Deutsche Bahn has arrived in virtual reality: Trains that are not on the track still exist in the DB app (of course with real-time analysis: green departure time, well, then everything seems roger!), they also exist on the main display board of Frankfurt Central Station, and even when inquiring at the information desk, the employee responsible says, after looking at the screen for a longer period of time, that, to the best of his knowledge, the train in question is running on platform 1a on time.
The only problem: We've just come from platform 1a.
There the atmosphere was almost like in the opening scene of "Play me the song of death" - except for about two hundred more people who were waiting in the heat, but otherwise really almost the same!
And when the announcement came that the train was not running due to a lack of staff: atmosphere!
How can it be, we ask at the information desk, that at such a large station the most important display shows trains that don't exist?
Answer: "It's all automatic here, there's nothing we can do about it." And where did the announcement on the track come from that the train was cancelled?
They do not know.
Sure, they only sit in the head office, their hands are tied there.
Must be a ghost voice from a distant country to which this service was outsourced.
Brownies in the secret headquarters?
Or maybe there are brownies somewhere in a secret center under the train station and steer all the contradictory information with thieving joy, like in that TV commercial in which travelers are repeatedly sent back and forth between platforms - only now for real, and the brownies always laughing your ass off?
They probably also think up announcements like: "The reason for this is the currently limited availability of the tracks." Or they are already planning the next joke, which then ignites the following day: Again, no train.
A look at the display above the platform: "Please find out more about alternative media." Oh, you think so, maybe they mean the app or the main display board in the station!
Of course, there might be a train there, then everything will be fine.
And maybe all the staff that the train lacks elsewhere sits in these trains and drinks all the hot drinks from the closed on-board bistros of the trains that are actually running and then all the cold drinks that are often not available in the real trains because of the cooling It's not possible, and for fun and dollery all the ghost train attendants keep making mini tarte flambée - simply because they can.