A day at the VGF Zentralwerkstatt in Frankfurt

Last Sunday was a day that I had been looking forward to for a long time.  I first discovered the “Zentralwerkstatt” – the central maintenance depot – in Frankfurt some years ago by chance.

I was curious as to where the lines went past the end of the last U-Bahn station, as they followed the road and suddenly disappeared behind a set of iron gates. Google Maps provided the answer – behind those gates lies the depot where the trams and the U-Bahn trains go in Frankfurt when they need servicing or repairing.  There is even a 800m long running track to test them on.

So when I read about an open day I grabbed the chance to visit the site and take a look around.

The end of the U5-50 train over a maintenance pit

The end of the U5-50 train over a maintenance pit

On what was one of the hottest days of the summer so far, the grounds had been turned into a mixture of trains and their components to see and a childrens’ playground with refreshments. [Read more…]

How Autoreisen solved a broken wing mirror

Damaged wing mirror on a hire car on Lanzarote

We have praised Autoreisen on Lanzarote before for their low prices.  Now we also have a reason to praise their good service.

On our last visit to Lanzarote we were unfortunate enough to “lose” the glass in the wing mirror on the driver’s side of the hire car.

Having brought the car back to the airport we were told that we would get a replacement car and that we should go to the garage, located underneath the main car park.  The office would let them know that we were coming.

And they did just that, because when we arrived in the garage they were expecting us.

We had to fill out a form with a description of the problem with the car, and after a short wait is replaced with a different one.  The replacement even turned out to be bigger!

The damaged car was driven off to be repaired before we even had a chance to get into the replacement one.

I can honestly say that the problem of the damaged mirror was taken very seriously, and they provided an excellent and customer-oriented service.

Service at McDonald’s

The local McDonald’s has put signs up recently saying that they are now open 24 hours every day.

Whilst this can be useful when we fly back from Madrid or Lanzarote in the middle of the night, it probaby won’t affect us much.

Or so I thought! Recently I’ve noticed that the staffing levels during the breakfast hours have gone down. The other day I ordered one item at the drive-thru and had to wait about 15 minutes for it – and those were 15 minutes that I didn’t have!

On another recent visit, none of the counters were staffed:

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Not a sight you see very often!

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