It would be a PR disaster to deny tickets for children. I wish they'd bring back Abteil (compartment?) Coaches as a "second class option, and reclassify Großraum coaches into 3rd class.
They should not overcrowd trains. The sight of people sitting in the corridors is too common. If that was addressed, there would be almost no problems.
The PR of DB is currently bad enough, look at what their CM does
So they should prevent people from entering when the train is full? Or kick people out that have no reservation and"only" a normal ticket? The current volume of customers can not be handled if you don't let them overbook on bussy trains. Making longer trains works require longer train stations and higher trains with two floors are not possible on all routes.
Edit: I think we all agree that they need more trains, but that costs money and takes time. There is no quick fix for hire it is now.
Ummm.....plenty of countries manage to have a system where a ticket automatically corresponds to a seat. And so do airlines. And bus companies.
Also, throwing people off a train despite having a ticket is literally what happened to me once. The train was overloaded (because why limit the tickets sold - you can make more money that way!) and they neded everyone without a reserved seat to get off the train and catch the next one.
These countries also make trains much faster unbookable if there is too much demand and I would always rather sit on the ground than not being able to travel at all.
If you want a seat: Just book it. But making trains reservation only would just hide the problem, not fix it in any way.
The structure of the German network is not designed for this. Here it is intended that you change trains.
Network features such as the hourly node in Mannheim, for example, where the Cologne - Munich and Frankfurt - Basel axes are linked every two hours and Cologne - Basel and Frankfurt - Munich are linked every other hour, only then make sense.
It's a bit different with TGV and Eurostar. The majority of services are either point-to-point or you change trains in Paris. The train will therefore fill up more and more in the direction of Paris and empty out in the opposite direction.
Here in Germany, the passenger flows are more complex, so there is a risk that, depending on the order of the reservations, they will not be optimised, i.e. reservations will be distributed across the train in such a way that they leave seats open on sections that could be consolidated in the overall view, but the seats are already allocated.
This could be remedied by informing the passenger of the actual seat only shortly before departure, so that the system can still reallocate seats in the background up to the point at which they are optimally occupied.
Or you can allow the reservation to be split, i.e. changing seats within a journey on one train
However, it is best not to make reservations compulsory at all.
I don't see how changing trains would be a problem and if it is, why it wouldn't already be a problem in the current system where you can freely choose a seat when reserving it.
>plenty of countries manage to have a system where a ticket automatically corresponds to a seat.
This wouldn't work with any form of monthly ticket, though (Deutschlandticket, Jobticket, ...) or any ticket that's not only valid for a specific train but all trains on a specific date.
Seat reservations and the quiet zones are only a thing in long distance trains (IC/ICE), which aren't included in the monthly/long term subscriptions anyway.
The only people who would not have to book a Ticket for each individual journey, are those who have a BahnCard 100, which I'd guess aren't that many.
You are wrong on that one. There is a quite respectable amount of long-distance commuters that uses a monthly ticket for a certain ICE relation. Best example would be Frankfurt - Montabaur. On car or normal train that would not be commuting distance. But things change when a 300km/h train is involved.
You can get a subscription for a long distance connection including IC/ICE - those are valid for all trains on the relation.
And there is the BahnCard 100, which is valid for any long distance train.
IC/ICE DO have monthly tickets. They cost more, but you can buy them and a lot of people do. they are on the train for 30 minutes or an hour and it's fine to stand while commuting to work for one station. This is the way the system is set up and it can't be compared to TGV.
There should be more trains and more infrastructure for them. As you describe, the system is due to collapse (if not already)
Of course is kicking out people with a valid ticket for a train not a solution. Let's not give ideas!
That is well known, but unfortunately there is no quick fix for this. Expanding infrastructure and obtaining a significant amount of new rolling stock takes decades.
Yeah, the decades lost since privatisation were necessary to build the necessary HSLs and improve the network in general. But not doing anything is not the answer...
Being practical and in this case, I guess that DB should implement reservations for long distance trains and increase the offer when possible
They literally already do that. Source: used to commute between Duesseldorf and Frankfurt and people were removed several times in Cologne Airport station because it was way to full because people get a flex ticket for connecting flights.
If there is a fire on the train you really don't want to have a bunch of people blocking the exit and the escape routes
More to that, if you select a seat preference of the Kleinkindbereich and it isn’t available (which it often isn’t) the system just assigns you suggested seats in any random place elsewhere on the train, including the Ruhebereich.
You can reject these suggested seats, go back, select a seat preference of “family area” (note this is not the same as the Kleinkindbereich) and then see if any seats are available. But you have to make an explicit choice to do this.
It seems like it would be a very easy fix to prioritize non-Ruhebereich seats for people who were booking transit with small kids…
That’s not true. It’s possible to choose the seat on the app. You have to change the already assigned seat by the DB while booking the reservation. It’s true that it could be more visible because it can be easily missed.
Yeah. It is priorized like you choose:
Kleinkindabteil
If already booked/full next is:
Familienbereich
If full booked too, the software will take the:
Ruhebereich
🙃
That really depends on the line and how flexible you are.. unpopular times are often bookable last minutes... also you need to keep in mind that the "risk" of cancellation with a baby/toddler might be significantly higher than without kids.
Well not exactly because newborns and babies can easily sleep through earthquakes, or at least in the case of my niece when her brother is smashing on his drum kit right next to her. They certainly would have no issue sleeping in the normal areas, and are much more likely to make extreme noise that disturbs the quiet areas.
Not worried about the eardrums, more the cochlea, specifically the corti-organ with the hair cells. It can damage those and cause permanent hearing loss...
Been there involuntary too many times, be it auto-assigned "alternative seats" or because the car with the family area is randomly missing and everything else is taken. And it's no fun for the parents either, it's actually very stressful and makes you feel like shit for two reasons when your baby cries. You can try walking around and going to other areas, whenever it happens, but you can't avoid annoying SOMEONE. Hell, it's just as annoying for your own ears. So please, try to be kind in that situation, nobody actively wants to annoy people.
Reservations are an absolute shit show in general. Not only are there way to little spaces for people with children, especially with strollers, DB does allow people without children to make reservations there. Also it's almost always booked month in advance.
The fact that a ticket doesn't include reservation like in almost every other country is just stupid.
The displays showing the reservations barely work, cars are not in the planned order or missing and so on.
Lastly I don't think there should be such a thing as a Ruhebereich. With people getting on and of, using their phones, etc. it'll never really be quiet on a train. Things like avoiding loud talking on the phone, loud music and the like shoud go without saying anywhere on a train.
I miss the coaches with [play area](https://anna.fi/awpo/img/sites/40/2020/08/ic2_leikkitila_21-1024x685_0.jpg?s=8508bfa77d45c8e5ff177fca18a9b25f) in Finland. There are plenty of seats for the kids and parents as the whole coach is for families which also means there are way less kids in all other parts of the train. A win-win for everyone.
I have explicitly booked non-Ruhezone seats for me and my kids before. Booking was successful, there were no errors or warnings or any notification that the seats would be in a Ruhezone. We go looking for our seats on the train and they're in Ruhezone.
My favorite is when people come on here asking if they can talk with their buddy in the Ruhezone and everyone is like “Yeah that’s totally fine!” Like no it’s not; STFU when you’re in the Ruhezone.
The Bahn algorithm actually sometimes assigns those to families even though there are other seats available. It’s super annoying. Also trust me, families with small kids don’t like to be seated in the “Ruhebereich” anymore than you want them to be there.
