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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

#161

Post by nightpool »

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.

The Trinity Railway defines on time performance for trains as arrival within 5 minutes of schedule[1]. It's not materially different from the Swiss standard.

1: https://ridetrinitymetro.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Serv...

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

#162

Post by InsideOutSanta »

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"

The Swiss rail lines are used close to capacity. If a train is too much late, it has follow-on effects on other trains, and the whole railway system can start to run into problems. So for the whole system to work, there can't be any overly late trains. This applies to all trains, not just German trains.

So this doesn't really have anything to do with that single train not being on time, or with differences in culture or something like that, it's about keeping the system running. If you have a system that isn't used at capacity, then it doesn't matter much if individual trains run late, the system itself will still keep on running.

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

#164

Post by vel0city »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #140
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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" New York’s Metro-North and LIRR have 95%+ on-time rates [1]. (EDIT: On time is defined as less than 6 minutes late [2].) [1] https://www.metro-magazine.com/10217862/metro-north-lirr-exp... [2] https://www.osc.ny.gov/files/reports/pdf/report-9-2025.pdf

My memory from a few months of commuting on LIRR is that on-time is within ten minutes of schedule. CURRENT TIME: 9:45 NEXT TRAIN: 9:42 STATUS: ON TIME

In your example a train arriving at 9:45 scheduled to arrive at 9:42 would still be on-time in Switzerland.

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

#165

Post by systemtest »

katbyte wrote: post #157
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)

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…

That's a bummer.

I'm happy with European rail. For instance, it is 36 hours by FlixBus from Amsterdam to Porto, but if you use high-speed rail (Eurostar, TGV, Iryo) it is only 23 hours, faster than going by car.

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

#166

Post by meroes »

dgfitz wrote: post #152
meroes wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

According to whom? You?

Videos I've watched of people's experiences. Things like having a driver be at their max hours, maybe due to unforceen traffic and delays, and Greyhound having no replacement driver ready, causing them to be late. Not hit pieces, just travel vlogs. Everyone has to get off the bus, sit in a sometimes crappy terminal at 2 am, often with no amenities while it's sorted out.

I'm a bus advocate, you can see it from another post this week. But Greyhound is not reliable if time is sensitive.

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

#167

Post by systemtest »

Tainnor wrote: post #156
systemtest wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Depends on the conditions. It is 6 hours by car, but with a BMW or Mercedes you can easily make that 5 hours (averaging just 117km/h). Meanwhile it is 4,5 hours by train, but will likely be over 5 hours due to delays.

In France, Paris to Lyon is 2 hours by train and there is simply no way going by car is faster (legally).

These are just examples, my point is that a high-speed line should be a lot faster than going by car. Not slightly faster, and sometimes even slower.

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

#168

Post by maratc »

lqet wrote: post #47
remolueoend wrote: post #10

> Another figure illustrates why the practice is necessary from a Swiss perspective: in 2023, 92.5 percent of all trains in Switzerland reached their destination on time, compared to only 64 percent for long-distance trains in Germany. To add a bit more detail: SBB (Swiss federal railways) consider a train on time if it reaches its destination with less than three minutes’ delay [1]. DB (Deutsche Bahn) puts the thres…

To put this a bit into perspective: long-distance trains in Germany typically travel for at least half a day. "Long-distance" trains in Switzerland can be compared to regional lines in Germany (the country simply isn't that large, and the majority of rail travel in Switzerland happens between Zurich/Olten/Berne/Basel, which are all within 100 km of each other). The likelihood of anything going wrong during a 1:30h tr…

To put this into a bit of perspective, DB once was much better:

   DB reported some 94.1 percent of services arrived within five minutes of their scheduled time in 2017.[0]
[0](https://www.france24.com/en/20180322-record-2017-deutsche-ba...)

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

#169

Post by Gare »

user90131313 wrote: post #123
ivan_gammel wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DB is in major crisis with the workforce with tens of thousands of boomers retiring soon. They don’t have enough people for any redundancy.

is this specific to DB only? I feel like Germany needs a lot of workforce at German quality but no way they can fill that with any type of foreign immigration. They lowered a lot of immigration requirements to entry because of this. But still it will be not enough. It's a cultural thing and low wages in Germany can't fix it.

And now because of German needs eastern and south-easthern EU countries are in even worse position because Germany has hoovered up a decent chunk of skilled younger workforce.

We have started to import unskilled/low skilled laborers from SE Asia en masse to keep the country barely running. But the quality is going downhill yet prices of goods and real estate are soaring.

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

#170

Post by vel0city »

systemtest wrote: post #165
katbyte wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's a bummer. I'm happy with European rail. For instance, it is 36 hours by FlixBus from Amsterdam to Porto, but if you use high-speed rail (Eurostar, TGV, Iryo) it is only 23 hours, faster than going by car.

Traveling 2,000km in the US would take me like 5 hours including an hour in the airport each way. Even if you made it two hours on departure that's six hours of total travel time. Compared to a 23 hour train trip.

Distances like that, trains just don't make sense IMO.

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