We have here minus 12° (or, as they describe it nowadays on the Weather App: "feels like minus 17°).
Can you imagine that at these temperatures the Netherland and the German Trains broke down on Tuesday. 1. March, (I came from Amsterdam) - a breakdown of energy - so we had to leave the train in Amersfoort, and stood there - hundreds of people! - for over an hour in the biting cold - without shelter, without information, and all they said was "There will some busses come to take you to Bad Bentheim".
The people: very civilized - the busses came not quickly one after the other, yet almost nobody pushed in rudely.
The busses brought us to - Apeldoorn. Out again.
Then a small train to Hengelo.
From there busses to Bad Bentheim - Germany. The only official person there saw us - and buggered off!! No waiting room for us, no toilets, no informations - but half an hour icy wind.
Then came out of Nowhere a little train. Someone said: "Those who want to go to Berlin should leave in Rheine - a slow train will bring you from there to Hannover, and from there you can go by taxi to Berlin."
The distance between Hannover and Berlin is 286 kilometers.
And I said: "Oh no. I will not leave in Rheine. I go to Osnabrück and take a hotel there."
The others left the little train obediently in Rheine, I clung to my seat.
In Osnabrück it was weird: a station like a Hopper-painture - and a small empty glass-box in dark colours: the Information-Point.
I pushed the glass door. It opened!
Behind a desk hid a little man.
"Do you see any chance to go to Berlin tonight?" I asked him (more a rhetorical question, to be honest).
"Nah!", he said, and scrolled listlessly through his computer.
Then - after a pause - he exclaimed:
"I can't believe it. Never ever before has an ICE stopped in Löhne (40.000 inhabitants!) - but now one will. Take a little train to Löhne, you will catch it."
To cut a long story short: I did! Arrived in Berlin a quarter after midnight at the main station.
That was my very private "Miracle of Löhne".
PS: The ones in the slow train could not catch the ICE when it stopped in Hannover.
PPS: Although there were many, many trains affected by the breakdown of energy - in the Netherlands and in Germany - there was not one word in the newspaper about it. Which I think very, very strange...
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