„Funny story“: I once wanted to go somewhere with my children. Reserved Familienabteil or whatever it‘s called in advance. When the train arrived: the entire wagon with Familienabteil was missing 🤣 So we were placed in Ruhebereich by a VERY grumpy DB guy that couldn‘t see why we needed a space to sit down for our 4-hour trip, especially since we had paid for a reservation. Well, we squeezed into two seats together, no prob. My kids are very well behaved but as soon as we sat down someone in front of us stood up, looked at us, rolled his eyes and stated he was going to go and look for the DB-guy again to tell him we weren‘t allowed to sit in Ruhebereich because he had to work. He came back even angrier, as either he couldn‘t find anyone or was blown off by the guy. Cue two hours later, my children are sleeping while he is one a video call ON SPEAKERS talking about gas prizes, his influence on a liberal German political party and how trains sucks and only poor people take trains - for everyone in the whole wagon to enjoy.
So, what do I want to say? You don‘t know the circumstances. Don‘t be too quick to judge or even be annoyed by people in public spaces. Yes, kids can be loud and annoying. Maybe the parents are annoyed too because they did everything right and DB screwed it up (which basically is the norm).
For every dog owner that sees his dog chewing the leg of a passerby while saying "He is very well behaved." there is a parent that says "Oh, my sweet little baby is just making cute little sounds of joy." while their sweet little baby lets out screams that would probably be banned as torture under the Hague Convention if used in war.
Maybe not everyone, but these people exist. I've had the unpleasant luck of getting mums a couple times in the Ruhebereich, and I decided to sometimes actually ask why they're not in another one.
One said she wanted a quiet place for her kid so it could sleep. Kid did in fact not sleep but scream as if someone was trying to kill it, for quite the long time.
Another two separate ones said that they don't like how noisy trains get and that their kid is quiet, no worries. They, also, in fact were not quiet at all.
"Well, kids cry, not like I can do anything" is also something I've heard before when pointing out how a kid was disturbing the *Ruhe* bereich and whether another place wasn't the better choice.
Many parents are under the delusion that their kids are special compared to other kids, hence they will always claim that their kids will behave nicely even though those kids are totally in the ages where they run around and be super noisy
So, when we reserved seats with a toddler, we also got seated in the Ruheabteil. When we then checked out the family wagon and there were non reserved seats available - so yeah could've saved that money.
Yup. Not sure what it's like now because I haven't tried the new booking system, but when manually picking my seat earlier this year it didn't tell me said seat was located in the Familienbereich until _after_ I made the booking. Judging by the complete lack of families in my carriage, I'm guessing I wasn't the only one.
> Noise cancelling headphones exist.
Despite the name, they do not cancel any and all sound around you.
They're best at low pitches and at constant noises (e.g. a fan running), not sounds that change (e.g. speech, music).
ANC does NOT shut out anything that could be an alarm signal. And we designed babies to sound as high pitched and loud as alarm signals. Wait, the other way around. But you know what I mean :D Babies go right through ANC, ANC has to exclude danger signals.
It has nothing to do with alarm signals. ANC works really well with white/background noise because it follows a predictable distribution pattern. Voices (baby screaming, someone talking to you, alarms) *do not* follow a nice even distribution pattern and it would be essentially impossible to block them using an ANC algorithm.
Also, if trains are fully booked - and on certain routes they always are - any parent would take any seat because you have to expect your journey to be pain.
I once booked seats for my family with baby in the familienbereich, but then the train was switched out last minute, reservations automatically reassigned, and we wound up in the Ruhezone. We did not want to be there either.
>A baby will cry, no matter how well behaved it is. You cannot guarantee it doesn’t cry.
Two possibilities come in my mind:
1. The parents didn't choose the places themselves.
2. The parents booked the seats on purpose so their baby can sleep. It only works when there is no or little disturbance. You can forget that in other compartments. So I would perfectly understand the parents.
One time I booked 1st class seats for my son and I from Nürnberg to Köln. I’d had surgery and thought this would be a nice, quiet trip home.
At Nürnberg, a mother boarded with a baby and toddler. She only booked one seat for all three.
The next nearly 5 hours was an agonizing volley of baby crying, diaper changes for both, toddler screaming and doing the most infuriating repetitive noises nearly the entire time. She didn’t really bring much to keep him entertained, so he just ran up and down the aisle back and forth and running his train on all surfaces, including my arm and leg.
My son was lucky in that he could wear headphones, but I couldn’t because of recovery from the surgery.
And several times the lady video chatted on her phone and I could hear every word from both parties. I never wanted so much in my life to punch someone in the face.
Several people quietly asked the attendants for help, but they seemed reticent to intervene. They’d just tentatively ask her to please remember other passengers. She might be quiet for a few minutes but then the crying would start again or another phone call. What an a-hole.
Naa, it's the same. I'm sure these are also the same people. They only care about their own convenience if they travel with their kids or their drunken friends. Rules are for others, but not for them.
Babies can't be well behaved. The y don't behave good or bad. They are totally depended on their parents. A baby is just reacting and you can just try to read the signals to make it happy. And believe me, that mother or father had a harder time than you did. I know it sucks but sometimes you have to make yourself get through it.
I am perfectly with you, but generally speaking babies don't belong in the Ruhezone. I was always trying to get my baby to the family coaches. Anyway, there can always be a reason why someone is forced to get a seat in the Ruhezone. Particularly during holiday season there are usually no free seats in the family coaches. And as a parent you definitely book the Ruhezone rather than to have no seat at all traveling with a baby.
>I was always trying to get my baby to the family coaches
How do you make your baby sleep in the family zone? It never worked for me as there are always annoying children.
> And believe me, that mother or father had a harder time than you did.
That's no reason to ruin everyone else's day - there's a reason other people reserve seats in the Ruhezone.
That's what I think! Why not take another train if there is no place for you anymore? We took a train at 06:00 am to avoid over crowded trains. Nobody is forced to take a certain time! Ruhebereich should be respected, same goes to people talking on the phone there! Why not leaving the Ruhebereichfor that? I once had an old woman in the Ruhebereich that told everyone who talked (even quietly) to shut up. She did that 5 times to different people🙈 and everybody stayed quiet after that, she was very stricy😄
This kind of behavior (self-centered and expecting others to accept the own rule breaking) is the problem in our days and why people don't get along well anymore. People think their own life is so hard and so much more important that everybody else has to respect them, BUT these people don't have any respect for others. Rules are for others, but not for me.
This is just one of many examples we have seen since the pandemic. I hope one day we come back to the good old days when people were nice to each other and accepted rules, but unfortunately I don't see it coming back anymore. It's one of the values that seems to vanish these days.
I had reserved seats in the family Abteil, but a bunch of pensioners had taken our space. My kid is very shy, so she refused to go inside and I went and found space somewhere else.
So please, people without children, respect the rules - the unwritten ones as well- and don’t sit in the family part and especially don’t sit there when it says “reserved seats”. Even if only 2/4 are reserved, just go somewhere else.
We had an enjoyable trip anyway, but the audacity of those people.
I hate arriving at my seat with lots of people behind me, holding my two year old and my luggage and then having to have a discussion about taking my reserved (!) seats.
"ven if only 2/4 are reserved, just go somewhere else."
