The joys of public transport
Oct. 28th, 2012 12:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janestarzPlanning a trip using the mobile app has before not worked out to the best results before and tonight was no different.
Granted, Bigboss and Adenda were kind enough to grant us a lift to Utrecht CS, which probably shaved off a lot of cold minutes waiting for the bus. But then the troubles started.
We were at Utrecht CS at 22.10, which was just two minutes late for the intercity train to Maastricht. Instead, we took the 22.12 sprinter to Tiel/Breda.
When NoKey poked his head outside on Culemborgh, we found out the train was shorter than expected, meaning it couldn't go to Tiel and Breda both. The train normally gets split up at Geldermalsen, which was the next train station, one half going to Tiel and the other to Tilburg and then on to Breda.
Now my planning app on my mobile had already said there would be planned maintenance, but since it said this was before nine am on Saturday and after nine pm on Sunday, I was fairly certain it wouldn't affect us.
Surprise, surprise (not!), planned maintenance was planned after all. At Geldermalsen we exited the train and entered a bus, which took us to Zaltbommel and then to Den Bosch in turn, while the 22.38 intercity to Maastricht whizzed by us (because the intercity service continued as planned...)
When finally in Den Bosch, we found oodles of half-druk party-goers, who were trying to figure out of the train on platform 3 would go to Amsterdam (as the train said it would) or to Tilburg (as the message board said) or perhaps somewhere else entirely. No NS personell in sight of course, so we didn't dare take the chance because if it did go back towards Utrecht and Amsterdam, we'd never make it home.
The next option was another intercity to Maastricht, which was supposedly going to take a little detour by Tilburg before pulling into Eindhoven. So the message board said, at least. We didn't dare not board it, and took our chances. It took a good twenty minutes to pull into Tilburg station at a few minutes past midnight.
I really hate the fact that the mobile app is so damned inaccurate. And what doesn't help is that the sprinter we initially took from Utrecht didn't say ANYTHING about where it was going, and the nearest message board was halfway down the platform. Walking over to check it would have taken us more time than we had, and would have left us stranded while the train left on time. We just didn't have the time to check and double check, so it was a clear case of 'damned if you do, damned if you don't'.
The whole trip from Utrecht to Tilburg took us one hour and fifty minutes, adding fifty minutes to our normal travel time thanks to all this crap. At least we made it home, which doesn't really excuse any of the problems we've had, but is the desired outcome of such an event.
Hey, at least the party we went to was great fun!
Granted, Bigboss and Adenda were kind enough to grant us a lift to Utrecht CS, which probably shaved off a lot of cold minutes waiting for the bus. But then the troubles started.
We were at Utrecht CS at 22.10, which was just two minutes late for the intercity train to Maastricht. Instead, we took the 22.12 sprinter to Tiel/Breda.
When NoKey poked his head outside on Culemborgh, we found out the train was shorter than expected, meaning it couldn't go to Tiel and Breda both. The train normally gets split up at Geldermalsen, which was the next train station, one half going to Tiel and the other to Tilburg and then on to Breda.
Now my planning app on my mobile had already said there would be planned maintenance, but since it said this was before nine am on Saturday and after nine pm on Sunday, I was fairly certain it wouldn't affect us.
Surprise, surprise (not!), planned maintenance was planned after all. At Geldermalsen we exited the train and entered a bus, which took us to Zaltbommel and then to Den Bosch in turn, while the 22.38 intercity to Maastricht whizzed by us (because the intercity service continued as planned...)
When finally in Den Bosch, we found oodles of half-druk party-goers, who were trying to figure out of the train on platform 3 would go to Amsterdam (as the train said it would) or to Tilburg (as the message board said) or perhaps somewhere else entirely. No NS personell in sight of course, so we didn't dare take the chance because if it did go back towards Utrecht and Amsterdam, we'd never make it home.
The next option was another intercity to Maastricht, which was supposedly going to take a little detour by Tilburg before pulling into Eindhoven. So the message board said, at least. We didn't dare not board it, and took our chances. It took a good twenty minutes to pull into Tilburg station at a few minutes past midnight.
I really hate the fact that the mobile app is so damned inaccurate. And what doesn't help is that the sprinter we initially took from Utrecht didn't say ANYTHING about where it was going, and the nearest message board was halfway down the platform. Walking over to check it would have taken us more time than we had, and would have left us stranded while the train left on time. We just didn't have the time to check and double check, so it was a clear case of 'damned if you do, damned if you don't'.
The whole trip from Utrecht to Tilburg took us one hour and fifty minutes, adding fifty minutes to our normal travel time thanks to all this crap. At least we made it home, which doesn't really excuse any of the problems we've had, but is the desired outcome of such an event.
Hey, at least the party we went to was great fun!
