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Meanwhile in Japan: Train is 30 seconds late “here’s a letter for your employer explaining why you were only 29 minutes and 30 seconds early for your 8 hour shift that will inevitably have an additional 8 hours of unpaid overtime tacked on to it.”
Japanese transit users: “Don’t worry, we can grab the next one. It will be here in 48 seconds.”
“in precisely 48 seconds”
We deeply apologize that it took the train 49 seconds to arrive. We have prepared notes for your boss in case you’re late, and there will be a half page ad in tomorrow’s paper confirming our CEO has committed seppuku to atone.
committed sudoku*
Whilst wearing a seifuku
Chef’s kiss
Spock: Forty eight point three seven seconds, Captain.
And if your female, you’ll get something else grabbed for free!
*except on one of the all-female trains
funny but inaccurate
i live in vienna. the train comes so often, nobody bothers to check the schedule anymore. just wait 2 mins, enter, go.
Same in Paris.
“What do you mean I have to wait 4 minutes for the next metro?”
Meanwhile in Belgium,
“I don’t know where or when will I end up after I board the bus back home from work”
American here - I recently started taking the train to go to work! Previously I couldn’t due to no trains scheduled for the return home trip after my shift was over, but after getting a new schedule, I got on board the train! So far in the past two months, I’ve already had a few instances of the train being delayed or missing it entirely. One day, the train was delayed by 30 minutes and stated they would be held for an unknown amount of time to put out a fire on the tracks at a station ahead - drove into work that day. Another day, the train was delayed by 5 minutes. Outside of that, I was late to the train by like 5 minutes and it left without me (still adjusting to early morning schedule).
So far, I like taking the train much more than driving the car.
Of course the trains leave without you if you are 5 min late.
It will leave without you if you are 30 seconds late. Hell, it will even leave if you are 5 seconds late unless they see you running and are feeling extra nice.
Never said it shouldn’t! Just means it’s running on time. Like I said, I’m still adjusting to the early schedule.
I’m Polish but I also made the switch to use public transport instead of my car, even though it’s not the cheapest once you’re not a student anymore. I feel better though knowing how much fuel I save by not driving in traffic for 1.5h 4 days a week. The other thing is that the money goes to the city so I will likely benefit from it in some way
And you also get a little bit of time to yourself! I use it to study for certs.
True, although this aspect is actually an area where I prefer driving. I find it relaxing to zone out my thoughts and just focus on what’s ahead of me with my favorite music. Depending on time of day, trains here are a bit tough to study in due to how many people there are
I owned a car in Toronto. I still took the train DT. Driving DT literally was longer then the train.
Although there are many improvements to be made, like international euro rail connecting the capitals, better prices, a reliable DB and most importantly EU standard track system, I love our euro rails.
But I’ve gotta confess, the fact the US train is called Marc is kinda cool.
“Hey, I wonder where Marc is. Is he coming?”
“Nah men, Marc is completely derailed again. He burned down an entire town and he’s toxic AF.”
MARC is unfortunately only a regional train for Maryland, and he is very limited on the weekends… The national passenger train system is called Amtrak.
Oooh, is he Swedish?
Well at least Marc never comes prematurely.
Just wait until BORT’s date with METRA, the sexy sounding voice assistant of trains
Don’t forget BART and DART as well.
should have named them BORT and BURT
marc this, marc that, I don’t believe your train-boyfriend exists, mary. prove it or stop talking about him.
He live in Cananda you wouldn’t know him…
…that’s the shanghai maglev
edit: it was built by siemens though, so get a few euro wank points.
It’s a nice train, that must be like the capital of Europe?
Don’t give Xi any ideas
Which eu countries? Most of eu countries are on second meme
On the contrary, when I lived in the US on Long Island, a part of the country where people warn life without a car is impossible, I had a great transit experience. Buses were generally on time, modern and equipped with live tracking, and the trains were great too.
