The Nine Circles of Railway Hell or How I Survived the Journey with Czech Railways

There are two ways to know if a person really believes in the existence of hell. Either he studies medieval demonology, or one summer day he decides to travel across the country with Czech Railways. I chose the second option. After a few hours of wandering, I came to believe that Dante Alighieri probably never visited a Czech railway station when he wrote the Divine Comedy. If so, Hell would have to be expanded by another circle – the railway.

The whole journey started innocently. Purchased ticket, carefully planned transfers, reservation in Pendolin. Modern railways of the twenty-first century. Or at least that was the marketing image. However, the reality was more like a chaos-inducing ritual.

The first train from the airport in Mošnov did not run at all. Instead, there was supposed to be a replacement bus service. But the bus is nowhere. No clear markings. No information. No staff to advise passengers. Just groups of confused people running around the station like damned souls looking for a way out of the underworld. If Lucifer appeared next to the tracks with a "Transfer here" sign, he would appear more credible than the entire information system.

In the end, I gave up on looking for a non-existent organization and used Ostrava's public transport at my own expense. Yes, passengers of Czech Railways must arrange their own transport in order to be able to continue the journey that they have already paid for.

I thought it couldn't get any worse. What a naive notion.

The Pendolino, a symbol of speed and comfort, arrived approximately fifty minutes late. Delay in itself is not a tragedy. The railway is not an atomic clock. Tragedy is a system that begins to fall apart like a house of cards at the first emergency.

After arriving in Pardubice, it became clear that the planned journey ends and improvisation begins. Passenger train to Přelouč. From there, a replacement bus to Cologne. But even this bus was not a substitute for the train. It was more like a line connecting every village, every stop and perhaps even every chapel in the vicinity. Instead of trying to minimize the delay, more was being created.

The result was predictable. The connection in Cologne left.

Another wait. Another wasted time.

Another proof that somewhere between management presentations about digitization and modernization, the elementary ability to organize transport has completely disappeared.

In total, I arrived more than two hours late. Not because of a single exception. Because of a chain of organizational failures that were layered on top of each other like individual circles of hell.

However, it is not the delay itself that infuriates people the most.

He is infuriated by the feeling of helplessness. Nobody knows anything. No one controls anything. No one will explain anything.

And above all - no one is responsible for anything.

This is perhaps the biggest problem of today's Czech Railways. No exclusions. No malfunctions. Not accidents. But a culture where system failures become the norm and the passenger is supposed to be happy to get to the destination at all.

At the same time, it is the passengers who finance the existence of the entire railway. From your tickets, from your taxes, from public subsidies. They therefore have the right to expect at least basic professionalism.

It is difficult to accept a situation where, on the one hand, the public repeatedly reads about the high salaries of top managers of state-owned companies, while on the other hand, the common traveler becomes a hostage to organizational chaos. Remuneration of the management should correspond to the results actually achieved and the quality of the services provided. If the result is repeated transport collapses, non-functioning replacement transport and insufficient passenger information, it is legitimate to open a public debate about whether the management system is really working as it should.

Every organization makes mistakes.

However, the difference between a well-run institution and a poorly run one is that the former corrects its mistakes, while the latter starts to consider them as the standard.

Czech Railways undoubtedly employs thousands of honest train drivers, conductors, conductors and technicians who perform demanding work. Criticism is therefore not aimed at them. It leads to a management system that has responsibility for traffic organization, crisis planning and passenger information.

Every hell has its ruler. And every state company has its own management.

If passengers repeatedly encounter chaos, delays and failure to organize transport, then another press release about the emergency or an apology on the information board should not follow. Real managerial responsibility should also follow.

Because if no one is responsible for the condition of the railway, then in reality it is not everyone. And this is a path that leads not to the final station of the modern European railway, but to the next circle of railway hell.