A remind of how important customer care and information at the station is.

I planned to check in to my hotel at 17:30 yesterday, but got here at around 19:45 - two hours late and the longest delay on my trip. The hotel wasn't going anywhere, and was staffed for check in until 21:30 and is a larger one, so I really wasn't too bothered about that - but what an interesting experience of things going wrong and that they do go wrong "even in Switzerland".

Milan - Cadenazzo - Goeschenen - Andermatt - look around and lunch. Andermatt - Goeschenen - Arth-Goldau - St Gallen - and then the Bregenz train that got as far as St Margrethen where we pulled in for our scheduled stop at around 16:45, and there we stopped and stayed.

At 17:00 we were told that there was a problem with the line ahead and it was closed. Please sit tight and we'll know more in half an hour. "Please remain on the train - we have the AC^▸ on and it's hot outside". At 17:30 a further message from our train manager told us that he was still awaiting news but would keep us informed (as best he could). At 18:00 we were asked to leave the train and wait on the platform because the train had to turn around and go back whence it came filling in for one that couldn't come the other way. And, lambs that passenger are, we all did as we were told. And - yes, it was hot. So hot, indeed, that the failure of the line ahead was at-a-guess going to be weather related.

So - operationally, the train turned around and headed back towards Basel or wherever it was going and a sea of perhaps 100 to 150 passengers was left sweating and with luggage on the platform. The onward journey - though just 15 scheduled minutes to Bregenz, then another 15 minutes to Lindau is no ordinary one. It runs - or, rather, was supposed to run from Switzerland into Austria (Bregenz) then on to Lindau (Germany) with the train continuing to Munich. And as with many international borders, local public transport across them is thin - VERY thin. Look at the network maps displayed at St Margrethen and you'll see it's at the very edge of wonderful provision, with just a solitary line pointing to the train (the line had failed, remember) into Bregenz.

Now - the local language is German and I can pick up the gist of it. And while we were still on the train, the train manager was giving us a summary in English too over the good tannoy. But on the platform, it was hard to hear what was being said and I don't know how much if any of that was relevant or indeed in my language anyway. This will be forming a public post - so at this point I should let new readers know I am completely deaf in one ear; I miss things even in English if I'm not listening for them and don't have any directional clues as to where sounds are coming from / if they are directed towards me. Other sounds around especially interfere - I'm fine in a quiet place and the casual person conversing with me does not even know my issue, nor do they need to. It does have the advantage of letting me buy a disabled rail card in the UK^▸ which gives me more (stuff like companion discount) than my previous senior card, but I digress.

There's over 100 people and their luggage sweating on the "Island" platform at St Margrethen. At first, one hassled train manager who knows no more than we do and is ordered back east into Switzerland by control and has nothing to add in passenger terms about what's being done for this astonishingly complacent crowd, even though it has become increasingly clear to me and some others that we can't just drop back to following trains - the next one over the border is show as cancelled, the IT screen tell us the next is still scheduled but as someone helps me they tell me that it will probably be cancelled too.

St Margrethren is a network hub. Other trains run, and some are making plans to go elsewhere. I ask a driver of a bus in the attached bus station about services to Bregenz and he confirms there are none, looking at me as if I'm asking a stupid question and that I should know German to be allowed here without a minder. Speaking with fellow passengers, many of whom have English as a second language, they tell me of rumours that buses are being arranged to take us. But they stress these are just rumours and even in German nothing confirmed - no estimated time, no-one talking capacity or anything like that.

My hotel booking is not cancellable / changeable. I need to get to Bregenz. I have a "management decision" to make as to whether to try to contact them to let them know I'm delayed, but there seems little point in so doing as they'll still be there and my immediate concern is onward travel - "Race Across the World" stuff too, as my mobile phone, on which I have an unlimited contract, IS limited to "fair usage" and I have been warned that I'm over 80% of my month's allowance gone, so it's in Airplane mode most of the time. So - no call to hotel.

People are phoning for taxis. All sorts of calls / numbers from what I can understand, and they're all (what a surprise) fully booked and frustrating. And a taxi or three is only going to make a small dent into the crowd, and at what cost.

I spot - and so do a couple of other folks - a taxi dropping people off with a logo / phone number that suggests he's from Austria. Over the border. A handful of us approach him - does he have a return ride and a couple of minutes later I find myself wedged in the back seat middle between a mother in perhaps her 50s and a old-enough-to-have-his-own-family son who are off from their home in Switzerland for a hiking holiday in Austria. With her brother / his uncle so it sound like a family thing. The front seat taken by a quiet gentleman so I can't share his story.

The journey's quicker - much quicker - than the time we have been waiting to make it. On the meter and I'm thinking "how is that going to rack up" and "yikes, I have no Swiss Franks cash". Mother and son planning their onward train into Austria, and are slightly concerned as to whether they'll make the next one, or have a one or two hour wait. So, hey, Bregenz main station rather than Bregenz Hafren suits me; local stuff can be sorted.

And so it is, wish my new temporary friends a good holiday as they dash off. Taxi - bless him - was on the meter and it was just 10 Euros per person and gave me the opportunity to split my emergency 50 Euro note; everything else being on plastic this trip.

Bregenz main station to Bregenz Hafren in just 2 minutes by train - and I opted to walk along the main road. Another taxi passed by, and one of the very recognisable people who had been in the crowd in Switzerland gave me a cheery wave. Nothing like adversity to bring people together. A lovely look on the front as I found my hotel (actual just up in the town) and checked in with a concerned Sonja who had been trying to reach me when I had not turned up at the time I had given as my e.t.a. I apologised, explained my concerns at grabbing that taxi over letting the hotel know my new e.t.a, and have been show around and introduce to this hotel where I spend two nights.

Yes, I did look at plan B "Abandon Bregenz and stay somewhere else". Plan C - take trains to Konstanz then round the lake towards Singen and Lindau and back to Bregenz. Plan D - walk (10 to 15kms - not in this heat, thank you). Real "Race across the world" stuff!

Learning lessons? The importance of customer service / having someone look after and keep the passengers informed, or able to act as a hub / knowledgable contact point when things go wrong. The good nature of people. And i the end, here we are, just another day and the memories of the journey from Italy to Austria yesterday will be much more in the lovely places I saw and photographs from the trains than the little hassle at the end of the day - with limited picture because I was too concerned with the logistics!