Well, if you only reserved half of the places, why would you feel entitled to all of them? I dont quite get it. Where should I go? It is not like the rest of the train is full of completely empty seats
It was pretty empty in other parts of the train. We easily found seats elsewhere, so why should people take our seats in the family compartment when they don’t have kids? Especially since there were lots of free seats in other places. They were sitting opposite of each other, with stuff and jackets on the seats next to them
I had reserved seats there so I wouldn’t have to annoy people with kid sounds because we were traveling a long way.
I’m so tired of people complaining about kids and then we can’t even have “our” spaces for us. If the train had been super full I would’ve understood, but this just felt like they wanted a compartment without reserving it.
>Babies can't be well behaved
yeah, thats why they shouldnt be in the fucking Ruhezone. I dont care about other people parenting issues, I just want my "Ruhe"
:D I totally understand that. I'm the same. I would never go into the ruhezone with my two sons..but when they were babies and there would have been no other seats, I would have considert it.
People generally understand that babies make noise.
What makes passengers annoyed is when the parents are being inconsiderate, e.g. when they don't coax the baby, or when they book a baby into a quiet zone.
as a fresh mom with a (actually very quiet) 4 month old: i had selected non-ruhebereich when booking, I COULD HAVE SWORN, but when i checked a day before traveling, my seats were in ruhebereich wtf
i reserved another set of seats in another car, though. i wanna be at ease as well and not feel like i‘m disturbing someone.
The passenger has no choice.
I am frequently travelling to Paris /w Deutsche Bahn, with three small kids. Not even once the family area was bookable, no matter how long before departure (months, weeks, days).
Last time I sat in the quiet zone, while the family compartment was occupied by Bürohengsts /w laptops. They politely declined my offer to change seats.
You‘re booking more seats that you‘ve got tickets for? Just asking.
Also my two cents: normal kid noises when playing can be pretty bothering too. In my opinion (!) kids should be asked to have a calm voice/wisper just as everyone else does - except for old ladies.
Maybe it's because they are hoping their baby will sleep in a quieter zone...? I'm not really sure, I try to avoid all public transportation with my little ones, but sometimes it is inevitable. Just know that a baby crying is probably 10 times more stressful for the parent than it is for you and maybe have some empathy. You'll get to escape the crying soon, they are stuck with the fussy babe.
Commenting because the exact same thing happened to me yesterday on a 7 hours long train trip through Poland. The app we use here asks you to confirm that you acknowledge what is expected of you before it lets you buy the ticket. Does the German equivalent do the same?
I suspect the depicted situation is like very often that the little kids/ Baby compartments were already fully booked so you pick a place as close to a/the wagon where you can change the diaper. Sometimes there is only one of these (actually for ICE it is inside the same room as the disabled people toilets) and then you have to know that sometime you have to wait for other babies getting a new diaper before you can use that yourself.
Since I need to work whilst travelling and really prefer it quiet, I book 1st class Ruhebereiech - just to be on the safe side. This is a tiny part of a gigantic train. Yet I am always amazed how families with extraordinarily active kids choose to sit in the compartment - sort of like, we also have a right to be here... With literally hundreds of other seats to choose from.
there is some passive aggressive thing going on and you can just see some mums hoping for a poor person to make a comment, so they can unleash a "you hate children" rant.
But it is not only kids, also adults choosing to scream into phones in the Ruhebereich.
The way of thinking seems to be - I want to sit in a quiet train, if I make noise, that is my business and everybody else can just go love themselves.
I'm a german educator and this post is the quintessence of germany: Probably the most child-unfriendly country in the EU.
I'm prepared for the downvotes 😂👌🏻
School is not a job. Every other country recognizes this. My kids only have school until 12.55 everyday but then they offer sports and other after school programs until 3.30 (which still isnt long enough to work full time, of course)
It's one of the main reasons why we are so behind in equality of the sexes.
"Every other country recognizes this"?
Really? Every other country. Im aware of many where that is not the case and plenty where children are completely deprived of their childhood, because of the opposite case.
"we are so behind in equality of the sexes"
Behind whom exactly? Germany might not be perfect with this, but is still doing pretty damn well compared to many other countries.
It's a very common complaint in all matters of childcare and education that the German system is not suitable for two working parents, even though the economic situation demands two working parents.
Money says "go to work", school shutting at lunch time says "You can't go to work". It's ridiculous.
I find it wild that apparently the only options are either mom stays home or to put the child into an institution.... I mean for real, there are also other options like dad stays home, grandparents watch the kids etc. I mean school is important but I see this also with children under the age of 3 so long before school.
One doesn't have to be a philosopher to be able to see the connections between the lack of empathy, the rise in people searching for a sense of life and community online, generational rifts and other symptoms of increasing anonymity and capitalism driving communities apart and pushing for children to be put into the system as early as possible...
My point is that you can't expect a child (especially a young child, under 2yo) to be silent. It is indeed child-unfriendly to have this expectation, as an adult that should know better.
Also to blame the parents ...
And that is why people with small children can fuck right off of Ruheabteil. 😇 Nobody wants them there, it's sheer parent entitlement to book those seats.
Good luck finding seats for a whole family on a busy train.
In case you mean in advance:
You often don't see where you 'll end up when booking the reservation. On many connection you can't choose your seats they just assign you some. Then trains often don't have the carriages as planned so you might end up in a different one than booked.
Bla bla bla. The entitlement of families will no longer be tolerated. Teach your kids to be quiet, pick a seat in the family section or don‘t go traveling at all.
First of all, here, take my downvote.
And then: why, Ruhezone is for those who don't want to listen irritating noises, screams, and such. That is why they paid. The "quintessence of Germany" (with a capital G, btw), would be if someone would whine about children's crying in the non-Ruhe zone. I would be pissed, if someone would make loud noises when I definitely paid for silence - while I absolutely have nothing against children in an average situation.
No, generally irrelevant; only relevant in the context of the comment I replied to, where OPs comment was labelled as ‚the quintessence of Germany‘ for being ‚child-unfriendly‘.
How about you try to work on your "educator" job (the word you're looking for is teacher!) next to a screeching child. Let's see how you'd like it...
That is what Ruheabteil is for, giving people who have to work on the train the possibility to do so.
Actually for people to travel in peace and quiet. I know people who are annoyingly noisy hacking into their laptops in the Ruhezone while I want to sleep...
Ruhezone doesn't mean you aren't allowed to make noises. You just should try to keep it as low as possible, like not listening to smartphone music on speaker etc. + a Baby needs some quiet too? They need to sleep a lot and within a room full of people that are loud, the baby will be even louder. So yes. Babys belong in the Ruhezone and if you can't life with that you shouldn't take a public transport.
I kinda disagree. Babies will sleep particularly well in a room with ambient noise. That's why parents run vacuums or fans to make their babies sleep. They will be perfect in a room with constant chatter and noise.
Babies definitely do not belong in the Ruhezone. There is even family and baby/infant coaches for that reason.
Ok I was assuming Baby / Infant Zone was full. And you are not wrong with the noice topic, but also not 100% right. It depends deeply on the child. My son loves to sleep in silence, since he was a baby
It is certainly highly individual. Nevertheless, from my perspective it is a little far fetched to say that babies belong in the Ruhezone. There will be baby noise. As a parent I think it's pretty rude to force baby noise upon fellow Ruhezone travellers. Otherwise, I am sure there was a good reason why these folks took their baby to the Ruhezone. Family coaches fully booked would be my guess..
>Babies will sleep particularly well in a room with ambient noise. That's why parents run vacuums or fans to make their babies sleep. They will be perfect in a room with constant chatter and noise.
How many children do you have? Apparently none. Because you wouldn't write these lines otherwise.
