The world’s climate has been changing for years, and even if there are worst case scenarios elsewhere, on Tuesday, March 31 2015, things got a bit out of hand in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, especially for people on trains.
It’s not often that a storm can stop an entire transportation system. But this is what happened with the Deutsche Bahn (German Train) company announcing that from 11 am no trains would be running ALL DAY LONG in the whole of NRW, and that’s a very large area. They were as unprepared for the weather condition as passengers were annoyed and disappointed how it was handled.
People were pretty much stuck where they were, so those who had to go from uni/work back home, either had to find someone with a car or use a 2 1/2 hours ride by bus instead of half an hour. For those coming to work later than 11 it was either call it a day or try other ways to get where they wanted to be. Of course people travelling or having an NRW ticket for the whole day were pretty much left alone as well.
Now the question is: Was this necessary? Apparently for security reasons, the German train company decided it was. But it’s not that bad weather didn’t happen before… and trains were still running. Despite single damages in my area (with a rooftop taken clean off a supermarket), I have to say that I didn’t find the storm that heavy, compared to others last summer. Actually, there was more sunshine than the last couple of days, and I wasn’t the only one thinking like that, as this hobby jogger proved (although you never know with people like this wearing not much and running through rain and storm just to keep “healthy”).
So yes, I can see why one wants to be on the safe side, but then again what about the people who were clearly stuck and didn’t have the means of another transportation system? Sorry, but this was a really bad move and with so many strikes going on in the past because of the GDL, using trains becomes more and more a risk and not the “easy and good for the environment” system it should be. Who doesn’t say that a storm like this will happen again or that the damage it did on the tracks wouldn’t make the next day(s) just as impossible (as they already did with delays)?
Some preventive methods have to be applied, yes. But not by simply forgetting about the people who depend on the trains. If the climate continues to change the weather for the worse (and it certainly will, as things and people don’t improve), then maybe we won’t need trains anymore if they simply don’t feel safe to use anymore.
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Ugh, the Storm is only beautiful in X-Men movie but not here…
Stay safe my friend.
Thanks, but I was really lucky. The photos I took weren’t so bad at my place. Nothing more like a bit of rain and lots of wind. But only some village or so away people weren’t so lucky… Anyway, I should upload some videos or photos from last summer. Seemed like witnessing a stormy sea…
Wow sounds like a scary part with the storm. Sure looking forward to it as I am living in a shell with just overheating sun and rain flooding and sometimes storm but not as over as yours there.
Oh, rain flooding doesn’t sound good either. Weather in Germany is usually extreme, either too much rain or too much sun/heat, although less of the latter and more of the former ;).
Anway, I guess we’re still pretty lucky over here, compared to other countries.
I guess so, we need to be thankful of what we are now. A lot of people out there don’t have the access to internet even electricity.
I am thankful that I can blog right here 🙂
You’re absolutely right. There are so many things one can complain about, but there are always people who are far worse off. But I guess with (multi)media. one is usually on the safe side to bitch about, haha. I could write lots and lots and lots of negative stuff about the German train company, I can tell you… and the weather :-).
Writing about negativity is one of the easiest thing to do in this world. Even for me lol I could create or change my blog into Discouraging Life and fill with negativity which is a lot easier and I am very sure I will be featured everywhere as biggest criminal and gain lots of popularity.
But sometimes I think negativity is needed as long as it leads into a better life and not haters on my blogs. Actually haters are needed too for improvement. You can always lead them into positive as long as you have bigger aura than them 🙂
Sure you can leave your complaints about Germany train company as long as it makes sense. You are the man 🙂
Again some wise words, my friend. I used to write many songs (poems) about negative stuff and after some time it got a bit old and obviously didn’t help me much. It’s still difficult to write about positive things, but being more objective certainly helps ;-).
With objectivity you can also make haters quite mad :-). Pretty lucky I haven’t had to deal with people like this on my blog.
I had this crazy idea of writing train stories, but couldn’t find the right platform at the time, as I always made albums (with and without music). But I guess this blog could need some diversity, different trains of thoughts (pun intended) :-).
Objectivity thank you for the correction 🙂
For me your blog still can change or improve into anything you want which is amazing. It’s not a dead end specific food blog, health blog, gaming blog, tech blog, and you got to be strict with your focus.In your blog you can do pretty much what you want with it just like mine or even more. You can post even about your activity, what you eat, where you travel, anything strange happening. Hey who said multimedia is just about movie, books, gaming? Your life or journey is a multimedia ride that you can tell the world. Movie, gaming, books are part of it 🙂
Well put! Thanks for the advice and your opinion. I think I said it before, but it’s still true: Competing with other more-up-to-date gaming or movie websites (especially commercial ones) is tough, and I have neither the time nor money to do something like this. It’s also about motivation. I lost mine for another website I was writing for and now came back, working in the background, because it was just too media/genre-specific. Now I don’t have to think if something fits, I just write about it :-).
I see. Well write what you think you must write then anything else will come up after 🙂
And yes, I’d rather meet this Storm who seems a nicer person than the real thing ;).
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