My only experience with an ÖBB Railjet was abysmal. I would really love good train service, especially in that area, but it just seems to me, you can’t depend on it.
My train was arriving late at a station which was 40 degrees hot and had practically no seating. They didn’t update you on the actual delay so that they can skimp out on refunds I guess, but that meant that when I ran out for some water so that members of my family wouldn’t start to collapse, I almost missed the train.
The train itself was full of empty beer bottles. Not one or two in some places, literally all the seat bags were full, and a lot of them were rolling around on the ground to the point you had to watch out while walking not to trip over them. This was on the whole length of the train. The air conditioning was not perfect either, we got from 40 degrees outside to 30 degrees in, but I think that might have been just that it was getting late and the weather cooled down on its own.
After departure, they did announce that they would have a restaurant car, so I went to check it out, mostly so that I could do something and divert my attention from the trip itself. I was third in line at the restaurant (there was no table service), the two people in front of me left without buying anything. I realized that the reason was that the restaurant would only take cash, and only in Euros. I couldn’t buy anything either, despite the fact that I wouldn’t have cared that everything in there was way overpriced, even for a restaurant.
All the while, I got glared at by the ticket guy for moving around, obviously trying to travel without a ticket, and not at all because I was trying to throw more money at them to make the trip less awful.
My only experience with an ÖBB Railjet was abysmal. I would really love good train service, especially in that area, but it just seems to me, you can’t depend on it.
My train was arriving late at a station which was 40 degrees hot and had practically no seating. They didn’t update you on the actual delay so that they can skimp out on refunds I guess, but that meant that when I ran out for some water so that members of my family wouldn’t start to collapse, I almost missed the train.
The train itself was full of empty beer bottles. Not one or two in some places, literally all the seat bags were full, and a lot of them were rolling around on the ground to the point you had to watch out while walking not to trip over them. This was on the whole length of the train. The air conditioning was not perfect either, we got from 40 degrees outside to 30 degrees in, but I think that might have been just that it was getting late and the weather cooled down on its own.
After departure, they did announce that they would have a restaurant car, so I went to check it out, mostly so that I could do something and divert my attention from the trip itself. I was third in line at the restaurant (there was no table service), the two people in front of me left without buying anything. I realized that the reason was that the restaurant would only take cash, and only in Euros. I couldn’t buy anything either, despite the fact that I wouldn’t have cared that everything in there was way overpriced, even for a restaurant.
All the while, I got glared at by the ticket guy for moving around, obviously trying to travel without a ticket, and not at all because I was trying to throw more money at them to make the trip less awful.
Not sure why you’re surprised that an ÖBB train only takes Euros, unless you were somewhere that uses a different currency.
Cash only is the major point,
It was a Budapest - Vienna service, so some of the people travelling wanted to use Forints.
I was more surprised by the lack of a card terminal.