First, some essential background information to this
story.
In Brussels Central station, the NMBS decided they
needed to do engineering works. Which is fair enough, if they have to be done,
they have to be done.
They decided they would do these over the weekend
leading up to May 1st, which is a 3 day bank holiday weekend. It’s
notorious a tourist weekend, so whether or not that this was the best choice
for an engineering works date or not is something up for debate to start with.
That aside, the issue is not with them “improving”
(whether it really is an improvement will remain to be seen) things, it’s with
how they handled things.
Which was VERY, VERY badly.
People knew the works were going to happen. In the
Brussels region posters with the barest minimum of info had been up for months.
There was a note on the trains if you looked them up on the website. We knew it
was going to happen.
Even the media, on Friday, warned people
Brussels-Central station would be closed.
What people didn’t see coming, is that the NMBS
decided NOT to provide replacement busses. No, if you had to be in the center
of Brussels, you were left with two options.
Either you went to the Brussels North or South (Midi)
station and you walked to the center (totally doable, but you need to know the
way) OR you took a metro. And you paid for that out of your own pocket, on top
of your already overpriced train ticket.
Does that sound fair to you? It doesn’t to me.
EDIT: the NMBS told me on twitter that apparently those MIVB (metro) tickets ARE free. BUT that was not what I heard on the radio on Friday AND several fellow passengers yesterday were also informed that they would have to buy a ticket, because I heard them complain about it. So even IF the tickets really are free (which would be the right thing to do), the communication about that could be better.
What people also didn’t see coming, is that mystery
trains suddenly appeared without rhyme or reason, and that some trains suddenly
had different stops. It _seemed_ like the NMBS was dealing with that by putting
up info stands in big stations, we’ll get to that later in this post.
I had to take 2 trains to get to Ghent yesterday. I
_can_ take a train via Antwerp, BUT out of experience I know that that isn’t
the most efficient way. The NMBS site claims it is, but in reality it isn’t.
Also, I was traveling with Lora, who lives near Louvain, ergo, going over
Louvain was legit the only option.
(Because it would make no sense to her to go to
Antwerp first to go to Ghent if she could take a direct to Ghent from Louvain,
especially as she would have had to buy a ticket Louvain-Antwerp and then
Antwerp-Ghent in order to do that specifically).
Anyway, what I noticed, arriving in Louvain, was that
there was a 9 past train going to De Panne which stopped in Ghent. When I had
looked up the trains from Louvain to Ghent earlier in the week, on the NMBS
website, this train was NOT listed. Lora had also checked the times, and she
didn’t see it listed either.
That said, it was 10 minutes earlier than the train we
had planned to take, AND had a lot less stops, so I found Lora and we ran to
that platform (making sure we were on the train with plenty of time to spare).
At that point we thought, and that was extremely silly
of us, that the NMBS might have foreseen the issue, and decided to put in some
extra trains to popular destinations.
Of course, when I looked outside, I noticed that all
the posters on the tracks with the weekend time tables had big blue notice
stickers over them. Making it IMPOSSIBLE for people to check times for the
trains they needed, whether they had to be anywhere near Brussels or not!
Because you know, the NMBS just thinks you should be
able to access the website where-ever and whenever. Because you know, it’s not
busy enough as it is at the ticket booths in the weekend.
THAT right there was the first sign something was
very, very wrong about the entire situation.
We got to Brussels-Airport, the first stop of the
train, relatively on time.
Sadly, when people started piling onto the train, it
became abundantly clear that the tourists going to the center of Brussels had
NO clue what was going on.
None.
And understandably, several were none too pleased
finding out they would have to get off at either North or Midi and find out
more there.
I felt really bad for people sitting near the doors,
because they were asked all kinds of questions they didn’t have the answer to
either, and some people got pretty grouchy at them.
I feel this the NMBS epically failed here, because
they should have provided better tourist info, and also they should have made
sure that conductors were doing the rounds on the train, or at least calling
out information over the train speakers. But on our train, the conductor had
hauled himself up somewhere and we didn’t see him or her for the entire
journey!