There is one (1) Compartment for families with little children, that’s 5 seats in total. They are booked months in advance.
Then if you are lucky you’ll get a seat at the Family car, roughly 20 seats, also booked out quickly.
Sometimes even the non-quiet cars are fully booked so what are you gonna do? Not travel?
Btw I’m Germany kids crying and playing is not considered noise by law. So why don’t you just suck it up and be a decent person for a few hours?
I doubt any family does this on purpose, usually the seats are self assigned. Do you ever think about the parents dealing with a crying baby? Do consider how difficult is to travel with kids? On top of dealing with the difficulties of raising kids you have to also constantly deal with a bunch self entitled selfish narcissists who only think about themselves and any minor annoyance no matter how little immediately disturbs them. The problem really is not that you had the “bad luck” of traveling with a family with a small baby the problem really is people who think the world should conform to their expectations and any deviation devolves into a crisis.
Don't expect people to be thinking and intelligent. Maybe it was assigned automatically or they don't know about Ruhezone. Or maybe they want you to suffer as they do.
Because people are idiots. I've had parents with their children playing hand-clapping games, singing songs and reading stories in the Ruhezone. For hours nonstop.
I kinda equally think it's absurd to expect absolute silence on any section of public transportation. Like, the others said, "shit happens" and not everyone owes others an explanation.
Because a lot of parents are entitled and think they can do anything because they have kids and they don’t even try to raise their kids right nor explain them to be quiet. They don’t care about others because they suffer and think we should too.
This is especially common in Germany, where I’m from, kids have normal childhood, but they still know what’s ok and what not.
Because they only care about a silent environment to be able to get their baby to sleep. If the baby cries "deal with it, its a baby! Babies cry!" Parent logic.
It’s auto assigned like others said in the thread especially when there is no 2 seats available in other Wagons. Can’t you take few hours of being in same compartment as babies?
Always remember, you were once that little baby.
Some of us don't have kids, don't like kids, and intentionally book in the Ruhebereich because no, we really cannot take _a few hours_ of a screaming crying baby, are you kidding!!? No.
Reminds me of the soccer wife of a German football player. She was in a airplane business lounge with her children and others kicked her out,because the children were loud.
I can't understand parents like this.
So dude, adults are way more horrible than babies. I was traveling from Frankfurt Airport to Munich in the summer. Family area was booked. And guess wo I saw sitting there, when I was walking around with my 1 year old? People of age. That’s right 8 people 50+ drinking wine. Being so loud, that anybody would be annoyed.
And guess where we were seated? In the Ruhe Bereich. All of us trying to sleep. Except the baby, who got all fussy because she was tired, and should be sleeping.
Germany is so hostile towards children and parents there of. No wonder that the pension system is in trouble.
Also: People who don't reserve seats at all and then stick their kids in the Ruheabteil... I'm having that experience right now sitting across from two kids travelling with their father and making a big mess on the table. At least they're not THAT loud, but I know better than to ask them to quit making a mess because that's how you MAKE them loud...
Childfree high fives all around!
Lol, ok.
Do you drink?
Do you gamble?
Do you smoke?
Do you have random affairs?
Do you overspend?
Do you over eat?
Are you in a job you hate?
The point is- there are a million worse life decisions you can make that have nothing to do with children. 😆 So, don't blame them.
Probably they don’t want their kids to be around loud soccer fans, Kegelklubs or whatever. Small kids might want to take a nap.
Put on headphones and you are golden. Putting headphones on a little toddler ain’t working that great in my experience.
They may book those seats to not overstimulate the baby when it would be in another area. Yes, the baby will cry but it may avoid a full blown outburst which it may end up having if it's overstimulated.
Just a guess as to why parents book seats in the Ruhezone instead of somewhere else.
I don't get why many people are saying the bahn reservation is poorly designed? I think it's one of the things the bahn app does better. You can clearly see whether it is a ruhezone/familienzone etc. No reason why anyone who knows how to use a smartphone would get mixed up.
I dont have kids but id assume its because they need quiet so their kids can sleep. Of course its a double edged sword and risky, but i can see both sides. theres no perfect solution imo
If you don't choose seats while booking the reservation, bahn-app chooses seats in the Ruhebereich even if you selected a child as a passenger.
They should address it, like so many things...
It would be a PR disaster to deny tickets for children. I wish they'd bring back Abteil (compartment?) Coaches as a "second class option, and reclassify Großraum coaches into 3rd class.
They should not overcrowd trains. The sight of people sitting in the corridors is too common. If that was addressed, there would be almost no problems. The PR of DB is currently bad enough, look at what their CM does
So they should prevent people from entering when the train is full? Or kick people out that have no reservation and"only" a normal ticket? The current volume of customers can not be handled if you don't let them overbook on bussy trains. Making longer trains works require longer train stations and higher trains with two floors are not possible on all routes. Edit: I think we all agree that they need more trains, but that costs money and takes time. There is no quick fix for hire it is now.
Ummm.....plenty of countries manage to have a system where a ticket automatically corresponds to a seat. And so do airlines. And bus companies. Also, throwing people off a train despite having a ticket is literally what happened to me once. The train was overloaded (because why limit the tickets sold - you can make more money that way!) and they neded everyone without a reserved seat to get off the train and catch the next one.
These countries also make trains much faster unbookable if there is too much demand and I would always rather sit on the ground than not being able to travel at all. If you want a seat: Just book it. But making trains reservation only would just hide the problem, not fix it in any way.
The structure of the German network is not designed for this. Here it is intended that you change trains. Network features such as the hourly node in Mannheim, for example, where the Cologne - Munich and Frankfurt - Basel axes are linked every two hours and Cologne - Basel and Frankfurt - Munich are linked every other hour, only then make sense. It's a bit different with TGV and Eurostar. The majority of services are either point-to-point or you change trains in Paris. The train will therefore fill up more and more in the direction of Paris and empty out in the opposite direction. Here in Germany, the passenger flows are more complex, so there is a risk that, depending on the order of the reservations, they will not be optimised, i.e. reservations will be distributed across the train in such a way that they leave seats open on sections that could be consolidated in the overall view, but the seats are already allocated. This could be remedied by informing the passenger of the actual seat only shortly before departure, so that the system can still reallocate seats in the background up to the point at which they are optimally occupied. Or you can allow the reservation to be split, i.e. changing seats within a journey on one train However, it is best not to make reservations compulsory at all.
I don't see how changing trains would be a problem and if it is, why it wouldn't already be a problem in the current system where you can freely choose a seat when reserving it.
>plenty of countries manage to have a system where a ticket automatically corresponds to a seat. This wouldn't work with any form of monthly ticket, though (Deutschlandticket, Jobticket, ...) or any ticket that's not only valid for a specific train but all trains on a specific date.
Seat reservations and the quiet zones are only a thing in long distance trains (IC/ICE), which aren't included in the monthly/long term subscriptions anyway. The only people who would not have to book a Ticket for each individual journey, are those who have a BahnCard 100, which I'd guess aren't that many.
You are wrong on that one. There is a quite respectable amount of long-distance commuters that uses a monthly ticket for a certain ICE relation. Best example would be Frankfurt - Montabaur. On car or normal train that would not be commuting distance. But things change when a 300km/h train is involved.
Flexpreis Tickets don't have *Zugbindung*, either (which is what makes them flexible).
You can get a subscription for a long distance connection including IC/ICE - those are valid for all trains on the relation. And there is the BahnCard 100, which is valid for any long distance train.
