Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Japan has such good railways

worksinprogress.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

531–540 of 609 posts

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#531

Post by cassepipe »

rootusrootus wrote: post #517
tnk0 wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a Tokyo local and yes, this is real. Even I find it uncomfortable. On the Yamanote Line during rush hour, trains come every 2-3 minutes and it can still look close to this. That said, most people's daily commute isn't this extreme -- it depends heavily on the line and direction. The tradeoff most Tokyo residents accept is: 30 minutes of crowded train vs. hours stuck in traffic with nowhere to park.

I have a hard enough time dealing gracefully with moderately congested trains in a place like DC. How do you coordinate your positioning so you can get off at the correct stop if the train gets packed this tightly?

From another city where things can get quite packed on some lines at rush hour:

People in front of the door know that people will get out so they step outside to let the flow out and are the first ones to get back in, giving them the opportunity to go further inside so that they don't have to do it at every stop. Might even get a seat at some point (the longer the travel, the most likely to get a seat)

I have been stuck in commute traffic for hours, 30 minutes of that is infinitely preferable.

Also if it's really too packed, just wait 2 minutes for the next one

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#532

Post by dnnddidiej »

ericmay wrote: post #467
dnnddidiej wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buses are a simpler solution. A city should solve the anywhere to downtown is quick on bus or train thing. You need transit lanes and more buses. Ideal is public transit is faster and cheaper. Even someone who already has a car will not use it. Then once solved, let people get across from one suburb to the next on transit quickly but that is harder to do economically.

Simpler solution but they’re a strictly worse version of your car and they still depend on highway widening projects. In other words, more of the same. To change the culture in the US we will have to make category changes. Cars and busses are in one category, walking, biking, and rail options in another. We need the latter or we risk just wasting time, effort, and resources. Busses make more sense and work better as…

A typical commute bus would carry 30-80 people so that replaces probably 30-80 cars. I don't know how a bus is worse than a train in this regard. Both need land to be built. Unless you are talking underground but they are expensive.

If your city is a shit place to commute adding buses and bus lanes can help. Once you are on a bus zooming past all the traffic you can see.

Also important point: I'd do min 300m between stops maybe more.

I would be more pro train and anti bus for "last mile(s)" if the bus is petrol but if all electric I am for the bus! Where I live there are a plethora of places my kids can get to on a bus much quicker than even if we were near a station and they got a train.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#533

Post by kinow »

phire wrote: post #375
kinow wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't know about these historical facts, looks like timing really contributed to the current situation in New Zealand. When I was in Auckland some years ago, I remember NZ trying to bring some railway services back, before the pandemic. I never got to travel on these, but I'm hoping to do that when I'm there again, probably next year. I see the website is still the same, so if anyone is going to NZ: https://www.grea…

The railway services NZ are trying to bring back are regional commuter services. Auckland to Hamilton (now in operation); Auckland to Tauranga; Wellington to Palmerston North (Capital Connection, has been in operation for 35 years, about to be upgraded to battery-electric trains, since only half the route is electrified). And also the vague idea of local rail service around Christchurch (interestingly, a private comp…

I remember the announcement some years ago of the Auckland-Hamilton train. I think initially it had limited schedule, but from what I recall the usage was quite good after the launch (I think it was before or just after the pandemic). Good to know it's in operation now.

> And also the vague idea of local rail service around Christchurch (interestingly, a private company bought the old DMUs from Auckland's local fleet after electrification and are just starting to run special trains for Rugby games).

Hadn't heard about this! Interesting, and good idea to have a service for the games.

> So the only potentially viable intercity route is Auckland to Wellington.

This one would probably be quite busy. I had to fly Auckland-Wellington quite a bit as an engineer, and our managers & executives travel quite more (NIWA, a CRI that now I believe has merged with another one and changed its name).

Eventually I had to go to the capital to vote or for the embassy, or for a tech event. All these trips were always via airplane, but I'd be happy to get a fast train or a night train as in Europe.

