Railway-wise, what is each country best at?

[paul_munich]

Germany also was good at keeping a relatively large number of small branch lines open, sometimes run by a local operator. Bad Krozingen to Münstertal, just south of Freiburg for example. A charming single line branch, run (when I visited in 1987 and later 2009) with single-car DMUs and serving one medium-sized (Staufen) and one small town (Münstertal itself). I suspect there would be zero chance of such a branch surviving Beeching in the UK.

The Münstertalbahn has been electrified in 2013 and is now part of the S-Bahn Freiburg, Bombadier Talents running up to twice per hour.

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In my opinion, the UK is absolut best in removing grafitti, never seen one there so far!

 

[AdamWW]

The Swiss "Domino" sets are like that. They do make sense if you have a load of suitable coaches spare - BR never did (being early adopters of multiple units) which is why they probably never looked at this approach. In Switzerland they used to work with EW I/II coaches in the middle, since replaced with new low-floor coaches. Though on the Vevey-Puidoux "Train des Vignes" they worked without intermediates and went like an absolute rocket!

Edit: I believe all work with at least one low floor trailer now so as to meet accessiblity requirements.

Edit edit: though weren't there those "tadpole" DEMUs which were a pair of Hastings DEMU coaches with a Mk1 hauled coach in the middle?

I think the all the coaches in tadpoles were originally from DEMUs, just not originally the same sets.

I think there have been cases though where Mk 1 coaches were through wired for use in EMU sets.

In my opinion, the UK is absolut best in removing grafitti, never seen one there so far!

Yes an interesting one that. I have seen UK trains in service with graffiti on, but very rarely.

Having praised Belgium's railways, I could note that on my recent travels through a few European countries, Belgium was the only one where I saw lots of trains in service covered with graffiti. I can't say I'm terribly keen on it myself.

I think the worst I've seen for graffiti was Sardinia where I went on a train where I couldn't tell what the original livery was.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Edit edit: though weren't there those "tadpole" DEMUs which were a pair of Hastings DEMU coaches with a Mk1 hauled coach in the middle?

Not really, no. The Tadpoles were 2 Hastings cars, a DMBS+TSL coupled to a former2-EPB DTS with an additional van space created from 3 seating bays. Within the overall scheme of things they looked rather odd but they were the first trains I became familiar with so I didn't think much about their strangeness.

 

[306024]

Free coffee in first class in Denmark
Two flasks of hot water and all accessories provided, just help yourself whenever.

 

[MarcVD]

Yes, those still run. But there's only a few routes where NMBS need the capability to split/join trains en route, I believe that's on trains from Brussels to Knokke and Blankenberge.

On other routes NMBS will just run long formation of up to 10 dostos.

There are no more lines with split/join operations en route, as those are considered as a major source of delays. Or perhaps just during week-ends.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Sep 2022 ==

Don't know how exactly NMBS is planning to use it's M7 stock,

For the moment it's either loco hauled or in fixed formations of 4 or 6 cars with a motorized element.
6 car formations are used through the day and 4 car ones as reinforcement for peak hours.

Technically the stock can be used in many other ways - like for example a motorized element MUed with an HLE19 loco - but such formations are not foreseen in revenue service for the moment.

 

[AdamWW]

For the moment it's either loco hauled or in fixed formations of 4 or 6 cars with a motorized element.
6 car formations are used through the day and 4 car ones as reinforcement for peak hours.

Technically the stock can be used in many other ways - like for example a motorized element MUed with an HLE19 loco - but such formations are not foreseen in revenue service for the moment.

It sounds good to have the flexibility though.

 

[Beebman]

Yes an interesting one that. I have seen UK trains in service with graffiti on, but very rarely.

Having praised Belgium's railways, I could note that on my recent travels through a few European countries, Belgium was the only one where I saw lots of trains in service covered with graffiti. I can't say I'm terribly keen on it myself.

I think the worst I've seen for graffiti was Sardinia where I went on a train where I couldn't tell what the original livery was.

From my observations in Belgium a couple of weeks ago it seemed to be mainly older stock (e.g. M4 coaches) which had the worst graffiti so I'm guessing that the SNCB concentrates on cleaning newer vehicles.