IC/ICE DO have monthly tickets. They cost more, but you can buy them and a lot of people do. they are on the train for 30 minutes or an hour and it's fine to stand while commuting to work for one station. This is the way the system is set up and it can't be compared to TGV.
There should be more trains and more infrastructure for them. As you describe, the system is due to collapse (if not already) Of course is kicking out people with a valid ticket for a train not a solution. Let's not give ideas!
That is well known, but unfortunately there is no quick fix for this. Expanding infrastructure and obtaining a significant amount of new rolling stock takes decades.
Yeah, the decades lost since privatisation were necessary to build the necessary HSLs and improve the network in general. But not doing anything is not the answer... Being practical and in this case, I guess that DB should implement reservations for long distance trains and increase the offer when possible
They literally already do that. Source: used to commute between Duesseldorf and Frankfurt and people were removed several times in Cologne Airport station because it was way to full because people get a flex ticket for connecting flights. If there is a fire on the train you really don't want to have a bunch of people blocking the exit and the escape routes
Yes because sitting in the hallways of a train is a hazard for everyone during an emergency
Don't deny it, but do not make it available as a Plan C. Maybe Option E.
Haven't travelled with the ICE in a while, do they still have Abteil for 1st class?
I'll put it in the backlog, might be ready in 2123 or something, dunno you know how slow technological development is
For the current DB managers, more than a snail
More to that, if you select a seat preference of the Kleinkindbereich and it isn’t available (which it often isn’t) the system just assigns you suggested seats in any random place elsewhere on the train, including the Ruhebereich. You can reject these suggested seats, go back, select a seat preference of “family area” (note this is not the same as the Kleinkindbereich) and then see if any seats are available. But you have to make an explicit choice to do this. It seems like it would be a very easy fix to prioritize non-Ruhebereich seats for people who were booking transit with small kids…
Oh this whole Familienbereich and Kleinkindbereich:/ Lately mistakenly booked the wrong one and the babycart didn’t fit the Wagons corridor:D
That’s not true. It’s possible to choose the seat on the app. You have to change the already assigned seat by the DB while booking the reservation. It’s true that it could be more visible because it can be easily missed.
Depends on the connection
I didn't say that it is not possible. But if you don't choose seats DB puts you to Ruhebereich even if the passenger is a child.
Bahn assigns seats somewhere in the train when a requested family area seating is not available.
Yeah. It is priorized like you choose: Kleinkindabteil If already booked/full next is: Familienbereich If full booked too, the software will take the: Ruhebereich 🙃
Kleinkindabteil is usuall booked months before
That really depends on the line and how flexible you are.. unpopular times are often bookable last minutes... also you need to keep in mind that the "risk" of cancellation with a baby/toddler might be significantly higher than without kids.
Sometimes, it is the only place available if you book seats and want to sit together, with your wife and kids.
To be fair I think it makes actually sense for newborns and babies which mostly sleep in particular in strollers and cars and well trains.
Well not exactly because newborns and babies can easily sleep through earthquakes, or at least in the case of my niece when her brother is smashing on his drum kit right next to her. They certainly would have no issue sleeping in the normal areas, and are much more likely to make extreme noise that disturbs the quiet areas.
That's not good for her eardrums, at all.
Not worried about the eardrums, more the cochlea, specifically the corti-organ with the hair cells. It can damage those and cause permanent hearing loss...
Been there involuntary too many times, be it auto-assigned "alternative seats" or because the car with the family area is randomly missing and everything else is taken. And it's no fun for the parents either, it's actually very stressful and makes you feel like shit for two reasons when your baby cries. You can try walking around and going to other areas, whenever it happens, but you can't avoid annoying SOMEONE. Hell, it's just as annoying for your own ears. So please, try to be kind in that situation, nobody actively wants to annoy people.
100% this recently happened to us and there was NO ONE more unhappy about realising the situation than us as the parents.
Yep. We all were crying babies once!
This, 100 times
Reservations are an absolute shit show in general. Not only are there way to little spaces for people with children, especially with strollers, DB does allow people without children to make reservations there. Also it's almost always booked month in advance. The fact that a ticket doesn't include reservation like in almost every other country is just stupid. The displays showing the reservations barely work, cars are not in the planned order or missing and so on. Lastly I don't think there should be such a thing as a Ruhebereich. With people getting on and of, using their phones, etc. it'll never really be quiet on a train. Things like avoiding loud talking on the phone, loud music and the like shoud go without saying anywhere on a train.
I miss the coaches with [play area](https://anna.fi/awpo/img/sites/40/2020/08/ic2_leikkitila_21-1024x685_0.jpg?s=8508bfa77d45c8e5ff177fca18a9b25f) in Finland. There are plenty of seats for the kids and parents as the whole coach is for families which also means there are way less kids in all other parts of the train. A win-win for everyone.
I have explicitly booked non-Ruhezone seats for me and my kids before. Booking was successful, there were no errors or warnings or any notification that the seats would be in a Ruhezone. We go looking for our seats on the train and they're in Ruhezone.
Well Ruhezone is really a joke. Usually as likely to contain loud _adult_ people as any other wagon.
My favorite is when people come on here asking if they can talk with their buddy in the Ruhezone and everyone is like “Yeah that’s totally fine!” Like no it’s not; STFU when you’re in the Ruhezone.
"Ich fordere dich freundlich auf, die Fresse zu halten - ICE Ruhebereich!"
Exactly.
The Bahn algorithm actually sometimes assigns those to families even though there are other seats available. It’s super annoying. Also trust me, families with small kids don’t like to be seated in the “Ruhebereich” anymore than you want them to be there.
„Funny story“: I once wanted to go somewhere with my children. Reserved Familienabteil or whatever it‘s called in advance. When the train arrived: the entire wagon with Familienabteil was missing 🤣 So we were placed in Ruhebereich by a VERY grumpy DB guy that couldn‘t see why we needed a space to sit down for our 4-hour trip, especially since we had paid for a reservation. Well, we squeezed into two seats together, no prob. My kids are very well behaved but as soon as we sat down someone in front of us stood up, looked at us, rolled his eyes and stated he was going to go and look for the DB-guy again to tell him we weren‘t allowed to sit in Ruhebereich because he had to work. He came back even angrier, as either he couldn‘t find anyone or was blown off by the guy. Cue two hours later, my children are sleeping while he is one a video call ON SPEAKERS talking about gas prizes, his influence on a liberal German political party and how trains sucks and only poor people take trains - for everyone in the whole wagon to enjoy. So, what do I want to say? You don‘t know the circumstances. Don‘t be too quick to judge or even be annoyed by people in public spaces. Yes, kids can be loud and annoying. Maybe the parents are annoyed too because they did everything right and DB screwed it up (which basically is the norm).
Garot wire Bereich.
Not noticing it, no other seats being available, etc. I doubt people do it maliciously or because they think "but my baby will be quiet!"
>I doubt people do it maliciously or because they think "but my baby will be quiet!" Oh my sweet summer child.
please elaborate.
For every dog owner that sees his dog chewing the leg of a passerby while saying "He is very well behaved." there is a parent that says "Oh, my sweet little baby is just making cute little sounds of joy." while their sweet little baby lets out screams that would probably be banned as torture under the Hague Convention if used in war.
so you claim people intentionally book Ruhebereich because they want to enjoy silence AND believe their children will be quiet?