I know LI’s relative poor transit options are mostly in comparison to other areas in the Northeast, which is a densely populated region. I imagine my experience would be totally different in the Midwest or the Prairies. And that’s especially true for trains – LI is awesome in that regard
From my small experience as an a American. Netherlands had some really reliable transit. Never had a problem in France though definitely not as nice as Netherlands. Italy was definitely hit and miss depending on the city but loved the high speed rail from Naples to Rome. Germany was reliable during October Fest so I assume at least Munich is reliable if it was good at that time. Though I wouldn’t say I used much in Germany.
Other countries I’ve been to but I’ll just list cities for these because I didn’t go much anyone else for them: Prague, Budapest, Vienna
I can’t say there was a single country/city here that had transit that was worse than the best transit in the US. Was it all perfect? No. But compared to fucking Amtrak that literally has to stop for hours at a time while we wait for other freight trains to pass. Literally multiple times during a single train ride.
Some countries may not be the first meme. But what major city in Europe has worse local transit than say Chicago or New York? Or worse heavy rail than Amtrak? Just honestly asking.
I don’t think anything could be worse than Amtrak.
You mentioned 4 - 5 EU countries, even major cities. You are missing other 22 countries. Not going too far like mentioning Romania, but have you ever tried Renfe en Madrid? Hehehe it fails many times
Wait until you hear about German trains.
Can’t be late if it doesn’t arrive at all.
600 Minuten Später
Also quasi pünktlich
Portugals trains joined the chat
Wait till you hear about Bulgarian trains
You guys have trains?
You clearly havent heard of swedish trains.
The railroad here is a bad joke at this point, mainly due to shutting down the organization that was responsible for maintainence and shoving it into another agency that has no clue. As a bonus the new agency doesn’t even do the repair work themselves but hires contractors at the lowest bidder. So stuff breaks constantly, which causes delays.
At this point just getting the rail network to “normal” standards would cost billions. Let alone expanding it to cope with current traffic levels.
To be fair, most higher density areas in Sweden have fairly good infrastructure for public transit. The national railways are a disgrace, but that mostly affects long distance travel. Mostly. Short to medium distance commute works fairly well everywhere I’ve tried it.
[cries in Swedish]
Scandinavia has more in common with Canada when it comes to public transportation
Canada has high speed trains?
Their trains break down a lot and it’s a bigger joke
The problem with trains is they are public (under)founded. The rich and powerfull with political influence don’t want working public transportation because less carsales, oil, gasoline etc.
Which explains why Musk prevented a high speed train in the US with his hyperloop. We all need to buy EV"s which have most of the downsides of traditional cars.
When we could have clean, fast and comfortable public transportation.
EDIT: Spelling.
That’s not a problem with trains; that’s a problem with the rich and powerful having political influence.
Agreed. Politicians should prioritize trains and public transport more. And bicycles while we’re at it.
Which is why he
preventeddelayed a high speed train in the US. To my knowledge, they are still constructing it.Just checked: it’s still underway. 119 miles currently under construction. From Bakersfield to Madera, with most of the rail near Madera completed.
Because everyone dreams of ending up in Bakersfield…
I think it’s more the people of Bakersfield having a convenient means of escape.
Good to hear! Didn’t know that. Good news.
Trains need to be public or you are gonna get a second DB (it enshittifies for some time now ;.;)
DB is still 100% owned by the federation, it’s only organised privately. Trouble is they expected it to turn a profit, to do that DB had to run its infrastructure into the ground, invest abroad, get into fucking trucking, you name it. Don’t get me wrong there’s nothing wrong with operating rail/road interface warehouses, but when a rail company is building a logistics warehouse without rail connection you know something’s deeply fishy. Meanwhile, the Autobahn network got plenty of tax money pumped into it. And those DB profits.
The failure is 110% political, decades of car-brained infrastructure ministers, “but won’t someone think about the car producers and their workers”. Bipartisan issue. In US terms: UAW and Blackrock vs. Amtrack. Guess who’s winning the lobby battle, difference being in Germany people actually like trains.
I’m considering it should be a private company where the state/city is the majority owner.
Also i’m guessing that the public transport only makes sense in cities, and inter-city. Not so much on the countryside in small villages. There cars are more efficient.
