The Finnish Railway company

Clas thought it was comic and took a photo of the ticket.

The Finnish Railway company has now upset the people.
A man went the other day on a train in Finland with a Visa Electron card in his pocket. He didn't know that it's not possible to pay the travel on board the train with this kind of bankcard.
In the middle of the forest the train suddenly stopped and he was told to get off. He asked if he can pay at the next railway station, but NO! He had to get of the train in the wasteland, maybe among bears and wolves!

Something similar happened to us, but in the opposite way, when we visited Finland in December 2006! I know I wouldn't tell this when it will give a crazy picture of us, but now when I heard about this man I just can't resist to tell what happened to us.
You know nobody of us are used to go by train and the most of everything went wrong!

We flew via Stanstedt airport in London to Finland and ended up in Tampere, a town about 250 km from our hometown Vasa.
We had decided to go by train to Vasa, which takes about 3 hours, and had bought the tickets on the internet.
The plane was little bit early and when we came to the railway station we decided to check if we can catch an other train and get home earlier. Good luck! An other train was going to leave in a couple of minutes.
I told Clas to hurry and we started running up to the railway tracks. What track number is it? I asked and he said he thinks it's number two.
When we got to the track the train was still standing there, ready to go, and the stationmaster was standing on the platform. We went over to her and showed our tickets and asked if it's possible to go with this train instead. She told us to get on board because the train had to leave and she took our tickets and said the conductor will take care of them and change them during the journey.

We had a lot of suitcases but after much beating about the bush we were inside and sat down.
I was so happy when we made it and told Clas that this really tells us that we never should give up when something looks impossible. Now we are on the train!

When the train started moving Clas almost jumped up from the seat telling me the train is going in the wrong direction! But I didn't believe him and we started arguing about what direction would be the right one to go to Vasa.
After a while a conductor showed up, with our tickets in his hand, and he looked very worried telling us we were on the wrong train going to Pieksamäki which is in the direction of the Russian border. I started laughing like crazy! We had been traveling for about 25 hours, and were very tired, and now we were going by train in a wrong direction! Unbelievable!
He told us they will try to arrange something to get us back to Tampere in time to catch the next train to Vasa, which would be the last one going there that day.
After a while he came back again and told us the train will soon do an extra stop only for us, at an unoccupied railway station in the forest of Orivesi, and when we get there an other train will come in the opposite direction and pick us up and bring us back to Tampere. He gave us two "free coffee/sandwich-tickets" and told us to have a snack when we get back to Tampere. Very kindly!

We got of the train with all the suitcases but it wasn't too easy. After standing about half an hour in rainy weather out in the forest a small train came puffing along the track and picked us up and we were on our return to Tampere.
Oh, what a journeyl! We usually don't go by train and this was really an experience of a lifetime.
The conductor on this train told us to go down to the service center at the railway station to get new tickets when ours were canceled earlier, when they tried to change them, before they discovered we are on the wrong train. So when we got there we showed our tickets and asked to get new ones but they said thats not possible. I started telling them about what has happened to us and when I said we are from Tenerife the lady smiled and said; `Oh, Tenerife? Then it's okay!´. She knew all about us and the printer started working and we got new tickets to go to Vasa.

When the train finally left for Vasa the conductor was walking around checking the tickets of the passengers and when he came to us he said; -What is this? It said "Ei kelpaa lippuna" on our tickets which means "this ticket will not do" in English. I wonder if they were trying to make fun of us?
I was going to start explaining everything for him but then he started laughing and said he already know everything about us! There had been a bush telegraph going on! It seamed like we were on the internal headlines of the railway company that day?

It was really a trial when all this happened to us but today we just look back and laugh at the memory of it. And our experience of the service and help we got from the railway staff is just wonderful. They made a good job and a lot of arrangements to get us back on the right track!
But to be honest, we sneaked around at the railway station in Tampere on our way back to Tenerife. We felt little bit put on shame and didn't like the staff to know that we were back in town. Maybe afraid it would cause another bush telegraph or warning to go out among them.