In contrast I was in Germany last week and although there wasn't that much graffiti the worst affected trains seemed to be ICEs. I was on an ICE4 last Friday between München and Stuttgart which had several cars affected including paint over windows and I felt lucky that I had a clear view from my seat which I'd reserved.

 

[miklcct]

The Netherlands has a bit of a mix of what's mentioned here for Belgium and the UK. Anyone is eligible for a tax free compensation of travel expenses being 19 cent per km, regardless you commute by car, public transport or bike.
However employers are also allowed to pay 100% of a public transport season ticket. And employees not receiving any or just a partial compensation from their employer can deduct their expenses for public transport from income taxes.

What is the reason of the difference in tax law that the UK doesn't allow tax deduction on commuting (it fails the "exclusiveness" test), but other countries allow it? Do other countries in general allow tax deduction on items that are wholly, but not exclusively, for business purpose?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Free coffee in first class in Denmark
Two flasks of hot water and all accessories provided, just help yourself whenever.

Pendolinos have drinks stations that were intended to be like that but only ever ended up holding bottles of water.

 

[Austriantrain]

- The UK for its sheer ability to run an impressive number of trains (now unfortunately somewhat reduced post-Covid) on what is often a very limited infrastructure with lots of flat junctions and very restricted station approaches and platforms. Operationally, they get my number 1 spot - while other countries have extremely dense traffic as well, they have invested far more in their infrastructure.

- The Swiss not for the reasons mentioned here before, but for their approach to infrastructure planning, deciding first what they want to run and then building accordingly (and not building for the sake of it, like others do). While they do invest more into rail than most others, they get even more out of it thanks to this approach.

 

[AlexNL]

Some of the things which the UK gets right in my view, and which other countries should copy, is:
- Inter-available ticketing. You can get A-B tickets with ease, even if your journey involves multiple operators.
- Delay Repay and continued assistance which applies to the entire journey, even if the journey involves multiple operators or when you have split tickets.

 

[nw1]

The Münstertalbahn has been electrified in 2013 and is now part of the S-Bahn Freiburg, Bombadier Talents running up to twice per hour.

Interesting, thanks for the info. Was wondering whether it had closed, glad to see it hasn't and has actually seen a significant upgrade!

Spent two summers in the 80s at a campsite adjacent to tiny Dietzelbach halt, it was very convenient having such a close station.

Speaking of the S-Bahn concept, I think this is something that the UK could learn from Germany, which appears to have S-Bahn systems for even smaller cities.

For example one can imagine a "Solent S-Bahn" with this sort of pattern:

Line 1 - half hourly Portsmouth to Southampton, then alternating to Brockenhurst or a (reopened) Hythe

Line 2 - Southampton to Eastleigh stopper half hourly, then alternating to Basingstoke or Salisbury via Romsey

Line 3 - Eastleigh to Portsmouth half-hourly

Would of course require some infrastructure upgrades, but I do think the S-Bahn concept in general is a good one.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Sep 2022 ==

- The UK for its sheer ability to run an impressive number of trains (now unfortunately somewhat reduced post-Covid) on what is often a very limited infrastructure with lots of flat junctions and very restricted station approaches and platforms. Operationally, they get my number 1 spot - while other countries have extremely dense traffic as well, they have invested far more in their infrastructure.

Something the UK did much better back in the day, of course. The Waterloo main-line down fast schedule in the first half of the 80s in the evening peak is impressive, to put it mildly. Two-minute headways between 1700 and 1810 with only a few gaps, including 50-hauled and REP/TC expresses just 2 minutes behind services stopping at Surbiton and thus having to cross to the slow lines.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Line 1 - half hourly Portsmouth to Southampton, then alternating to Brockenhurst or a (reopened) Hythe

Line 2 - Southampton to Eastleigh stopper half hourly, then alternating to Basingstoke or Salisbury via Romsey

Line 3 - Eastleigh to Portsmouth half-hourly

Would of course require some infrastructure upgrades, but I do think the S-Bahn concept in general is a good one.

I totally agree, and the "line numbering" concept can be applied on a wider scale too. Virgin did it with the West Coast and XC routes numbered VT1-whatever. People are very familiar with bus numbers, so provided you do have a consistent set of routes with consistent calling points this concept works very well. I'm not sure how well it would work on routes like this where London is the main origin/destination, though, so it's perhaps something that would work better in a purely provincial setting rather than former NSE.

