ICE - Inter city express

On my way from Berlin to Milano and there were three trains which would take all the pain of transferring me from the German Capital to the Monza circuit. Well, over the last few days whenever we have travelled on the trains we have always been late. Maybe 10 minutes and in some case half an hr late. What happened to the efficiency of the railways, and that too the bloody Germans. I thought they were supposed to be setting the highest standards. Well time to test that with the ICE from Berlin to Koln and then a 20 min later train from Koln to Basel. My first stop in Switzerland and finally a EC to Milano Central. And what a surprise. Not only was each train on time at the given destination they were dot on time at all the intermediate station. For some reason I just felt so happy all the times when the train would halt at some station and I would check the watch to confirm that the train was ON TIME. Just as the germans were supposed to be. Perfectly efficient. I think this has more to do with the fact that as in Indian we are used to trains coming late, “making up time at night” and tolerating 10-15 minutes delay as part n parcel of the whole system. God dammit, we need to learn so much from the ICE. Was on the phone for quite sometime on the train and there was perfect reception of my Vodafone signal because there were mobile repeaters in place. So in a perfectly quiet  apartment u can talk for as long as u want while the train rushes past the german landscape at 249kph (that is what they were displaying on the screen in the compartment, I know it was not the fastest the ICE would have gone but am sure that was fastest I have gone while on land except the airplane takeoffs, not sure what the speeds are then)

Which brings me to the main point, about why we as human beings appreciate something as simple as punctuality and honesty when these are assumed as the basic characteristics of any individual?  All this while when people were evolving into more and more complex beings, we forget that even now all we need is the other person to be polite, gentle, and honest and some simple things like that. So next time when you board the ICE and you marvel at how awesome it is, remember one thing – it’s just doing what its supposed to do, reach every station at the designated time. Simple. The rest is all show off from the Germans J Hate the Italians. They need a reservation on all their stupid trains. Bloody 13euros for a 4hour train journey from Basel to Milan.