[ikawe]

I think by and large this doesn’t play out with trains. American trains tend to be much less frequent, slower, and less comfortable than most European trains.

I road a swiss train a couple years ago that was something like 5 minutes late. To me (American) it was “on time” but the conductor came on the PA and apologized. He did make a point to clarify the delay was because they’d been stuck behind an off schedule German train.

[JumpCrisscross]

> American trains tend to be much less frequent, slower, and less comfortable than most European trains.

Exception: the New York regional rail system. Its on-time stats are comparable to Switzerland.

We love to talk about subways and intercity high-speed rail. But in America, it doesn't make sense in most cases without subsidies. Drive-on / drive-off regional rail, on the other hand, trades pursim for pragmatism and could really work in our car-dependent metros.

[jeroenhd]

> But in America, it doesn't make sense in most cases without subsidies

That's the point of public transit, and that's the case everywhere. Also that of roads; roads wouldn't exist without government subsidies because nobody wants to pay toll to exit their driveways.

Of course you'd need to reduce car dependency for any public transit system to make sense, and I don't think Americans care for that. For some reason, "15 minute towns" were turned into some kind of boogeymen to scare conservatives for a while during the last election cycle, which says a lot about the American approach to infrastructure design.

[JumpCrisscross]

> you'd need to reduce car dependency for any public transit system to make sense, and I don't think Americans care for that

This is what I mean. To reduce car dependence given America's built infrastructure, demographics and geographic spread, you'd have to build such a massive amount of public transportation that I think--outside major metropolitan areas--it would be cheaper to stick to cars.

[lmm]

Most major American cities have terrible traffic and air quality problems already, which are only getting worse as cars get bigger and heavier (and electric cars can be worse). America might need thirty years of densification before some of the high speed rail boosters' ideas make sense, but congestion charging, better zoning rules, and gradual elimination of street parking coupled with improving bus and rail infrastructure made sense thirty years ago and made more sense today. Amsterdam didn't get to be a nice place to live through natural luck or some magic non-Americanness, it took fifty years of gradual improvements and rebuilding, and the fights about it in the '70s were just as bitter as the fights about transport in the US today.

[Lanolderen]

Just quickly gonna shill that carsharing and motorcycles/scooters are a pretty good option as is home office/decentralized offices for many current commuters.

[lmm]

Carsharing doesn't really help with peak time traffic which is the biggest issue. Motorcycles/scooters/e-bikes can work if you can figure out the right incentives to get people to use them. If you can get employers to support working from home that would help hugely, but that's a big if.

[throwaway2037]

    > But in America, it doesn't make sense in most cases without subsidies.

Do you think any of those magical NYC metro area trains run without govt subsidies?

[worldsayshi]

It would be so great if the rest of the world could take inspiration from Switzerland and Japan regarding train management.

Also perhaps Ukraine. I heard they had stepped up during war time to the point of being more punctual than many other European countries.

[Ray20]

>It would be so great if the rest of the world could take inspiration from Switzerland and Japan regarding train management.

I would be glad to hear more about their success in the train management. Probably starting with one of the most important parameters - the cost of travel per kilometer per passenger (taking into account all subsidies, infrastructure and operating costs, and everything else)

>Also perhaps Ukraine. I heard they had stepped up during war time to the point of being more punctual than many other European countries.

Probably they have simply returned to the good old Soviet tradition of compiling beautiful statistics. Brought back bad statistics? Perhaps you and your male relatives will be more useful in the trenches. Complaining about train delays instead of productive work? Such active people and their male relatives are exactly what are needed to storm Russian fortifications! And voila - the statistics went through the roof.

[dan-robertson]

Swiss trains are often on time because they are deliberately slow, and so they can speed up a bit if things are delayed. They are sometimes deliberately slow because the Swiss system is designed to have trains arrive and leave interchange stations at the same time to make changing trains easier. Some are also slow because they take routes that wind along mountainsides which are scenic but not particularly direct.

[dkga]

Well, that and their amazing logistics. Their annual time table is even connected to the local public transport in major and medium-sized cities.

[worldsayshi]

Interesting. I wonder if this goes further than just allowing trains to catch up. Like, does going slower lower the chances of failures and failure cascades in the first place?

Maybe trains in many/most systems are running faster than they should for optimal performance?

[ruszki]

I travel between Vienna and Budapest quite frequently, and ÖBB (Austrian railway) does also this deliberately on Austrian side towards Vienna. Trains can arrive about 15-20 minutes early in Vienna if they go full speed in Austria, and they arrive in time to the Hungarian border. This rarely happens, and in that case, they go slower.

Also, there is almost always delay between Budapest and a smaller Hungarian city. ÖBB changed schedule for their own trains quite quickly reflecting that. MÁV (Hungarian railway) still hasn’t done that for almost two years now on the same line. They still basically lie about it.

[cyberax]

Ukraine and most of the xUSSR countries have always had timely service. Trains are usually on time, although they are not always very fast.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

> less comfortable than most European trains.

For long haul journeys, not really true. The reclining seats on most Amtrak rolling stock are amazing compared to most European seating (bigger, softer and they genuinely recline). The sleeping cars on Amtrak are at least if not more comfortable than the equivalent in Europe until very recently (and that exception only applies to specific night train routes so far).

It is true that if you're just hopping on a train to move around within a metro area, or to take a short journey within a corridor, US trains are not particularly comfortable, and their European equivalents are probably more so.

[Suppafly]

>He did make a point to clarify the delay was because they’d been stuck behind an off schedule German train.

That's hilarious.