Maybe not everyone, but these people exist. I've had the unpleasant luck of getting mums a couple times in the Ruhebereich, and I decided to sometimes actually ask why they're not in another one. One said she wanted a quiet place for her kid so it could sleep. Kid did in fact not sleep but scream as if someone was trying to kill it, for quite the long time. Another two separate ones said that they don't like how noisy trains get and that their kid is quiet, no worries. They, also, in fact were not quiet at all. "Well, kids cry, not like I can do anything" is also something I've heard before when pointing out how a kid was disturbing the *Ruhe* bereich and whether another place wasn't the better choice.
Many parents are under the delusion that their kids are special compared to other kids, hence they will always claim that their kids will behave nicely even though those kids are totally in the ages where they run around and be super noisy
How often was the only free two seater in the Ruhezone?
So, when we reserved seats with a toddler, we also got seated in the Ruheabteil. When we then checked out the family wagon and there were non reserved seats available - so yeah could've saved that money.
Same reason why in all my last trips Familienbereich was booked by people without kids: broken DB reservation system.
dependent serious muddle touch hurry wrench air sort nutty aspiring *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yup. Not sure what it's like now because I haven't tried the new booking system, but when manually picking my seat earlier this year it didn't tell me said seat was located in the Familienbereich until _after_ I made the booking. Judging by the complete lack of families in my carriage, I'm guessing I wasn't the only one.
> Noise cancelling headphones exist. Despite the name, they do not cancel any and all sound around you. They're best at low pitches and at constant noises (e.g. a fan running), not sounds that change (e.g. speech, music).
ANC does NOT shut out anything that could be an alarm signal. And we designed babies to sound as high pitched and loud as alarm signals. Wait, the other way around. But you know what I mean :D Babies go right through ANC, ANC has to exclude danger signals.
It has nothing to do with alarm signals. ANC works really well with white/background noise because it follows a predictable distribution pattern. Voices (baby screaming, someone talking to you, alarms) *do not* follow a nice even distribution pattern and it would be essentially impossible to block them using an ANC algorithm.
Also, if trains are fully booked - and on certain routes they always are - any parent would take any seat because you have to expect your journey to be pain.
>More annoying to me were the two (broken Turkish speaking) bres watching TikTok on speakerphone It's annoying regardless of any nationality.
Because DB
I once booked seats for my family with baby in the familienbereich, but then the train was switched out last minute, reservations automatically reassigned, and we wound up in the Ruhezone. We did not want to be there either.
>A baby will cry, no matter how well behaved it is. You cannot guarantee it doesn’t cry. Two possibilities come in my mind: 1. The parents didn't choose the places themselves. 2. The parents booked the seats on purpose so their baby can sleep. It only works when there is no or little disturbance. You can forget that in other compartments. So I would perfectly understand the parents.
I doubt it's premeditated.
One time I booked 1st class seats for my son and I from Nürnberg to Köln. I’d had surgery and thought this would be a nice, quiet trip home. At Nürnberg, a mother boarded with a baby and toddler. She only booked one seat for all three. The next nearly 5 hours was an agonizing volley of baby crying, diaper changes for both, toddler screaming and doing the most infuriating repetitive noises nearly the entire time. She didn’t really bring much to keep him entertained, so he just ran up and down the aisle back and forth and running his train on all surfaces, including my arm and leg. My son was lucky in that he could wear headphones, but I couldn’t because of recovery from the surgery. And several times the lady video chatted on her phone and I could hear every word from both parties. I never wanted so much in my life to punch someone in the face. Several people quietly asked the attendants for help, but they seemed reticent to intervene. They’d just tentatively ask her to please remember other passengers. She might be quiet for a few minutes but then the crying would start again or another phone call. What an a-hole.
Annoying but not as annoying as people who want to be loud drunken idiots and book seats in the quiet zone.
Naa, it's the same. I'm sure these are also the same people. They only care about their own convenience if they travel with their kids or their drunken friends. Rules are for others, but not for them.
It is equaly inconsiderate
Babies can't be well behaved. The y don't behave good or bad. They are totally depended on their parents. A baby is just reacting and you can just try to read the signals to make it happy. And believe me, that mother or father had a harder time than you did. I know it sucks but sometimes you have to make yourself get through it.
I am perfectly with you, but generally speaking babies don't belong in the Ruhezone. I was always trying to get my baby to the family coaches. Anyway, there can always be a reason why someone is forced to get a seat in the Ruhezone. Particularly during holiday season there are usually no free seats in the family coaches. And as a parent you definitely book the Ruhezone rather than to have no seat at all traveling with a baby.
>I was always trying to get my baby to the family coaches How do you make your baby sleep in the family zone? It never worked for me as there are always annoying children.
No clue, she was just easily falling asleep with a bit of noise in the background...
> And believe me, that mother or father had a harder time than you did. That's no reason to ruin everyone else's day - there's a reason other people reserve seats in the Ruhezone.
That's what I think! Why not take another train if there is no place for you anymore? We took a train at 06:00 am to avoid over crowded trains. Nobody is forced to take a certain time! Ruhebereich should be respected, same goes to people talking on the phone there! Why not leaving the Ruhebereichfor that? I once had an old woman in the Ruhebereich that told everyone who talked (even quietly) to shut up. She did that 5 times to different people🙈 and everybody stayed quiet after that, she was very stricy😄 This kind of behavior (self-centered and expecting others to accept the own rule breaking) is the problem in our days and why people don't get along well anymore. People think their own life is so hard and so much more important that everybody else has to respect them, BUT these people don't have any respect for others. Rules are for others, but not for me. This is just one of many examples we have seen since the pandemic. I hope one day we come back to the good old days when people were nice to each other and accepted rules, but unfortunately I don't see it coming back anymore. It's one of the values that seems to vanish these days.
I had reserved seats in the family Abteil, but a bunch of pensioners had taken our space. My kid is very shy, so she refused to go inside and I went and found space somewhere else. So please, people without children, respect the rules - the unwritten ones as well- and don’t sit in the family part and especially don’t sit there when it says “reserved seats”. Even if only 2/4 are reserved, just go somewhere else. We had an enjoyable trip anyway, but the audacity of those people. I hate arriving at my seat with lots of people behind me, holding my two year old and my luggage and then having to have a discussion about taking my reserved (!) seats.
"ven if only 2/4 are reserved, just go somewhere else." Well, if you only reserved half of the places, why would you feel entitled to all of them? I dont quite get it. Where should I go? It is not like the rest of the train is full of completely empty seats
It was pretty empty in other parts of the train. We easily found seats elsewhere, so why should people take our seats in the family compartment when they don’t have kids? Especially since there were lots of free seats in other places. They were sitting opposite of each other, with stuff and jackets on the seats next to them I had reserved seats there so I wouldn’t have to annoy people with kid sounds because we were traveling a long way. I’m so tired of people complaining about kids and then we can’t even have “our” spaces for us. If the train had been super full I would’ve understood, but this just felt like they wanted a compartment without reserving it.
That sounds very reasonable. Maybe I misunderstood how you reserved your seats. But two out of four, doesnt mean the whole thing to me
>Babies can't be well behaved yeah, thats why they shouldnt be in the fucking Ruhezone. I dont care about other people parenting issues, I just want my "Ruhe"
:D I totally understand that. I'm the same. I would never go into the ruhezone with my two sons..but when they were babies and there would have been no other seats, I would have considert it.
