Near disaster last Friday night at Zurich HB. I was on my way from Luzern to Zurich airport to spend the night at an airport hotel for a Saturday flight home. I decided on the 9:09 pm IR train to Zurich HB changing to a train to the airport. After dinner of a pizza and a couple beers at a watering hole outside Luzern station, I retrieved my luggage out of the station lockers, a big heavy one and a backpack and computer bag. I made my way to the platform and boarded the train to Zurich. 40 minutes later, I arrived at one of the upper platforms and my airport connection was below me at the underground platform.
I grabbed my heavy suitcase and computer bag and hustled down two escalators and boarded the waiting train. You guessed it. As soon as I began stowing my suitcase, where is my backpack? Its still in the train upstairs!
I grabbed my suitcase and bag and hustled up 2 escalators. The train I arrived on was still on the platform, but all the lights were off. I tried opening one of the doors, the circuits were dead. Then, it slowly began pulling out. In a mad panic, I ran toward the platform head looking for an SBB employee. I spotted a conductor leaning against a column doing some paper work. I summoned up my best pidgin Deutsch. "Koennen sie hilfe mir! Ich habe vergessen meine Gepaeck an diesen Zug!" as I pointed to the departing train.
Now it is one thing to speak the language, but you have to understand the responses. The conductor asked me a question that I did not understand. "Backpack, backpack!" as I gestured to my back. At this point, he switched to English. "What color was it?" "Black, black with blue trim!" "Might it be this one" as he pointed to his feet. And there was my backpack! He was filling out the paperwork to log it into the lost items database.
I grabbed his hand and began pumping it vigorously. "Danke, Danke sehr, vielen Dank, Thank you thank you.." until i ran out of words. It was then that he said something that seemed strange at first. "The flowers of your voice warm me." I honestly thought he was commenting on my breath at first, but then I realized it must be a direct translation from a Swiss German saying that he appreciated my thanks.
I reflected that a conductor's lot is not a happy one. Most of his day is kicking indignant people with 2nd class tickets out of 1st class carriages, busting fare dodgers, people who bought half priced tickets who don't have half fare cards, etc. So it is nice to occasionally receive a little appreciation.
So now with my backpack in place, I made my way back downstairs in time to watch my original train depart for the airport, No worries. Across the platform sat another train and the sign board said was leaving for the airport in 5 minutes. This is Switzerland after all. In retrospect, I was lucky that I picked a train that terminated at Zurich HB and it was the end of the day and being taken out of service. If it was a through train, I would have been out of luck.