jon,
@jon@gruene.social avatar

Ah

We’ve got another example of that legendary cooperation between state railways today in Köln

Where the Eurostar* stops at the platform is NOT shown on the screens (while for RE and ICE trains it is shown)

So Eurostar employs a person on the platform to tell passengers where to stand 🤦‍♂️

    • Eurostar is 55% SNCF, 18% SNCB
maartje,
@maartje@blahaj.social avatar

@jon "excuseer reist u met Eurostar?" Staff hired just to ask every person waiting that...efficiency!

jon,
@jon@gruene.social avatar

@maartje put an extra €10 on the ticket price! FTW!

maartje,
@maartje@blahaj.social avatar

@jon "ah nummer 13? Dat is bij de tweede klok"

maartje,
@maartje@blahaj.social avatar

@jon if only some train company solved this around 2010... Like you know... Thalys?

Thalys 18 on floor
SNCB train standing next to thalys number 16 sign

jon,
@jon@gruene.social avatar

@maartje Ha. But then they’d have to never have the wrong order. My Eurostar today from Köln was backwards.

partim,
@partim@social.tchncs.de avatar

@jon Worse, anecdotally,* they also don’t show any real-time information. The train will just disappear off the screen after scheduled departure.

  • Seen in Aachen a while ago.
jon,
@jon@gruene.social avatar

@partim I’ve seen Eurostar delays shown. But tbh I avoid Eurostar like the plague so have little experience

grlodi,
@grlodi@mastodon.social avatar

@partim @jon Ah, yes that happened to me with an SJ train, at 22:05 it disappeared from the screen and boom that was it.

I learned afterwards that it had left… 5 hours before the announced time… and DB didn’t even know about it 🤯

Always a fun experience to take those night trains.

partim,
@partim@social.tchncs.de avatar

@grlodi @jon One still hopes that all the operators will one day get together with DB InfraGO and let them publish all real-time information and produce passenger information themselves.

tipjip,
@tipjip@bonn.social avatar

@jon Station Operators are legally obliged to show this information…if they have it. So it’s hard to say who’s to blame from the outside. Usually there aren’t any problems with competitors‘ local trains, so I would bet on Eurostar being the problem.

jon,
@jon@gruene.social avatar

@tipjip see replies. Yes it's Eurostar the problem.

maz,
@maz@mastodon.online avatar

@jon This is the default at least for in France as well, mostly for "" reasons I guess. The platform is announced about 20 minutes before departure. This is not yet as bad as in the US where rail travel is apparently modelled after air travel (based on my experience of a Amtrak journey between Charlottesville VA and Washington DC around 2008). My experience with french customs is quite recent though, two months worth of Interrail in March and April.

jon,
@jon@gruene.social avatar

@maz at least they then tell you where on the platform your carriage will be though - that works in France.

maartje,
@maartje@blahaj.social avatar

@jon not in Belgium either... Antwerpen-Centraal always has eurostar staff on the station to tell that. In past EMMA could announce 1st class for them now no more

jon,
@jon@gruene.social avatar

@maartje but it used to work on screens at Midi (the ones on the platform, not the ones hanging). Does that still work? (I will see if I can see it when I pass through Midi later)

smveerman,
@smveerman@zug.network avatar

@maartje @jon So, France and The Netherlands are the only one doing this right? 😳

jon,
@jon@gruene.social avatar

@smveerman @maartje well what does Paris Nord have to show, as anyway you have to walk miles 🙂

smveerman,
@smveerman@zug.network avatar

@jon @maartje Don’t have a picture from last weekend, but do from last year.

jon,
@jon@gruene.social avatar

@smveerman ah not bad. Will check at Nord later too. @maartje

jon,
@jon@gruene.social avatar

@smveerman @maartje Infrabel has a system that can handle really complex compositions - see this in the Railer app. That then powers the automated announcements in Belgian stations I presume. So - like Germany - this looks like Eurostar not providing the information necessary.

smveerman,
@smveerman@zug.network avatar

@jon @maartje I’m not that sure. I cannot count the number of times the first class position of an AM96 train has been announced wrong.

jon,
@jon@gruene.social avatar

@smveerman @maartje well they might put the wrong data in. But the system can handle such data!

maartje,
@maartje@blahaj.social avatar

@jon @smveerman passenger info is an SNCB responsibility not Infrabel... This system is based internally on a combination of Atlantis (asset tracking) and DiTA/ITRIS (Conductor data systems) which are all SNCB systems

jon,
@jon@gruene.social avatar

@maartje @smveerman so if you're not SNCB can you get your data into it?

alda,
@alda@topspicy.social avatar

@jon Ah yes, the good-old way of throwing more employees at the problem instead of fixing the technical underpinnings of the issue.

jon,
@jon@gruene.social avatar

I asked the employee why this info is not on the screens. “It’s always like that” she said. “Is this DB’s fault or Eurostar’s fault?” She shrugged. Whose fault is it I wonder? Did Eurostar not pay to have info displayed? Or it hasn’t got the data in the right format? Or DB is being deliberately difficult?

jon,
@jon@gruene.social avatar

Really, this is ridiculous. The info about the RB 27 to Bedburg (Erft), a 3 carriage diesel stopping train, is better than info about the Eurostar to Paris!

Bedburg train.

kadse,
@kadse@chaos.social avatar

@jon by now there's apparently a standard (VDV 454) which is used e.g. by National Express on their services to tell DB Station&Service about the composition, I'm not sure why Eurostar couldn't just use that

jon,
@jon@gruene.social avatar

@kadse but yes of course you're right - they should.

jon,
@jon@gruene.social avatar

@kadse Because they're a customer unfriendly and incompetent operation? (Sorry!)

kadse,
@kadse@chaos.social avatar

@jon no need to apologize, I've been radicalized by your tröts about sncf so I'm completely with you on this :D

jon,
@jon@gruene.social avatar

@kadse Ha. Excellent 💪

ehrba,
@ehrba@verkehrswende.social avatar

@jon not only a SNCF problem

jon,
@jon@gruene.social avatar

@ehrba those are the old style screens. They often didn’t show compositions. There ought to be a paper poster on that platform still!

yacc143,
@yacc143@mastodon.social avatar

@jon
DB is not deliberately difficult, that's their normal level of helpfulness.

jon,
@jon@gruene.social avatar

@yacc143 See replies. Not DB's fault at all. All Eurostar's for not providing the data. And Eurostar is a hell of a lot worse on a helpfulness scale than DB!

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