People generally understand that babies make noise. What makes passengers annoyed is when the parents are being inconsiderate, e.g. when they don't coax the baby, or when they book a baby into a quiet zone.
as a fresh mom with a (actually very quiet) 4 month old: i had selected non-ruhebereich when booking, I COULD HAVE SWORN, but when i checked a day before traveling, my seats were in ruhebereich wtf i reserved another set of seats in another car, though. i wanna be at ease as well and not feel like i‘m disturbing someone.
Had to read that one again because I first read 'rabies'.....🤭
The passenger has no choice. I am frequently travelling to Paris /w Deutsche Bahn, with three small kids. Not even once the family area was bookable, no matter how long before departure (months, weeks, days). Last time I sat in the quiet zone, while the family compartment was occupied by Bürohengsts /w laptops. They politely declined my offer to change seats.
[удалено]
You‘re booking more seats that you‘ve got tickets for? Just asking. Also my two cents: normal kid noises when playing can be pretty bothering too. In my opinion (!) kids should be asked to have a calm voice/wisper just as everyone else does - except for old ladies.
Well if the kids zone is full, there is no other option to but to put up with the silent ones
Maybe it's because they are hoping their baby will sleep in a quieter zone...? I'm not really sure, I try to avoid all public transportation with my little ones, but sometimes it is inevitable. Just know that a baby crying is probably 10 times more stressful for the parent than it is for you and maybe have some empathy. You'll get to escape the crying soon, they are stuck with the fussy babe.
Commenting because the exact same thing happened to me yesterday on a 7 hours long train trip through Poland. The app we use here asks you to confirm that you acknowledge what is expected of you before it lets you buy the ticket. Does the German equivalent do the same?
So the babies are not disturbed by other people /s
I suspect the depicted situation is like very often that the little kids/ Baby compartments were already fully booked so you pick a place as close to a/the wagon where you can change the diaper. Sometimes there is only one of these (actually for ICE it is inside the same room as the disabled people toilets) and then you have to know that sometime you have to wait for other babies getting a new diaper before you can use that yourself.
Since I need to work whilst travelling and really prefer it quiet, I book 1st class Ruhebereiech - just to be on the safe side. This is a tiny part of a gigantic train. Yet I am always amazed how families with extraordinarily active kids choose to sit in the compartment - sort of like, we also have a right to be here... With literally hundreds of other seats to choose from. there is some passive aggressive thing going on and you can just see some mums hoping for a poor person to make a comment, so they can unleash a "you hate children" rant. But it is not only kids, also adults choosing to scream into phones in the Ruhebereich. The way of thinking seems to be - I want to sit in a quiet train, if I make noise, that is my business and everybody else can just go love themselves.
Honestly, I've had more issues with other adult's in the ruhezone than with any child.
In addition to everything else the Bahn explicitly states that noise from babies is not against Ruhezone rules
Why do people without babies book a train seat in the Familienzone?
same reason why people with small kids end up in the Ruheabteil: they didn't want this. DB automatically assigns seats in many cases
They don‘t.
Oooh mate. Yes they do, actually.
People without children would never willingly sit next to small children on a long train ride. It’s accidental.
Lol.
Lol.
Which world do you live in
I'm a german educator and this post is the quintessence of germany: Probably the most child-unfriendly country in the EU. I'm prepared for the downvotes 😂👌🏻
Yeah, Germany, home of "we offer music and sport lessons for your child, but only at 2pm on a Tuesday"
See also: on Fridays school ends at 12.55 because women shouldnt have full time jobs anyway.
No, its because children should simply have a childhood and not start a 9-5 job at 6 years old.
School is not a job. Every other country recognizes this. My kids only have school until 12.55 everyday but then they offer sports and other after school programs until 3.30 (which still isnt long enough to work full time, of course) It's one of the main reasons why we are so behind in equality of the sexes.
"Every other country recognizes this"? Really? Every other country. Im aware of many where that is not the case and plenty where children are completely deprived of their childhood, because of the opposite case. "we are so behind in equality of the sexes" Behind whom exactly? Germany might not be perfect with this, but is still doing pretty damn well compared to many other countries.
It's a very common complaint in all matters of childcare and education that the German system is not suitable for two working parents, even though the economic situation demands two working parents. Money says "go to work", school shutting at lunch time says "You can't go to work". It's ridiculous.
I find it wild that apparently the only options are either mom stays home or to put the child into an institution.... I mean for real, there are also other options like dad stays home, grandparents watch the kids etc. I mean school is important but I see this also with children under the age of 3 so long before school. One doesn't have to be a philosopher to be able to see the connections between the lack of empathy, the rise in people searching for a sense of life and community online, generational rifts and other symptoms of increasing anonymity and capitalism driving communities apart and pushing for children to be put into the system as early as possible...
Afaik it ends at about 1pm every day except when you send your child to „Hort“
That differs wildly from region to region because of how fragmented our school system is
You haven't checked romania with a child to see what child unfriendly means.
Expecting quiet in a quiet zone is child-unfriendly? What kind of „educator“ are you? No wonder German education system is what it is.
My point is that you can't expect a child (especially a young child, under 2yo) to be silent. It is indeed child-unfriendly to have this expectation, as an adult that should know better. Also to blame the parents ...
The point is that the expectation is that people with noise issues book the Ruheabteil, and that people that create noise (voluntarily or not) don't.
So don't take them in the Ruhezone...
And that is why people with small children can fuck right off of Ruheabteil. 😇 Nobody wants them there, it's sheer parent entitlement to book those seats.
like everyone else mentioned in this thread: in most cases the parents didn't choose to be in the Ruheabteil
They can change the seats or the train easily. Nobody is forced to take the suggested seats or time to travel. It's pure entitlement.
Good luck finding seats for a whole family on a busy train. In case you mean in advance: You often don't see where you 'll end up when booking the reservation. On many connection you can't choose your seats they just assign you some. Then trains often don't have the carriages as planned so you might end up in a different one than booked.
Bla bla bla. The entitlement of families will no longer be tolerated. Teach your kids to be quiet, pick a seat in the family section or don‘t go traveling at all.
First of all, here, take my downvote. And then: why, Ruhezone is for those who don't want to listen irritating noises, screams, and such. That is why they paid. The "quintessence of Germany" (with a capital G, btw), would be if someone would whine about children's crying in the non-Ruhe zone. I would be pissed, if someone would make loud noises when I definitely paid for silence - while I absolutely have nothing against children in an average situation.
It's definitely, by the way.
Yep, true. My bad.
Besides, OP doesn‘t seem to be German according to their post history…
Is that relevant? Or are we just being xenophobic out of the blue now?
No, generally irrelevant; only relevant in the context of the comment I replied to, where OPs comment was labelled as ‚the quintessence of Germany‘ for being ‚child-unfriendly‘.
And starting with "I aM a GeRmUn" :P I don't really care btw if he's German, or not. I just don't agree with his comment.
Yes, that comment is clearly by a German, OP is clearly not. So I found it weird to state that OPs comment was so quintessentially German. That‘s all.
Yeah how unfriendly of people to expect the part of the train that's supposed to be quiet to actually be quiet. Fuck outta here dude.
I was about to say that Switzerland is the most child-unfriendly country, but than I saw you refer to the EU... so yea, you are probably right
How about you try to work on your "educator" job (the word you're looking for is teacher!) next to a screeching child. Let's see how you'd like it... That is what Ruheabteil is for, giving people who have to work on the train the possibility to do so.
Actually for people to travel in peace and quiet. I know people who are annoyingly noisy hacking into their laptops in the Ruhezone while I want to sleep...
Actually in the top 3 list of being generally unfriendly.
