A few unflattering news stories from the last few months or days about RegioJet: Stewards caught scabies ( https://www.idnes.cz/ekonomika/doprava/svrab-v-regiojetu.A160921_151901_eko-doprava_rny )
A man ran to catch his train and died on board because of broken air conditioning ( https://www.blesk.cz/clanek/zpravy-krimi/411513/ve-vlaku-regiojet-zemrel-cestujici-nefungovala-klimatizace.html )
The air conditioning is not working again, because it is too hot outside ( 👻 404: the website went on a hike and never came back.)
3 train sets of the Yellows collided with trucks in Slovakia ( 👻 The website parked and threw its keys into the river.) People at CTU have criminally conspired against me, claims Jancura ( https://www.lidovky.cz/byznys/jancura-mluvil-o-zlocinnem-spiknuti-kritizoval-cvut-ted-se-musi-omluvit.A161110_111457_ln-doprava_pave )
Within one hour, a locomotive tore down the overhead wires twice and the train ended up 7 hours late ( 👻 The domain ran out like prepaid credit on an Oskar SIM card., 👻 The domain ran out like prepaid credit on an Oskar SIM card.and then the same gentleman in another group: 👻 RIP – this server did not even survive its own hosting.) In Slovakia, RegioJet is not honoring its contract, neither in quality nor in seat capacity ( https://www.e15.cz/byznys/doprava-a-logistika/jancura-ma-na-slovensku-dalsi-spory-podle-ministerstva-dopravy-nedodrzuje-kapacitu-vlaku-1326765 )
(Source: 👻 Source – the photo is gone, the server just does not like robots.) One carriage from the German railways, one from RegioJet and two from the Czech fans of nostalgic trains, the Klub Zeleznicnich Cestovatelu) Furthermore, they now run 3 connections a day between Prague and Brno, and one of them continues all the way to Bratislava. The pictures above are also a consequence of this new line.
Even so, they took carriages off the Prague – Ceska Trebova – Ostrava – Zilina route. Just a few months ago they had 10 of them, then 8 because of the truck collisions, and now there are 6, which are already pretty packed (when there were 10, they were half empty and it was no problem to have a compartment all to yourself, according to the booking system). They are bold enough to claim that within a year they will run every hour, which would require twice as many trains and locomotives as they have now.
We will see :-). On top of that, passenger rail operators’ costs for powering electric locomotives are set to rise by up to 20%, because they are still classified like freight carriers, which do not stop as often and do not have such high demands for air conditioning, lighting and so on. And the Czech Republic is starting to deal with reimbursements for classes higher than standard, even when passengers travel in standard class and the operator simply claims reimbursement as if they had traveled in, say, the highest one). Finally, a little joke: tearing down overhead wires is no big deal for RegioJet anymore, it already has experience with the tracks too:
