: Let The Train Take The Strain
Trevor Salisbury and his wife take advantage of bargain rail tickets to spend a day in Essen.
Whilst writing this week's column, I'm looking out at the sun which followed the snow showers we had this morning. It is a good job that the weather was good on Saturday as my wife and I decided to take the train to Essen, a town situated between Dortmund and Dusseldorf, using our tickets before they expired.
Perhaps I should explain. We visited the Christmas market in Essen with some friends, buying train tickets which were valid for four journeys, these being cheaper than four single tickets. The only problem with buying them at the end of the year is however that they are only valid until 31 March the following year, due to public transport fairs always being increased on January 1st.
Arriving at Dortmund railway station, we were very surprised to see that the platform signs were actually working. They had been defective for weeks as a result of a computer breakdown. The powers that be at the privatised German railway company, Deutsche Bahn, had shamefacedly admitted that these signs were controlled by a 386 model computer, which resulted in jokes being made in the local press concerning Amstrad computers.
Nevertheless, there they were in all their glory and what a wonder, the train was even on time! We stood next to one of the doors of the super-modern double-decker train, waiting for what seemed like hundreds of people to get off, when the usual happened. Some folk have no patience. A woman with quite a large backpack decided not to wait any longer, resulting in her being wheeled around with her backpack by a young man who was trying to get off the train and having words hurled at her which I shall not repeat here for fear of this column being read by children. Patience is not the greatest trait of some Germans.
The journey to Essen was uneventful Those of you wwith a knowledge of German are probably wondering at this point why a town is called "Eating". I would like to enlighten you but must capitulate . If I do discover the reason for the name, you will be the first to know.
After buying postage stamps (they cost roughly in British money 37p for a letter and 30p for a postcard) we wandered around the town, buying some CDs for an unbelievable 1 euro each, and the latest from Paul Anka for 15.99 euros (about £10.66) from a German department store, part of a chain, looking as we did so at the Easter decorations which seem to appear in the stores earlier year by year.
By the way, how do those prices compare with the cost of CDs in Britian?
