[gruturo]

To be honest, a train leaving early SUCKS. You show up on time, and you find out you missed it. Maybe the next one is in 40 minutes, maybe it's the next day.

(I realize 20 seconds early isn't that bad, but still, leaving early by any amount of time is a lot worse than leaving late)

[renewiltord]

In this case, it's annoying because you'll have missed a semi-rapid and the next comparable train to Tsukuba will leave 9 minutes later and arrive 17 minutes later.

It's not a 40 minute thing, this isn't Caltrain, but it's still annoying.

[supernova87a]

I loved (not really) how sometimes on Caltrain, if the trains were delayed, you could get on a delayed train after you had planned to travel, and get home sooner than if the trains had been running on time.

(I'll let you think on that puzzle.)

[lstamour]

The same often happened when I travelled by train in Ontario (Canada) where the trains shared the line with freight service, and so sometimes a train was poorly timed such that it always had to wait for freight to clear first. In those cases, if a train was delayed, the delay occurred at the station such that by the time the train left the station, the freight had already cleared and the time spent on the train was less than it normally would be. Also, delays often meant the train had fewer passengers, so it would stop for less time at each stop... am I on the right track? ;-)

[Thorrez]

The freight reason is not it. If the freight got out of the way at the same time it normally would, you would decrease your travel time, but arrive at your destination no earlier than a normal arrival.

The second reason is closer, but not exact. Caltrain has a variety of different types of trains, some stop at all the stops, some stop at only a few. Here's the scenario: there is a fast train then a slow train. Your normal schedule doesn't allow you to get to the station on time to take the fast train, so you normally take the slow train. If both trains are behind schedule, you might be able to make it to the fast train, and since it goes faster you might get to your destination earlier than normal.

[supernova87a]

Yes.

The frustrating thing of course, is that even if the trains are severely delayed, they have (or had, depending on whether they go out of business soon) a policy of running the exact schedule for each train as if normal. So even if all the trains are piled up, delayed, they would make local stops, etc. even though everyone wanted just to get to the end by express.

Sad that this kind of issue was so common (1x per month at least) that I blame them for not having efficient accident backup plans.

Yes, yes, I realize that there's the problem of having trains go express when they're all stacked up.

[gumby]

I once changed trains to take an express (skipping stops), realized I’d left my laptop on the first train, got off at the next express stop and waited for the slowpoke, and got my laptop!

[sudosysgen]

That was my experience of French trains right before the strikes :)

[pt]

Baby bullet.

[supernova87a]

yup.

[notwhereyouare]

could make different stops. Not stop as many times. I had to watch out for that when riding the commuter rail in boston. Make sure to get on the right train, or you won't get your stop

[skissane]

> this isn't Caltrain, but it's still annoying.

Why don't they just build out BART between Millbrae and Santa Clara? Once the Silicon Valley Extension is finished, BART will be almost a loop around the Bay except for that gap.

[drfuchs]

One reason that extending BART down the peninsula is a non-starter is the political power of the owners of hundreds of properties that you’d have to eminent-domain and knock down.

Plus the fact that the citizens (through their representatives) voted against it decades ago, so it was removed from the original plan. Given the current fuss among the citizenry over similar problems with running the nascent high-speed rail up the Caltrain corridor, I’d guess a vote today on BART would have the same outcome.

[skissane]

> One reason that extending BART down the peninsula is a non-starter is the political power of the owners of hundreds of properties that you’d have to eminent-domain and knock down.

Couldn't they build a tunnel? With a tunnel, the requirements for eminent domain would be relatively limited (portals, station entrances, maybe some ventilation/utility buildings)

Sydney, Australia's new metro system which is being built relies mostly on tunnels (plus some conversion of existing surface lines, and elevated rail in outer suburban areas where land is relatively cheap). Sydney's metro area (5.2 million) isn't hugely larger than the Bay Area's (4.7 million).

[supernova87a]

Tunneling in the US is massively expensive, which is a huge problem for infrastructure projects. There have been some previous posts on exactly this topic ("why do projects in the US cost so much?").