> If you are serious about the Christchurch to Invercargill, there is now a private company offering the occasional weekend trip: https://www.mainlander.co.nz/train-trips/the-mainlander-rail...

Learned another new thing, thank you! I plan to go to Invercargill when I visit again to see if I can see the Aurora Australis or maybe check out where they have the MetService radiosonde launch. From what I recall MetService used to launch one from Invercargill near the airport (or I could be confused with a weather station or another climate monitoring station they had there).

What about options for those living up north? When I was still in Auckland some of my co-workers were looking into moving further West/North (there were too many people moving to South Auckland/Raglan/Hamilton at that time). But I remember the transport options involved one or more buses, and a ferry in the case of a co-worker that bought a house in... Hobsonville I believe. But the ferry didn't run all days, and had a limited schedule compared to the one for Waiheke or Devenport. Has that improved?

I always thought it'd be nice if there was a short train line connecting Devenport to Cape Reinga, as all the times I went to Cape Reinga or to take someone to Russel I'd have to drive or find a private shuttle.

Thanks!

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#534

Post by dnnddidiej »

rootusrootus wrote: post #516
dboreham wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such rules are often not enforced.

In my experience, it's often up to the people in the neighborhood to decide. One of my neighbors down the street a number of years ago was militant about it. Code Enforcement does not routinely drive our streets looking for violations, but if someone blocked a sidewalk, parked facing the wrong way on the street, etc, Code Enforcement would magically appear to give them a ticket. Pretty sure this neighbor had them on…

I am sure social networks (the non tech kind) help here. Maybe they both play golf or coach each other's kids.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#535

Post by rootusrootus »

cassepipe wrote: post #531
rootusrootus wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard enough time dealing gracefully with moderately congested trains in a place like DC. How do you coordinate your positioning so you can get off at the correct stop if the train gets packed this tightly?

From another city where things can get quite packed on some lines at rush hour: People in front of the door know that people will get out so they step outside to let the flow out and are the first ones to get back in, giving them the opportunity to go further inside so that they don't have to do it at every stop. Might even get a seat at some point (the longer the travel, the most likely to get a seat) I have been st…

Thanks for the explanation. Someone else thought my question was impertinent, I'm happy you spent the time to educate me. I've never had to deal with public transit as congested as Tokyo, not even close. Hell, even on Portland light rail I find it stressful to try and navigate my way to the right place on the train to get off at my stop if I started my journey while the train was fairly empty.

> I have been stuck in commute traffic for hours, 30 minutes of that is infinitely preferable.

Can't argue with that. I won't ever have another commuting job again. I go into the office once a month, and after driving 45 minutes each way just because my company felt like our office needed to be in the most congested area of Portland, at the end of that day I thank my lucky stars that it's only once a month.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#536

Post by cbdevidal »

tokioyoyo wrote: post #297
jltsiren wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of passenger rail is high in America, because America doesn't build enough rail. If you try building a single megaproject, nobody knows what they are doing, everything is inefficient, and mistakes will be made. But you learn by doing. If the individual projects are small enough that there are always multiple projects in various stages, you develop and maintain expertise. Then you can build things cost-effect…

I think it's not feasible in America because of the culture. If you have a good chunk of people that are hell-bent against sharing space with others for one reason or another (some are legitimate reasons!), you're already discarding a significant chunk of passengers. Another hot take is... if you want any of the infrastructure to be mass-used, you have to make it better than the alternatives, so people with the means…

I’ve heard a better idea.

“What you should in fact do is employ all the world's top male and female supermodels, pay them to walk the length of the train handing out free Chateau Petrus for the entire duration of the journey. You'll still have about 3 billion pounds left in change and people will ask for the trains to be slowed down.” ~Rory Sutherland

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#537

Post by underlipton »

ericmay wrote: post #224
vantassell wrote: post #174

> Japan is one of the only countries to have privatized parking. In Europe and North America, vast quantities of parking space is socialized: municipalities own the streets and allow people to park on them at low or zero cost. Initially with the intention of encouraging the provision of more parking spaces, Japan made it illegal to park on public roads or pavements without special permission. Before someone buys a ca…

The main low-hanging fruit is just removing surface parking lots in American downtowns and stopping the development and expansion of highways through the same. If you did nothing else that would have a significant positive impact. For almost all communities those surface parking lots are economic extracts from the community. They're woefully underpriced for tax purposes too.

