vernon
Harder than Ronnie Pickering
- Location
- Meanwood, Leeds
I wanted to buy a train ticket to travel from Passau to Amsterdam so I went to the DB, German State Railway, web site after being referred there by the excellent Man in Seat Sixty One web site.
I though that the DB web site was wonderful offering me choices of transfer times between trains, booking a bike on, booking a couchette for the night train and everything was going swimmingly until the purchase button was pressed and the sale was aborted because of cycle booking problems. It recommended a telephone booking and reservation.
I tried fifteen minutes before the office closed and got to number one in the queue ten minutes before closure and was still at number one when the recorded message announced a technical fault and stated that the call was being cancelled - it coincided with the closure of the office.
This evening I discovered why I was at number one for ten minutes but failed to get any service. What I considered to be a simple transaction:
I could specify the date, the exact train times, the fact that I wanted to book a bike onto the trains and I knew both my starting point and destination and I had my debit card to hand along with the ability to supply my address yet the transaction took twenty minutes from the first verbal exchange until the parting goodbye. The pedestrian pace of the transaction was amazing.
I wouldn't be surprised if my ticketsand reservations, when they arrive, were handwritten.
I though that the DB web site was wonderful offering me choices of transfer times between trains, booking a bike on, booking a couchette for the night train and everything was going swimmingly until the purchase button was pressed and the sale was aborted because of cycle booking problems. It recommended a telephone booking and reservation.
I tried fifteen minutes before the office closed and got to number one in the queue ten minutes before closure and was still at number one when the recorded message announced a technical fault and stated that the call was being cancelled - it coincided with the closure of the office.
This evening I discovered why I was at number one for ten minutes but failed to get any service. What I considered to be a simple transaction:
I could specify the date, the exact train times, the fact that I wanted to book a bike onto the trains and I knew both my starting point and destination and I had my debit card to hand along with the ability to supply my address yet the transaction took twenty minutes from the first verbal exchange until the parting goodbye. The pedestrian pace of the transaction was amazing.
I wouldn't be surprised if my ticketsand reservations, when they arrive, were handwritten.
