On Friday, May 20, 2016 I finished my shift as usual, that is at 2:30 PM, waited in the canteen until 2:40 PM, had a drink and ate a little something for the taste and for my rounded figure, so that I would fit into the frame afterwards, changed and headed home. I also popped into Tesco for muesli bars, and I was pleased to see them at a 25% discount for 4.50 CZK. Unfortunately I didn’t have a basket, and at that moment it didn’t occur to me to grab, say, a bag for bread rolls, so I gathered 18 muesli bars in my hands and ended my journey at the self-checkouts.
I walk out and think to myself – I need some clothes, so I popped through the other door into Kik Textil. I left around 600 CZK there for 7 items and went to the DPO office on Bohumira Cetyny Street, where I had picked up my ODIS card on Tuesday. I wanted to cancel my pass for zone 3 only and buy all 4 Ostrava zones instead. The lady was just as friendly as last time, and I learned that I had to go to the DPO headquarters opposite Nova Karolina by the Karolina stop, where they would cancel the pass for a handling fee of 100 CZK.
I thanked her with a smile and with words and crossed the road to Antonina Polednika Street. I wanted that pass, and at the same time I wanted to be at OV-Stred station, in case the girl who was there yesterday and was going to Stritez, which is close to my “home”, would be there again. The only problem was that I still didn’t know my way around the zones, the SMS ticket didn’t cross my mind, and I didn’t know where zone 3 ends and where I would have to punch a ticket or pay with my ODIS card. No risk, no reward, and so 17 minutes later I was at Fukushima.
I checked the IDOS mobile app to see whether it showed the transition between zones, but no, only that it was zones 1, 2, 3 in total. I came up to counter 1 and was sent straight on to number four, which was for criminals who buy a pass and then want to return it. To be precise, it was a sort of semi-discreet zone. When the sun lit up my way again, I remembered that I wanted to catch the train. I knew there was a closure from 3:30 PM that was supposed to end at 5:00 PM, and since my train from Kuncice was leaving at 5:01 PM, I thought everything would work out.
The train did arrive, but everyone got off as instructed, and after a while it left in the direction of Havirov. Just the conductor and off it went! I look at m.cd.cz again and the end of the planned repairs is now at 11 PM. Go to hell. On top of that, my mother started pestering me that they were in Tesin and would wait until I arrived. I didn’t know when I would arrive; everything depended on the replacement bus service that CD had supposedly ordered. What struck me most was that trains from Tesin were running without any problems; only SP 1612 picked up a 19-minute delay, but the others were not affected at all.
If it were about safety, they wouldn’t let any train through. I go outside, I’m on my phone, and after about 45 minutes of waiting here, while one train after another arrived heading to Havirov, a RegioJet showed up too. I was terrified that just one bus would come again; every half hour more people arrived, either from Ostrava main station who would be changing for Tesin, or from OV-Vitkovice heading the same way but without changing. Suddenly there were about 200 people in front of the station, all silently pondering where the boundaries of impossibility and being made impossible lie.
A ray of hope appeared: as the sun was setting, 3 buses found us, marked neither CD nor RJ, and so people piled into them. Then someone whispered that it was a RegioJet bus. 80% of the bus shifted into reverse, and just as they had squeezed into every last seat, now they poured out and Kept On Waiting. From time to time it drizzled lightly; the ticket counter there is open only for a short while during the whole day, staffed by a gentleman with a giant full beard whose PC never works, so he is always banging on the box. I had had enough, so I called the CD helpline 840 112 113.
In a word – damn it – I don’t know how much I pay for calling 840 numbers; VF only told me at the start that it was a special rate. I’m writing this because they took a speaker from deep inside the Central Bohemian Region and slowed her voice down 2x, so that one of her sentences took an eternity. After a 5-minute wait for an operator, a young woman named Lenka finally answered. I tell her my Der Problem, and she says she will find out more about the replacement buses here and call me back.
After 5 minutes she called, and according to the dispatcher the buses had been running since 3 PM between Albrechtice and OV-Kuncice. I told her that trains from the opposite direction were running normally without delay and asked whether she could tell me why it couldn’t work the other way too. All she managed was that the buses were running and that there were 4 of them; she couldn’t say where they were now, simply nothing. RegioJet did send 3 buses from various independent operators, but all at the same time.
