Stampede for Lidl's Cut-Price Train Tickets

Lidl, the German cut-price supermarket chain, sold more than one million bargain-price rail tickets within the space of a few hours in a special promotion on Thursday, a spokesman for the state-owned rail operator Deutsche Bahn said. Most of Lidl's 2,600 supermarkets around the country had sold out of the tickets by as early as 9:30 am (0730 GMT), just one and a half hours after they opened, a director for Lidl in the north of Berlin said. Lidl was offering the tickets at price of 49.90 euros ($62.90) for a book of two, which can be used on any route within Germany before October 3. The cut-price promotion nevertheless had regular travel agents up in arms. They complained that they were being discriminated against by Deutsche Bahn. And their federation attempted, unsucessfully, to obtain a court injunction to block the promotion.