This past Sunday, my 5-year-old son and I took the fast-service train from Paris to Germany. As the train stopped hard and short into our intended station, a service cart that should have been secured fell over on my child. The cart was heavy, full of breakfast service items.
Child pinned against heavy cart
It was also topped with glasses and mugs that then broke, on impact, around my son’s head and shoulders. There were shards of glass in his hair and all over his clothing. Once I realized my son was pinned by the heavy cart, my first priority was freeing him and making sure he was all right.
I pulled the cart off of him and then, since it was our stop and passengers were queuing to get off and on the train, I moved him and our belongings to the station platform to check him for injury. I was expecting one of the train personnel to offer assistance and ask if my son was all right.
No assistance from train staff
One of the service officers did witness the incident and immediately focused on cleaning up all the glass. The only notice I received was a train employee who approached me just before the train left the station. She had something in her hand. I thought it was perhaps a card or a telephone number to call.
Instead, it was one of the free choccies you get when you order a cappuccino from the bar car. Perhaps I should have more actively sought out someone from the train but I was focused on my child. The good news is, apart from a few bumps and bruises, my son is uninjured.
Frustrating experience of train travel
There was no way for the train personnel to know that without coming over to check in with us – and frankly, if that cart had fallen just a little bit to one side, my son could have been seriously hurt. Normally, I am a huge advocate of train travel in Europe – especially with kids.
But I find this experience very frustrating for the following reasons:
The service cart should have been secured.
Simply put, there was no reason for an unsecured service cart to be left near the train car exit right before a stop. With trains stopping short for various reasons, the cart could have fallen on any passenger trying to embark or disembark the train.
With all the glasses on top of the cart, even if no one was nearby, broken glass could have been tracked all over the train car. Airlines are fastidious about securing service items and carts during a flight. I have to believe that trains have similar regulations in place.
That cart should have been adequately secured before the train made its stop. This accident never should have happened.
Someone from the train should have made sure my son was uninjured.
I understand that trains have schedules to keep and no one likes delays. But even if the train personnel were too busy facilitating passengers on and off the train, I have to believe they could have radioed back to the station to send someone to make sure my son was all right.
Even on a Sunday, shouldn’t there be someone who could have checked in with us? It’s not only a customer service 101, in my opinion, its good common sense. What might have happened if my son was seriously hurt?
It shouldn’t be so hard to find someone to talk to now.
Once Chet and I got home, I wanted to find somewhere to lodge a customer service complaint. For me, the concern is safety – I want whoever is responsible to know this happened so it can be avoided in the future. The problem is I had no idea where to do it.
I got my tickets from an agent, boarded a French TGV train with what looked like Deutsche Bahn employees on board. I ultimately went to the Deutsche Bahn website since they are responsible for the station I disembarked at. I looked all over the site for a form or email address.
Instead, there’s only a toll number I can call that takes me immediately to a message in German I can’t understand. I googled for other options – no ways to lodge a complaint were listed and all English pages mentioned Rail Europe.
Because of this, when I finally tweeted about my frustration on Twitter, I mistakenly called Rail Europe out about the incident even though they are simply a preferred English-speaking ticketing agent. I attempted to contact Deutsche Bahn via the two Twitter addresses they have listed as well as writing an email to the company CEO.
To date, I haven’t heard a thing back.
With Twitter, social media tools and interactive Web sites, it simply should not be this hard to make a complaint.
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