Then she called the dispatch once more and still told me nothing new. “An hour or the whole night, that means nothing at CD, but don’t try to squeeze into the station hall, it gets cleared and locked for the night.” RegioJet also sent an SUV, a car taking people home, probably those with a Business ticket. It wasn’t a taxi and had no special markings, but it took someone away, came back after about 20 minutes on average, and took another person.
I knew that those buses probably weren’t coming anymore, since CD thinks the buses are running even though they know nothing about them, so I looked up how to get to Tesin, or possibly as far as Ropice. Both trains left at almost the same time for me, but the one to Frydek-Mistek already had a 10-minute delay, and as is well known, it would only grow, so I didn’t risk another hour of waiting in Frydek-Mistek. Before boarding the train I ask the conductor. He said I could travel but would have to pay extra for the kilometers, which in this case were 18. In the end he walked past me a few times and didn’t even check my ticket; he was busy closing the doors, which on these carriages are neither secured nor remotely closable.
At Ostrava main station I go up onto the footbridge and some seniors ask me where the train to Svinov leaves from. I checked IDOS: tracks 1 and 3. I even walked there with them, as I didn’t want them to get confused and stressed. The RegioPanter to Studenka was already waiting there; they assumed they couldn’t board yet since nobody was sitting inside, so I told them that all they had to do was look up at the train’s information display, where they would find out whether they could choose where to sit tight :-), whether the train was ready for boarding, and that at the very other end the conductor was already polishing his ticket punch, so in they go :-).
On the CityElefant I ask the conductor whether I can travel on a ticket via Havirov; I don’t even get to explain the circumstances, but she probably already knew them and replied without hesitation that I should find a seat, that it’s no problem. At least someone has a bit of common sense at the National Carrier. I have now written to them 2x, once through this form: https://www.cd.cz/kontaktni-formular/ and then the classic way to info@cd.cz, according to This link died before ICQ did.. To the first one I have already received a reply to my question “Will it be possible in the future to pay in the e-shop with EPIK?” (the Electronic Wallet of the In-Karta).
I received quite an exhaustive answer 😀 : Dear Mr. RJ, the impossibility of paying with the electronic wallet on the In-Karta in the eShop is due to the fact that in this case the carrier of the money is the chip card itself. This means that when paying with this electronic wallet, the card must come into direct contact with a device that determines the wallet balance and deducts the relevant amount for the purchased services or goods. The advantage of this system is that no device communicating with the card has to be connected online to the head office where your account is kept. Everything is governed by the relevant Payment Systems Act, which clearly defines the rules. In the case of a payment with the electronic wallet in the CD eShop, there is no technical device the card could be in contact with that could deduct the money from the card. For this reason, the electronic wallet on the In-Karta cannot be used to pay for tickets bought in the CD eShop. The other option, by contrast, is ordinary payment cards, which by themselves only identify the cardholder, and all payment operations take place at the head office, to which the device (payment terminal) must connect online.
The disadvantage is the need for an online connection for every card operation, and also that all In-Karta cards issued so far would currently have to be replaced with a different type of card. However, for easy and quick online purchases we are currently preparing the CD credit system, where you can top up credit in advance and then quickly draw money from it when shopping online. The CD credit system will not be linked to the In-Karta in any way and anyone can activate it. The CD credit system will be available from September 2016.
Wishing you a nice day, Jana Zcestovala, Contact Center, CD, a.s. 840 112 113 But the lady/young lady is not right, see the transaction statement at moje.inkarta.cz:
Even though I lost my In-Karta and then blocked it, the new one had exactly the same amount as at the time of the loss. If RegioJet ran a bit later than at 3:50 AM, if it had route passes that would automatically reserve a seat for me Monday to Friday, and if it had more connections, I would travel with it.
Czech Railways (Ceske Drahy, CD). Clueless Dilettantes. Constantly Delayed? Count on Downpours. Copious Do-gooding. Cooperative. Photos of the RegioPanter: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOTFfTt71j8I5TLiHA7e8n7U6xW7Guu_hIeyZZ74VeVOwbxrStggCZJ3t2qyd1mUA?key=N2JNb2ZOelFWWnF1VHhWNG5OU2VvUGRrMTZrRXBn A few screenshots: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNGh1T1LqJXjrkaSJJVRgjbe8_h_o0W1FkX6apVL2ZwbaP1MJxwSOP08lMYx2XyUQ?key=SWVYam1mMmg1SFdNTFlnRmFPVTJ0MzRRQnczb3lB