ÖBB

The ÖBB is the Austrian National Railway system. It's efficient, modern and convenient. From a customer's stand point, I'd say the employees generally seem to be satisfied with their work. I rarely encounter a crabby ticket controller.

One thing I haven't figured out though is the job function of the mysterious station master. What exactly does he do? (This post will soon be updated with a photo of so called train master)

At the smaller stations, the station master will sit inside some mysterious office doing who knows what. From time to time, he will mumble something over the loudspeaker, usually about a delay. Then, as soon as a train approaches, he will walk outside, put a little hat on, watch the train go by, take his hat off and go back inside. Why is this hat so critical? More importantly, why does he put it on only when he goes outside? This is a mystery to me, but it makes me laugh.