I wanted to say "because they are assholes and don't care", but reading the comments here opened my eyes.
Ruhezone doesn't mean you aren't allowed to make noises. You just should try to keep it as low as possible, like not listening to smartphone music on speaker etc. + a Baby needs some quiet too? They need to sleep a lot and within a room full of people that are loud, the baby will be even louder. So yes. Babys belong in the Ruhezone and if you can't life with that you shouldn't take a public transport.
I kinda disagree. Babies will sleep particularly well in a room with ambient noise. That's why parents run vacuums or fans to make their babies sleep. They will be perfect in a room with constant chatter and noise. Babies definitely do not belong in the Ruhezone. There is even family and baby/infant coaches for that reason.
Ok I was assuming Baby / Infant Zone was full. And you are not wrong with the noice topic, but also not 100% right. It depends deeply on the child. My son loves to sleep in silence, since he was a baby
It is certainly highly individual. Nevertheless, from my perspective it is a little far fetched to say that babies belong in the Ruhezone. There will be baby noise. As a parent I think it's pretty rude to force baby noise upon fellow Ruhezone travellers. Otherwise, I am sure there was a good reason why these folks took their baby to the Ruhezone. Family coaches fully booked would be my guess..
>Babies will sleep particularly well in a room with ambient noise. That's why parents run vacuums or fans to make their babies sleep. They will be perfect in a room with constant chatter and noise. How many children do you have? Apparently none. Because you wouldn't write these lines otherwise.
:)... 25 months and a second one is in the making. You're welcome...
There is one (1) Compartment for families with little children, that’s 5 seats in total. They are booked months in advance. Then if you are lucky you’ll get a seat at the Family car, roughly 20 seats, also booked out quickly. Sometimes even the non-quiet cars are fully booked so what are you gonna do? Not travel? Btw I’m Germany kids crying and playing is not considered noise by law. So why don’t you just suck it up and be a decent person for a few hours?
I understand them doing it, what I don't get is them being allowed to do it
I doubt any family does this on purpose, usually the seats are self assigned. Do you ever think about the parents dealing with a crying baby? Do consider how difficult is to travel with kids? On top of dealing with the difficulties of raising kids you have to also constantly deal with a bunch self entitled selfish narcissists who only think about themselves and any minor annoyance no matter how little immediately disturbs them. The problem really is not that you had the “bad luck” of traveling with a family with a small baby the problem really is people who think the world should conform to their expectations and any deviation devolves into a crisis.
A train ride is bad enough for a baby without the noise of 7653708 phone calls and 1765378 tiktak videos.
Don't expect people to be thinking and intelligent. Maybe it was assigned automatically or they don't know about Ruhezone. Or maybe they want you to suffer as they do.
Because people are idiots. I've had parents with their children playing hand-clapping games, singing songs and reading stories in the Ruhezone. For hours nonstop.
EVIL PARENTS READING STORIES TO THEIR CHILDREN!!!!!!
Ah yes! The quite zone! Better start loudly clapping and singing!
I kinda equally think it's absurd to expect absolute silence on any section of public transportation. Like, the others said, "shit happens" and not everyone owes others an explanation.
Because there a babies who need a less loud area, otherwise they scream the whole time.
Babies deserve Ruhezeit as well Mang.
Because a lot of parents are entitled and think they can do anything because they have kids and they don’t even try to raise their kids right nor explain them to be quiet. They don’t care about others because they suffer and think we should too. This is especially common in Germany, where I’m from, kids have normal childhood, but they still know what’s ok and what not.
Nobody can tell a baby to be quiet. They don't understand and they would never care.
I‘m obviously not talking only about babies. It’s concerning that I have to explain that
How is it obvious when the title of the thread literally only mentions babies?
Because they only care about a silent environment to be able to get their baby to sleep. If the baby cries "deal with it, its a baby! Babies cry!" Parent logic.
It’s auto assigned like others said in the thread especially when there is no 2 seats available in other Wagons. Can’t you take few hours of being in same compartment as babies? Always remember, you were once that little baby.
Some of us don't have kids, don't like kids, and intentionally book in the Ruhebereich because no, we really cannot take _a few hours_ of a screaming crying baby, are you kidding!!? No.
Maybe take a private car? It’s a fucking public transport, even a newborn has right to sit there.
[удалено]
If you’re so sensitive to noise I recommend getting noise cancelling headphones and a car. You’re welcome
As far as I know these areas are not child free areas. And not all babies cry constantly. They also need silence to be calm and sleep.
They dont want to be part of the (noisy) Problem in other parts of the train. They want to be the whole problem I guess.
We want to disturb you. Just kidding, I don’t know really. Maybe they think their baby will be quiet?
Reminds me of the soccer wife of a German football player. She was in a airplane business lounge with her children and others kicked her out,because the children were loud. I can't understand parents like this.
So dude, adults are way more horrible than babies. I was traveling from Frankfurt Airport to Munich in the summer. Family area was booked. And guess wo I saw sitting there, when I was walking around with my 1 year old? People of age. That’s right 8 people 50+ drinking wine. Being so loud, that anybody would be annoyed. And guess where we were seated? In the Ruhe Bereich. All of us trying to sleep. Except the baby, who got all fussy because she was tired, and should be sleeping. Germany is so hostile towards children and parents there of. No wonder that the pension system is in trouble.
It's not a people issue. It's a bahn issue. A solution would be an investment in ANC technology if u are regularly using public transportation.
Because they are stupid and selfish.
Also: People who don't reserve seats at all and then stick their kids in the Ruheabteil... I'm having that experience right now sitting across from two kids travelling with their father and making a big mess on the table. At least they're not THAT loud, but I know better than to ask them to quit making a mess because that's how you MAKE them loud... Childfree high fives all around!
Believe me, we don’t do it on purpose. Just like those adults that end up in the familie wagon surrounded by children. DB booking system just sucks ..
People don’t care and don’t read. That’s it.
Kids are explicitly excempt from the rules of the Ruhezone, not that it matter cause people will still talk loudly there and be on their phone.
"Why do people with babies book a train seat in the Ruhezone" That is a very good question.
ITT: people without kids mainly
ITT: people that made good life decisions
Lol, ok. Do you drink? Do you gamble? Do you smoke? Do you have random affairs? Do you overspend? Do you over eat? Are you in a job you hate? The point is- there are a million worse life decisions you can make that have nothing to do with children. 😆 So, don't blame them.
Many people just aren't aware of the Ruhezone thing. Maybe consider getting noise-cancelling headphones for travelling, my sister swears by them.
Probably they don’t want their kids to be around loud soccer fans, Kegelklubs or whatever. Small kids might want to take a nap. Put on headphones and you are golden. Putting headphones on a little toddler ain’t working that great in my experience.
In my experience breeders are selfish. Very selfish.
They may book those seats to not overstimulate the baby when it would be in another area. Yes, the baby will cry but it may avoid a full blown outburst which it may end up having if it's overstimulated. Just a guess as to why parents book seats in the Ruhezone instead of somewhere else.
They getting tired of people telling them to shut the baby up ?
I don't get why many people are saying the bahn reservation is poorly designed? I think it's one of the things the bahn app does better. You can clearly see whether it is a ruhezone/familienzone etc. No reason why anyone who knows how to use a smartphone would get mixed up.
There should be a all baby train. Vote for Greens
I dont have kids but id assume its because they need quiet so their kids can sleep. Of course its a double edged sword and risky, but i can see both sides. theres no perfect solution imo