DB employee nips to supermarket to buy toilet paper for passengers

A Deutsche Bahn employee has been commended for making a trip to the supermarket to buy toilet paper so that train passengers could use the onboard bathroom.

DB employee buys toilet paper

A Deutsche Bahn staff member has been named employee of the month after he hopped off the train to buy toilet paper for passengers.

The man was working on a service between Berlin and Sylt when he and his team realised there was no toilet paper on board. 

The driver then made an unscheduled stop at Hamburg-Bergedorf so that the employee could jump off the train, go to a nearby shop and purchase three packets of toilet paper. According to rbb, toilet paper was missing from the Berlin-Sylt train due to a staff shortage.

DB promised to improve toilets

Documented in a now-viral Instagram reel, the spontaneous act of goodwill has left many in total disbelief. Others pointed out that while one trainload of passengers to Sylt had been saved, the bigger picture remained bleak.

“These days many passengers have toilet paper with them because they know that there often isn’t any in train toilets,” Matthias Petermann commented on Facebook. “Although often it's not necessary since many toilets are closed due to being blocked”. Petermann continued that he had recently travelled on a train with eight carriages, and toilets in six of the carriages were closed.

This doesn’t bode well for Deutsche Bahn, which has recently made explicit promises to improve toilets and hygiene on trains and at train stations.