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American here: yeah, not far off.
So that’s what a train looks like
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.
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.
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.
Some infantile meme about public transport while his regime has been helping genocide in Palestine and Syria for years.
This lib has got his priorities straight.
Also you’ve misspelled ‘fakely left-wing’ in your bio.
And, can you ban me here too fash?I think this level of derailing in a post about trains is irresponsible.
OP is a mod banning anyone opposing his regime appologetics.
And I think your german fascist US bootlicking warmongering government is irresponsible. Worry about thatI don’t know this mod but I do know that I have PugJesus blocked on my other accounts for some reason. I guess I’ll block him on this one too
Maybe it’s best I do too, he spouts so much BS I’m getting tired of countering it all the time.
Delay. Deflect. Derail.
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.
What continent do you suppose switzerland is part of then? Africa?
Meanwhile in Greece:
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.”
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 ;.;)
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.
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!
You haven’t seen Croatian rail then ;)
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.
Got it, always cross the tracks
Stand on the tracks to summon the train.
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!
Wait until you hear about German trains.
600 Minuten Später
Portugals trains joined the chat
Can’t be late if it doesn’t arrive at all.
As a European I have to say, you are very optimistic about our train schedules.
Peak moments of MÁV (Hungarian State Railways)
- Soviet tractor overtakes train (2024): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5wkW1nKfJY
- Man in snail costume outruns train (2018): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WAY1sFM6yQ
- Passengers pushing the train to the station (2021): https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bNUWNxt-lyg
If you’re German, RIP in peace.
A German intern came to our american city and was flabbergasted that the trains here ran consistently.
I had a laugh since I always assumed it’d be the opposite.
As an American, this is exactly correct. The last time I tried to take Amtrak the train literally did not show up and they told us they had no way to contact it and didn’t know where it was. After waiting many hours with no change in status I finally gave up. The last time I actually rode Amtrak it was multiple hours late and cost about the same as a plane ticket.
I hear Italian trains are very timely?
The blind hope that somewhere in this world there is a functioning public transit system is all that keep me going some days. Let me have this
I’ve been in Vienna from time to time, and it’s pretty good, 365€/year for the pass that gets you buses, trams and subways with unlimited access and no turnstiles anywhere, you just go and enter
Schedules follow work hours and go from a subway every 2 minutes during peak hours to one every 15mins late at night
You have night line buses for weekdays and on Saturday night public transport doesn’t shut down
Coverage is good, you almost always have a bus or tram line less then 5 minutes of walking
There are bike sharing places with 20 bikes each ~1km apart and they cost 60 cents for half an hour, or e-scooters in the designed locations which are basically everywhere (but being owned by companies they cost so much more then everything else)
Honestly, the perspective of what constitutes a functioning public transit system depends a lot on what you have as a point of reference.
I’m portuguese but I lived in Germany for 5 months during which I used exclusively public transports and bikes. Central Europeans complain a lot about Deutsche Bahn and indeed during this time I saw a few strikes, delays and suppressions. However, transports were still much more reliable and much more frequent than I’m used too so I could never really consider it problematic, although my Central European friends complained a lot.
Ukraine wasn’t completely horrible… before 2022 :(
Tokyo I’ve heard. For sure not Europe. Halve of the scheduled trains didn’t run today in Belgium.
Switzerland is pretty good at well with trains.
I heard they are so good that they point it out in announcements when a delay was caused by foreign trains (Looking at you Deutsche Bahn)
Haha, DB also does this with foreign delays. I’ve been in a German train starting in Amsterdam that left 5 mins late - they mentioned it at every stop until Munich.
They were just happy it wasn’t them for once.
A swiss train operator excused the 30 sec delay
The german trains measure delays in 5 minutes intervals, everything under 5 minutes in punctual.
And if a train is canceled, it doesn’t go into the delayed train statistics as delayed.
https://media.tenor.com/qRq6uenJInkAAAAM/think-smart-meme.gif
Oh true, I forgot that. Nice little talk by David Kriesel on that topic: https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-10652-bahnmining_-_punktlichkeit_ist_eine_zier
That’s still more trains than in the US
It’s a problem of reliability. If you need to be at work at 08:00 and your train is regularly late or getting cancelled, you can’t take the train to work.
Not to mention even a small delay could mess up the timing of taking the next bus/train. For not too busy routes it could mean waiting in the cold for half an hour… If that next bus has a good delay you could be there for almost an hour. (Totally not speaking from personal experience)
“Halve” isn’t a word.
Japan is the MVP here. I live there and I literally have never seen a train not arrive exactly at the scheduled time. However “public” transport is privately owned so… Uh… Yeah, tradeoffs.
