Anyone who regularly travels the route from Munich to Regensburg, Nuremberg or even to Hof by train has certainly experienced the following scene: Completely soaked and sweaty weekend commuters run panting up the escalator at Munich Central Station to the long-distance trains, riveting at Yormas Group of salami-roll-for-a-euro-munching scouts just back from a mind-expanding trip to Prague.
He dives into the rear wagon, which starts moving immediately afterwards, and lands at the feet of a horde of students sitting on the floor in the banging train, who are paying a group leader a share of a Bayern ticket, accurate to the cent. The commuter smiles happily, because he has a real job and the times of such forced communities are long behind him. He even has a Bahncard 50 and really wants to treat himself to something: his own ticket.
But then the realization overtakes him: He is not sitting in an Alex. He is sitting in a regional express train operated by Deutsche Bahn. In other words, in a vehicle without a bistro car, without the opportunity to watch your own necessities being dumped onto the tracks in the historic toilets at full speed – or to buy tickets from the conductor. By the way, there are no other advantages, but “the Alex” was considered a little bit less horrible by commuters.
Please no references to this Internet, where you can – theoretically – also buy a ticket on your cell phone. There is neither internet nor network in Bavarian regional trains. At least not as soon as the train has passed the Hacker Bridge in Munich and thus entered digital no man’s land.
Now there is the nine-euro ticket at the moment, so our poor commuter should already be in possession of a ticket. He still has bad weeks ahead of him: According to the private operator, a third of all Alex trains will be canceled because the employees are ill or on vacation. How are bachelor parties supposed to make it to the Czech Republic? Has anyone thought of that? The company says succinctly that one should switch to the regional trains of Deutsche Bahn.
But last weekend showed anyway that train drivers shouldn’t be choosy. Punctually at the end of the working week, a freight train rushed into an overhead line at the Landshut junction and ran too much – Attention trigger warning for commuters! – Rail replacement service. After all, tickets are never checked there.