Speaking of which, we spent FOREVER just standing
parked in Brussels North and Brussels South, only to arrive in Ghent over 25
minutes late.
If we had taken the train we normally would have
taken, well I don’t even want to know how much too late we would have been.
Spectacularly loads I imagine.
That said, we got there, and we found Claire, and went
into town (more about that next week in a non ranty post).
When we got back to the station, it was in the evening.
We didn’t really feel like being stuck in that Brussels mess again, so we asked
the info stand, which was manned by 4 NMBS employees, whether under the special
circumstances, they would allow us to go via Antwerp.
Which wasn’t an issue for me because I had a rail
pass, but Lora had a regular ticket.
And guess what: even though the trains were misery, it
was NOT allowed.
No letting travelers take another route to make their
life easier whilst the NMBS made it harder…
I find that that in itself is unacceptable.
BUT
Wait for it, it gets worse.
My question to the NMBS info people was literally “would
we, under the special circumstances because of Brussels Central, be allowed to
go to Louvain via Antwerp and take two trains instead of one via a normal train
ticket?”
One of them proceeded to explain to another WHY this
was a legit question.
Another one checked on his phone whether or not it
would be allowed and the one right in front of me looked at me, looked me up
and down, got the most ridiculous letchy smile on his face and said, in a very
sexist and disgusting way “what, because you lost your partner?”
(In Dutch
he said “want ge zijt uw life kwijtgeraakt of wat? Lief is
romantic partner, so yeah, hence that translation).
This sort of crap does not amuse me.
Not in the slightest.
I don’t like to be treated like a piece of meat. I don’t
like it when guys figure that women can’t do ANYTHING without their partner
holding their hand.
I am 100% perfectly capable of taking a train, even
one to another country, and then navigating in another city entirely using
their public transport.
However, I am NOT psychic, and I thus don’t know what’s
going on with the NMBS rerouting trains left right and center.
So I told him, politely, I would like an answer
without ridiculousness.
He just said “take the train to Louvain”.
Which was NOT the answer to my question at all!
The lady behind the desk at this point was still
explaining to clueless colleague WHY we asked our question in the first place.
So excuse me NMBS, but shouldn’t you at least put
people behind the INFO desk who have a damn clue?
Because 2 out of 4 clearly didn’t.
Luckily, the guy with the phone, who had been looking
things up (hurrah for that guy!) found that one train, 12 minutes later (yes
this entire exchange took 10 minutes) found that one train had been re-routed,
was going to Louvain but NOT via the crazy “Brussels loop”.
So we took that train. And it got to Louvain only 5
minutes late.
So out of 4 people manning an info stand, 1 was
efficient (thank you again kind sir!), one was also pretty efficient but lost a
ton of time informing her colleague (I feel for you lady, I really do), one
didn’t have a clue and one was a sexist asshole.
And especially that last one is INEXCUSABLE.
Just no.
Even if he claims he was “joking” he should know
better than to make sexist jokes at customers.
Shout-out though to the very kind gentleman at the
Louvain ticket desk, who was getting one question after another of people how
to get places, and who kept on being friendly, professional and efficient (he
looked up Lora’s connection when we got to Louvain).
And shout-out to the super friendly conductor who was
manning the train from Antwerp to Liège who stopped to have a friendly
conversation with me in the sunshine whilst his train was waiting to depart and
I was waiting for my connection to Louvain.
You gentlemen are a ray of light in the utter darkness
that is the NMBS otherwise.
So yeah, I am very disappointed with how the NMBS is
handling things. In the end, our delays were pretty minimal, comparing to the
horror it clearly was for others, especially tourists that came in via plane to
spend their vacation in Brussels.
That’s another thing, the politicians keep on doing
all these things to make Brussels an attractive tourist destination. Here’s a
tip: stop the NMBS from pulling shit like this, because you can be 100% certain
that the word of mouth on this from people going back home is NOT going to be
positive.
