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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.
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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.
I am here to represent the germans. The country where the only thing we agree about is, how fucking shit our trains are
I havent seen one company where “train didn’t come” isn’t a valid excuse for bring late. Like, no further questions.
I was late for a hair appointment because I missed the bus, and I swear they wrote it down in my file because every time I went back, for the next year they were like “So… Did you come by bus today?”
Also yeah no problem if your train doesn’t come once - but if it happens more than once it’s going to reflect badly even though it’s out of your control. You’ll start to get the comments “You should take the earlier one!” I travelled by bus with 2 transfers to college and it was ROUGH.
I used it every time it happened, very rarely when I just slept in. My boss also came by S-Bahn so he was late from time to time as well. Of course if we had an important meeting or a customer appointment we came in a whole hour early, to compensate for 3 train failures, which never happened. But if you came 20 minutes late on a regular Tuesday nobody cared that much (boring office IT job).
There’s a classic that Irish rail used to pull out of their bag of shite excuses until they got slagged to death over it:
Leaves on the track.
No joke. C’mon now lads. In fairness though the train service in Dublin and inter-city is pretty reliable and reasonable.
My understanding is that leaves contain some compound(s) that, when wet and under the extremely high pressures that train wheels provide, becomes one of the most effective lubricants we know about. In other words, the brakes literally won’t do anything because you’ll slip-n-slide your way at the same speed you were going before.
Sounds like the Irish version of the german winter chaos. The very moment the first snowflake drops it’s total chaos, trains being terminated left and right due to an old railway switch that still saw Adolf freezing shut again.
Meanwhile in Greece:
Which eu countries? Most of eu countries are on second meme
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.
…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
San Francisco Bay Area resident checking in. I think we have some of the best public transit in the US, which is pretty shit compared to most urban areas in Europe and Asia. Our trains come frequently enough and are generally on-time but the coverage is pretty bad. Public transit in SF can be pretty unpleasant though.
It’s funny, but after traveling around Europe, I’ve learned one important lesson: avoid booking flights with short layovers! If the transfer time is less than 3-4 hours, you’re playing a risky game. Delays happen more often than you’d think, and in some cases, flights get pushed to the next day due to ‘bad weather’ (or other mysterious reasons). Better to have a buffer than to get stuck at the airport overnight!
Unless you’re living in austria or switzerland (which technically isn’t europe but lets roll with it), you will never have trains on time.
It absolutely technically is Europe. If you meant the EI, then only Switzerland is not part of the European Union, Austria is.
I am well aware. The part in brackets only referred to switzerland.
What continent do you suppose switzerland is part of then? Africa?
Well, we’re in the mountains above Europe, I guess.
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.
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.
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.
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…
That’s not a problem with trains; that’s a problem with the rich and powerful having political influence.
Most of my country doesn’t have trains. The only train on time goes to the airport, yes THE airport. Everything else is buss for train. And I purposely didn’t mention the country but everyone from here knows it when they read buss for train.
Wait, you guys have trains?
Oh yeah, we have so many trains. They go everywhere, we have a very comprehensive network of them
Oh wait… Did you mean passenger trains?
We have trains that have lethal derailments every year or so.
Wait, you guys have trains?
Depending on whether the stars are right. Or whether you need to cross the tracks - there’s always one when you need to cross the tracks.
there’s always one when you need to cross the tracks.
This, but you ever notice that it’s pretty much never passenger trains? This efficient mode of transportation is largely designed for and used by industry rather than for travel or commute. The exception is within big enough cities like DC and NYC to get from one side of the city to the other or anywhere between. Sure there are some trains that go between cities, but they’re largely unreliable because passenger cars yield to industrial freight, and so people are less inclined to opt for them over planes or cars, and so there are fewer trains available to go wherever you’re going in the window you’re trying to go. So you book a flight instead.
I’d take a long train ride over a road trip any fucking day. I don’t understand anybody who would rather drive than chill and read a book or play games or watch movies or nap.
This, but you ever notice that it’s pretty much never passenger trains? This efficient mode of transportation is largely designed for and used by industry rather than for travel or commute.
Yet massive amounts of goods are shipped long-distance via truck anyway, clogging up highways and polluting far more per-ton and per-mile moved.
Truly the worst of both worlds! USA! USA! USA!
Exactly, it’s not that the US doesn’t have trains, there are plenty. Lots of relatively small towns have rails going to or through them. The problem is that only a tiny fraction of them are passenger rail.
Got it, always cross the tracks
Stand on the tracks to summon the train.
The train needs a human sacrifice
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”
Me When My metro train (Santiago) doesn’t immediately arrive as soon as i touch the platform.
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.
Scandinavia has more in common with Canada when it comes to public transportation
Canada has high speed trains?
[cries in Swedish]
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.