Small quibble: visits downtown are an uncommon occurrence for many (most?) Americans. The vast majority of their transit is intra/inter-suburb. Where I live, it's relatively simple and easy to hop on a commuter train or bus to get downtown. It's impossible to use public transit to get from one place along the ring road to another, or from one side of a particular suburb to another. Therefore, everyone still needs a car.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#538

Post by rsynnott »

ghaff wrote: post #189
renewiltord wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California is also like this for the most part. Bay Area has 8 m, Los Angeles area has 17 m, and San Diego area has 3 m. 28 out of 39 live in those three. Straight line.

With relatively little between the Bay Area and LA to serve as a viable customer base. Hence, a lot of the problems getting California HSR going. Imagine you had the Boston area and the Washington DC area and took out NYC and Philadelphia in the middle. You'd have the same issue. The Acela isn't the fastest rail service (in part because NYC is in the middle but Boston to NYC and NYC to DC are a lot more practical tha…

To an extent, a good train service can _create_ stuff. A while back, Irish Rail increased frequency on the Dublin-Belfast intercity train service. This had the side-effect (apparently unexpected) of kind of turning Newry (which is across the border in Northern Ireland) into a commuter town for Dublin. The Cork line also has a bunch of commuter towns which are on the face of it weirdly distant from Dublin, because the train compresses the distance.

You can see the effect of this here: https://www.chronotrains.com/en/station/2964574-Dublin?maxTi...

I'd assume that similar will happen with California HSR (which would be a far better service than either of the Dublin intercities above); it would make living in intermediate stops and working in LA or SF far more practical.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#539

Post by rsynnott »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #14

I love the Japanese rail system. I am retired, now, so don't travel there, anymore, but I always used to cry, after coming back to the US, and getting on LIRR trains. The most amazing thing, is how on-time they are, and how precise their stops are. They have marks on the platform, showing exactly where the doors will open (Protip: Don't stand directly in front of the doors, when they open). I hear that this is the re…

> how precise their stops are

I'm not sure how unique that is. Many rail systems, in most stations, have platforms only just long enough for the longest train. Most commuter stations in Ireland, say, can take the longest commuter train which calls at that station, and no more (typically because there were lengthened to that to accommodate that commuter train). It has to stop _fairly_ precisely, or some doors will be to nowhere.

(I am sometimes on a train that stops short, and then has to slowly crawl forward to align fully with the platform. This, unfortunately, causes delays.)

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#540

Post by mmooss »

rendang wrote: post #524
mmooss wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's extremely common for there to be human shit in the train cars, and lunatics going nuts Where does that come from? Not from your experience. You've never been on NY subways, clearly. I've never seen feces - and anyway, how could you tell if it's from a dog? Did you examine it? Take it home and test it? It's one of the stories that maybe is slightly plausible, and which yields such strong disgust that rationalit…

I lived in NYC for many years. Bodily fluids and liquid left on seats, litter, gag-inducing smelly people, people having episodes and screaming, all common enough to see on a weekly or monthly basis as a daily commuter. I have not been to Japan but I can't imagine they have the same level of antisocial behavior

> weekly or monthly basis

So not "extremely common" as the commenter upthread said.

> liquid left on seats

As in, something spilled?

> litter

Lol. Only on a weekly or monthly basis?

> gag-inducing smelly people

I think some people are looking to be judgmental.

> antisocial behavior

That's taking it pretty far; it's easy to ignore these things which are almost always harmless - none have ever affected my life. Maybe being judgmental and (for some) hateful is the real and dangerous antisocial behavior - the consequences have had real and awful consequences for many.

Post reply on HN