit nerve-wracking, especially when I had an early train and really just wanted to fall asleep. (I have before fallen asleep with my ticket in my hand out in front of me.) If you're on a regional train, the ticket checker may not even come through, especially if you're only taking a very short trip. This system works perfectly well on the honor code. I am perfectly fine with paying a bit more for my fares if that means that people who cannot afford train travel can slip by for free from time to time. (That is not the intention of the system, but I still think it's a jolly good side effect.) If you get caught without a ticket, you have to pay 40 Euros.

The article above from tagesschau.de mentions that police officers are allowed to ride free whenever they want as long as they're in uniform. This is a brilliant idea because it means that police officers are almost always present on a train in case of emergency. (It also explains why there were always police officers on the train last year...they always made me nervous, like I'd gotten on a particularly sketchy train route.) Knowing that police officers (and in the Western part of Germany, off-duty American servicewomen and men) are aboard does help to curtail crime on the trains.

The only train station that I've been to that has a lot of security is the one below the airport in Frankfurt am Main, for obvious reasons. Almost every time I've traveled through that area, there has been some sort of disruption in the train station due to unattended baggage. Every train station has signs posted and announcements that tell people not to leave their baggage unattended, but due to the train station's proximity to the airport, every piece of unattended baggage throws the entire rail system off. It was due to unattended baggage that I missed my train to Koeln on the way to Fulbright orientation. I think unattended baggage had something to do with the fiasco in Frankfurt where I saw someone fall on the tracks. Unattended baggage shut down the tunnel between the station and airport on my very last morning in Germany last July. If one train station with airport-ish security can throw off the system this badly, think of what an entire network of train stations with this security would be like! (I'm ignoring the fact that this is not a financially viable plan either - none of the train stations even have turnstiles, much less an area for security screenings.)

So you do you, Deutsche Bahn. Germans and those who reside in Germany may love to complain about you, but after a year without any real public transit (the bus system in Norman is okay, but limited), I'm really missing the freedom to wake up, jump on a tram to the train station and from there venture off to a new city or country.

(Also, this girl is living on DB trains as a school project. Interesting & in English!)

I hope you're enjoying the back to school season as much as I am!

- Chelsea