And we are out of money / unwilling to pay for such projects. Australia is still relatively swimming in its natural resource boom and has funds to do that. And political willingness to invest in public transportation that's clean and efficient.

In California, public transport seems to be relegated to the status of a homeless mobility system / shelter, that most people reluctantly take and have to wonder why it's so badly operated. I don't think the idea will get far to tunnel under the rest of the peninsula. We can't even sort out the remaining 1 mile of Caltrain that was planned to connect to downtown SF and the Transbay center.

Aside from that, I believe there's a groundwater level problem under most of the places where such a line would go? I'm not an expert on that though.

[skissane]

> And we are out of money / unwilling to pay for such projects. Australia is still relatively swimming in its natural resource boom and has funds to do that.

On a per capita basis, the US is richer than Australia. According to 2019 IMF estimates, US's nominal GDP per capita is US$65,111 (ranked 7th), Australia's nominal GDP per capita is only US$53,825 (ranked 10th) [1]. Similarly, the US's PPP GDP per capita (2020 IMF estimates) is US$67,426 (ranked 10th), while Australia's is only US$54,799 (ranked 19th) [2].

The US is a richer country than Australia in both relative (per capita GDP) and absolute (overall GDP) terms (and both nominally and at PPP). If Australia can afford tunnels, why can't a richer country like the US afford them too? (Especially in the Bay Area Peninsula, which is one of the wealthiest areas in the whole of the US.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...

[fuzzythinker]

At least they feel bad and apologized. Caltrain leaves early 20+ secs all the time and they cared less.

[jjeaff]

It's not about the apology, I think. It's about the fact that in order to issue am apology, the thing you are apologizing for must be out of the ordinary.

Call Trans could issue an apology and it wouldn't help. Because they would just have a daily apology log filled to the brim.

[ardy42]

> At least they feel bad and apologized. Caltrain leaves early 20+ secs all the time and they cared less.

How confident are you that your clock wasn't 20 seconds slow?

https://www.electro-tech-online.com/threads/cell-phone-clock...

> I have a company where everyone has a phone that used the same calender program, same service, same type of phone, etc. At 8:50 and again at 9:00 every phone will ding to announce 9:00 meeting. There is no 0.01 second syncing of the phones. The time might be exactly the same but the "dings" happens over 30 seconds. Then one phone might be a good minute or more off. (usually mine) There are many times where the dings are within 5 seconds.

[Dylan16807]

Easy enough to visit https://time.is/

My phone is within a second.

[apengwin]

I think this is why trains and airplanes tend to be delayed so much. It is much better to be late than to leave early. A train that's late will usually still eventually arrive.

[johnwalkr]

At Tokyo Narita airport, it is (well, was) running at capacity and if a flight is delayed, another flight may be rescheduled to an earlier time.

[kortilla]

NRT... ugh, flights so stacked going in that a plane failing to clear the runway fast enough resulted in us having to go-around and re-enter the deep approach queue. A nice 30 minutes added to an already 12 hour flight...

[johnwalkr]

Yeah, or you land and see the dreaded bus awaiting which means an extra 30 minutes to arrive at the airport itself. Or worse, you're departing and get through security and walk for ages to get to your gate, go through another security thing without thinking, and then realize

a) you're in some weird bus terminal and 60 minutes before the flight the bus is starting to board to take passengers to the plane which is not close b) you're a 15 minute walk and 15 minutes security line away from that cluster of restaurants you decided not to stop at

[userbinator]

but still, leaving early by any amount of time is a lot worse than leaving late

Unless you have a tight next connection, in which case leaving late often means arriving late too, and thus missing that one.

[pboutros]

Think of how much worse tight connections are when your connection leaves earlier than it was supposed to!

[jaChEWAg]

You think 20 seconds is a big deal? I urge you to try the NYC subway system once. That's all I'm going to say

[Kipters]

My father has been working in public transportation for nearly 30 years, the only official complaint he ever received was for leaving 3 minutes early (good old times of analog wrist watches)

[tmmx]

In this case though, next train was arriving in 4 minutes IIRC. But in Japan, being late even for less than 5 mins is not acceptable.