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More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

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Re: More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

#151

Post by Tainnor »

trgn wrote: post #116
JohnMakin wrote: post #97

This is so foreign to my American perspective - our public transport is more like, "maybe it'll be on time, probably not, you'll have no way of knowing, also screw you"

It's absolutely crazy to me! I can see my uber driver on my phone stopping to pick up a pretzel from the convenience store, but I can't see where the bus is or get any kind of estimate of when it's going to arrive at the busstop. On vacation this summer in europe, all tram stops had estimated arrival times. Ridiculous, 5-10 minutes out at worst, they wouldn't even need the electronic signs, just a placard that says "…

Trams and buses tend to be more unreliable because they use the same streets as cars (sometimes they get extra lanes, but not always). Metros tend to be more reliable in my experience, I can usually trust what it says on the electronic sign (one big exception is Cologne where the metro isn't a real metro and runs on the street half of the time).

Re: More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

#152

Post by dgfitz »

meroes wrote: post #138
systemtest wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the US not have an extensive network of Greyhound busses, similar to our FlixBus system? Or is that just something I saw in the movies? (I'm not American)

extensive geographic distance wise yes, but convenient or on time, no.

According to whom? You?

Re: More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

#153

Post by UIUC_06 »

systemtest wrote: post #135
_zoltan_ wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Across the whole country it's absolutely true. There are car only distances for a lot of stuff.

Does the US not have an extensive network of Greyhound busses, similar to our FlixBus system? Or is that just something I saw in the movies? (I'm not American)

[dead]

Re: More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

#154

Post by RandomLensman »

TMWNN wrote: post #82
Rinzler89 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So everyone is just ass-covering all them time and not taking any risks. Heaving lived and worked in Germany for a few years, I realized that's the reason behind all the excessive bureaucracy and processes for everything: extensive ass covering. If something goes to shit under your watch then it's not your fault because you did everything by the book and you have the extensive paper trail to prove it. And nobody wan…

>Heaving lived and worked in Germany for a few years, I realized that's the reason behind all the excessive bureaucracy and processes for everything: extensive ass covering. If something goes to shit under your watch then it's not your fault because you did everything by the book and you have the extensive paper trail to prove it. I've heard it said that the idea that Germans are efficient is a myth. (The new Berlin…

You are missing the cause for this: liability attaching to people. Germany is very good with looking for individuals to be liable.

Re: More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

#155

Post by snovv_crash »

happyopossum wrote: post #114
JohnMakin wrote: post #97

This is so foreign to my American perspective - our public transport is more like, "maybe it'll be on time, probably not, you'll have no way of knowing, also screw you"

Not sure why you'd want to lump all of America in to one category of failure when it's demonstrably untrue. Quick example - BART in the Bay Area has a 92-93% on-time rate.

Swiss trains define on-time as within 3 minutes of schedule, and this includes all mechanical issues, suicides, etc.

And this includes multi-hour intercity train lines, double-decker trains, trains that stop inside of airports, local trains, everything. If you have just a couple lines in a single city, under a single jurisdiction, with no interdependencies and no freight on the same lines, then of course it gets a lot easier.

Re: More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

#156

Post by Tainnor »

systemtest wrote: post #137
marcyb5st wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly it's a very low bar and Germans should aspire for better and not for a meager "we are not the worst there is". I would say you need to compare DB to other Western European railway operator/networks. In my personal experience, DB comes dead last and it's not even close to the 2nd to last. Renfe (Spain), Trenitalia/Italo (Italy), SNCF (France) have much better services, at least on the long-distance routes (>…

Long distance with Deutsch Bahn is an embarrassment. I don't know if they have any line where a car isn't faster.

> I don't know if they have any line where a car isn't faster.

Berlin-Munich

Re: More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

#157

Post by katbyte »

systemtest wrote: post #135
_zoltan_ wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Across the whole country it's absolutely true. There are car only distances for a lot of stuff.

Does the US not have an extensive network of Greyhound busses, similar to our FlixBus system? Or is that just something I saw in the movies? (I'm not American)

Here in bc Canada we had profitable intercity rail (bc rail), a previous conservative government were elected with the promise they wouldn’t sell it, they instead leased it for 99 years cheaply and that was the end of passenger rail for most the province. Greyhound took up the slack but 10ish years ago they pulled out leavings nearly no way to get between cities without a car. There are now some private bus companies but as I understand it they are really expensive with terrible schedules.

It’s honestly sad how public transport was left to rot/fail/or sold off in North America.

And how people now go “it won’t work here! Europe is more dense! Things are too far apart” Ignoring it did and was (at least in bc) a few short decades ago

Re: More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

#158

Post by [deleted] »

nodar86 wrote: post #149
vel0city wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Dallas Area Raipd Transit on-time rate is about the same as this Swiss train system at 93%. The Trinity Railway Express is 97%, so higher on-time rate than the Swiss system.

And how do they define “on-time”? In Switzerland a train is considered on time if it reaches its destination with less than three minutes’ delay.

[deleted]

Re: More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

#159

Post by michaelt »

hifromwork wrote: post #68
fullspectrumdev wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ticket splitting thing you refer in the UK to works in other countries also.

How does it work? In my country (at least non-regional trains) the ticket price is calculated as ax+b where b is a constant price and x is the distance in kilometers. So splitting the ticket is always more expensive than buying two separate ones (but there are other reasons to do it, for example it's a trick to use when there's not enough seats to ride a->c directly - but that's an edge case)

Ticketing on the UK train network is completely inscrutable.

Perhaps the A->C ticket entitles you to travel on either an air-conditioned nonstop high speed train, or a slower train that stops a lot along the way, and buying A->B and B->C tickets you can only travel on the slow train and that's cheaper.

Perhaps all the discount advanced-booking tickets leaving A have sold, mostly to people only doing A->B, and when you look up B->C there are discount advanced booking tickets still available.

Perhaps you depart A during peak hours and so pay a peak fare, but as the B->C portion of the journey starts later, it doesn't fall into peak travel hours.

Re: More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland

#160

Post by [deleted] »

meroes wrote: post #138
systemtest wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the US not have an extensive network of Greyhound busses, similar to our FlixBus system? Or is that just something I saw in the movies? (I'm not American)

extensive geographic distance wise yes, but convenient or on time, no.

[deleted]
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