Agree 100%. But where I live politicians always seem to focus more on giving tax cuts than maintenance and improving trains. The people should not accept it, but… Tax cuts!
Germany’s known for having terrible rail. Probably on account of BMW lobbying.
BMW, VW and Mercedes. The German Bundesbahn was perfect then the CDU, CSU and FDP killed it due to lobbyism. Now, the politicians suck the cocks of the CEOs of the mentioned companies. SPD and Grüne always say that the Deutsche Bahn needs more money, but they had the chance between 98 and 05. Did they change something? No there was not enough money according to them.
Not even the biggest thing that beautiful trio ruined. Their lobbying and Mutti Merkel’s politics were the main contributors to the Hungary problem. So if you want to know why common defense policies get vetoed or why is the Ukraine response is a shitshow, the root cause is that VW needed cheap exploitable workers.
Really? As an American who had never ridden a train before, I was impressed by Germany’s public transit. I remember wishing we had such systems everywhere over here.
Honestly though, I’d prefer high speed mag-lev systems that run like clockwork.
Germany’s known for poor rail, America’s known for no rail.
American here: yeah, not far off.
As an American living in a region with halfway decent (by American standards) public transit, I feel like I hear more comments aligned with the European side than the American side. If public transit has literally any downsides, that’s justification enough to drive for so many people.
if public transit isn’t very good at eating me out, I need to buy a ford T1000 P!E!D!E!S!T!R!I!A!N!M!U!T!I!L!A!T!O!R! and roll coal.
Baby, people call me a 2-8-0 Locomotive. I can take you places that you never thought of.
okay but do you run on overhead wire or third rail power, and how many people can be inside you at once? none of this ‘individual pods’ shit, please.
I’m so hot, I’m constantly steaming. I’m generally a workhouse, carrying all that freight. Moving vast amount of passengers is no sweat for me.
passengers getting in and out of you every few minutes. men, women, anyone, hundreds at a time, from cities across the nation? slowly, gently, unceasingly for as long as 20 hours at a time?
thank you for helping me make trains a sex thing. I feel like it’s our last hope.
If you want people getting off quickly, you want those young, third rail trains.
I’m all about keeping people on for the long haul. I’m all the journey over long distances.
First answer: neither: it runs on coal.
Second answer: 2, fireman and driver
BTW 2-8-0 means 2 leading wheels 8 driving wheels and no trailing wheels.
Like this bad boy:
only if you have capacity for at least several hundred people in you. or several tons of freight.
Not in, behind
Although the US and Europe are nearly identical in area, Europe’s population centers are far more uniformly distributed. Big cities in America are mostly around the edges, with a vast, sparsely populated area in the middle. Most intercity train service in America is in that fringe, where the spacing between cities is more like in Europe.
And yet we don’t have true hsr in the northeast, where the big cities are…
True, but the post is about trains being on schedule (or showing up at all), not about speed. I wasn’t saying US trains service is as good as European.
Yeah, I just see that said a lot and think its a bad excuse for having bad service.
Especially when we had much better service 100 years ago, with a fraction of the modern day population.
100 years ago was also before the era of profit hyper-optimization, which it turns out de-optimizes every other aspect of a thing.
Is this a “glass half full” thing? Can a non-existent train never be late or never be in time?
No, it’s not a value judgement of any kind. Imagine that - just making an observation with no implications or underlying opinion to swipe left/right on. What a concept.
or california. for… some reason.
Sure, intercity will never work in the US. Except on both coasts. And upper Midwest. And in a couple mountain and high desert areas. Dammit, that’s like 70% of the population
The one on the left seems to be a Chinese train tho https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_maglev_train
Deutsch Bahn would like a word.
I often take my car because it’s so damn unreliable.
Not once, not twice, but three times I’ve sat on a train for 2+ hours without moving within the past 2 years.
working as intended. for several generations, the car lobby fills the management of deutsche bahn.
https://www.kontextwochenzeitung.de/politik/311/bahnfeinde-im-bahnvorstand-4259.html
UK National Rail and the Franchise system: those are rookie numbers!
