So, I thought the stories you hear about robberies on overnight trains were mostly rubbish, but a very weird thing happened to me last night on the Bratislava-Warsaw train (Czech part). This is partly to wonder if anyone had a similar experience, and partly a little warning. This is the 3rd time in 2 months I've caught this train - once couchette (no problems), once sleeper (no problems). (In addition to overnight trains all over the rest of the world - never had a problem.)
Last night, I got on in Sturovo (Slovakia border with Hungary). Firstly, I had a sleeper booked and paid for, but the conductor said there was no heating and we would have to sleep in the (more open) couchette. So, OK, these things happen. Then the conductor was super careful to warn us about the 'gypsies' (his words) and other bandits, and how they can get on the train during the night and steal things. He showed us how to jam a pen into the lock to make it harder to open from the outside (although they had those 'swing over' locks, I could see how you could open it from the outside with a fine piece of wire or similar). Then he gave everyone a piece of string and showed us how to tie the handle closed (even though you can't really, because it's not exactly the same height). He said, if anything happened, he would try and help us but... you know... these bandits... (shrugs), and he said the problem was in Czech only, that's where those bad people lived, where the train passed between mid-night and 2 am.
It seemed pretty strange to me. Like I said, I've done this trip a few times in the last month, and the other conductors didn't behave like this. And, he didn't show us the lock at the top of the door, which I knew about, even thought that could also be opened from the outside with some kind of general spanner thing. But, I was thinking, well, what happens happens. What can you do. So we all settled down, with our string tying our doors shut and our stuff hidden away.
A few hours later, I got woken up by some sound. I looked down from my top couchette, there were 2 men with torches shining them in the cabin. The door was open, pen was gone, string was broken. I was just waking up, so I said, in Polish, Co? (What?) and they saw me and just closed the door. I turned on the light and woke up my friend (just 2 of us girls in the cabin), and we just sat there for a while. Then I heard some talking outside, so I peeked out and saw some people I recognised as other passengers. So, I went and asked them what was going on. So, they said there were 5 'gypsies' (well, I saw them and they looked Slavic to me, but OK, thieves), one blocked one end of the carriage, the other minded the guard with a knife and they went through the carriage, I guess looking for stuff to steal.
Well, it all seemed a bit weird to me, when I thought about it. This guard must have been in on it. Why would he prepare us like that, when no other conductors had? If he didn't think it would happen, no need to tell us, right? And if he'd seen it before, he would know there's no point in this pen/string trick, right? And it happened just like he predicted - in Czech, between 12 and 2, and he couldn't help us because these bandits had him... So I think that's dodgy. But maybe even weirder, noone I spoke to had anything stolen, because seems everyone, like me, woke up and then they went away. Maybe in the sleeping seats they did, but I didn't see anyone when I got off in Warsaw who seemed like they'd lost anything. So, the end of the story was that it wasn't even really a robbery - just an attempt?
Anyway, seems kind of bizarre now, but it was just last night (19 Dec). So, beware of conductors who seem too concerned for you! I figure this is (hopefully) my one and only brush with such a story! Anyone ever heard of anything similar?
