ICE 14 endet in Aachen (Aktueller Betrieb)

jan_brno, Dienstag, 19.01.2010, 10:53 (vor 5986 Tagen) @ jan_brno

Hi all,
yesterday I returned from London, where I arrived in Saturday by train.

my journey on saturday 16.1.2010 was:

R350 (ALX 350) Prag - Nuernberg
ICE722 Nuernberg - Frankfurt(M) Hbf
ICE14 Frankfurt(M) Hbf - Koeln (should be to Bruxelles Midi)
THA9448 Koeln - Bruxelles Midi
EST Bruxelles Midi - London St Pancras at 19:59 (should be EST9153 at 17:59)

The journey to Frankfurt was already on time,
but then we had delay about 15 minutes due to technical problems on train set...

All the time I knew that ICE 14 ended in Aachen and If I took the connecting
trains (slow...) from Aachen to some belgium towns, then I would be late in Bruxelles for Eurostar, so I took Thalys as somebody (sorry) has mentioned here.

But all the time I was also afraid that the Thalys train would be full,
so in Nuernberg I asked in ticket office for reservation for THA,
but there they told me that this is not possible...
finally in Frankfurt they gave me Railtem stamp "Hop on the next train",
so I was happy.

But in my mind there was still one question about the compulsory reservation in Thalys and that the train could be full...

Fortunately in Koeln station gave me some woman from customer service staff advice that the last coach of THA is for people like me (for travellers by ICE to Belgium). From that time I was the happiest man... Thalys departed on time and we were going fast to Aachen. We went throught the border tunnel and THEN:

"due to technical problems in track our train will be re-routed"!!! FUCK
so the result was +30 min and I missed my Eurostar. But they booked me for the next train, but it was +2 hours of waiting. So I had some beers.
Finally, at 20:59 (London time), I reached London.

In summer I am plannig to go again if Deutsche Bahn will still have this offer - London Spezial.

Jan