 

[nw1]

I totally agree, and the "line numbering" concept can be applied on a wider scale too. Virgin did it with the West Coast and XC routes numbered VT1-whatever. People are very familiar with bus numbers, so provided you do have a consistent set of routes with consistent calling points this concept works very well. I'm not sure how well it would work on routes like this where London is the main origin/destination, though, so it's perhaps something that would work better in a purely provincial setting rather than former NSE.

I chose the Solent as it is an area with a lot of local commuting.

Most of those routes could be run as purely local, non-London services; the only exception is the Eastleigh to Portsmouth (Line 3) which would make sense starting back from London every hour, i.e. alternate journeys. Maybe it could advertise itself (remembering that most train indicators are electronic and thus can be updated en-route) as S-Bahn SE of Eastleigh and as "Regional Express", or something, north thereof?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Most of those routes could be run as purely local, non-London services; the only exception is the Eastleigh to Portsmouth (Line 3) which would make sense starting back from London every hour, i.e. alternate journeys. Maybe it could advertise itself (remembering that most train indicators are electronic and thus can be updated en-route) as S-Bahn SE of Eastleigh and as "Regional Express", or something, north thereof?

It is (or was) already the case around there that the Poole stopper has/had false destinations. I do know it was advertised as Farnborough at Branksome, which confused the life out of me and my Scouts a while back. I don't generally support doing this. The ideal would probably be to number and Takt everything, so that one would be a RE22 or something throughout.

 

[ac6000cw]

I've seen the above said many times, but in my experience (admittedly not extensive and and mostly some time ago now), the majority of people in seated accommodation on long distance Amtrak journeys I talked to were there to get from A to B (where usually A and B weren't the start and end of the train's journey) not for fun. They all had their reasons for not flying or driving.

That's been my experience too.

Of course Amtrak also runs a more European style service on the North East corridor and Pacific Surfliner routes. (At one point I believe the Washington to New York trains got to higher speeds (briefly) than anywhere in the UK).

And there are also some pretty extensive "commuter" operations. Taking Amtrak and commuter operations into account, if the area around the North East Corridor was considered to be a country on its own it would be one with a pretty extensive passenger rail service.

It's only really the core NE corridor that has both European levels of speed (for non-HSL routes) and frequency. The Pacific Surfliner route has decent frequency and good rolling stock, but it's not very fast.

A fair amount of the commuter rail services are heavily orientated towards weekday inbound in the morning, outbound in the evening traffic, with little contra-flow or middle-of-the day service beyond maybe a lunchtime round trip or two, with sparse or no services at weekends.

 

[AdamWW]

It's only really the core NE corridor that has both European levels of speed (for non-HSL routes) and frequency. The Pacific Surfliner route has decent frequency and good rolling stock, but it's not very fast.

Perhaps not fast, but quite different from once daily (or less) long distance services.

A fair amount of the commuter rail services are heavily orientated towards weekday inbound in the morning, outbound in the evening traffic, with little contra-flow or middle-of-the day service beyond maybe a lunchtime round trip or two, with sparse or no services at weekends.

That's true and if you made a list of individual commuter operations then quite possibly the majority would be the limited service you describe, but in the North East then off the top of my head you have (MARC?), SEPTA, NJT, LIRR, Metro North (and MBTA?) offering many routes with a full service not just aimed at commuting flows. Also at least some of the routes from Chicago and I think LA.

In my experience Americans who don't happen to live in an area with good local rail transport tend to think of rail as being just Amtrak and an anachronism, without being aware of just how much freight goes by rail in the US (or stopping to think why there are still cross-country lines for Amtrak to use).

 

[nw1]

A fair amount of the commuter rail services are heavily orientated towards weekday inbound in the morning, outbound in the evening traffic, with little contra-flow or middle-of-the day service beyond maybe a lunchtime round trip or two, with sparse or no services at weekends.

I remember that from what I've seen of US operations, some commuter routes in the LA area did precisely that.

The San Francisco-San Jose route (Caltrain) offered a regular hourly service in 1996, allowing off-peak travel, but ramped up dramatically in the peaks.

 

[eldomtom2]

That's true and if you made a list of individual commuter operations then quite possibly the majority would be the limited service you describe, but in the North East then off the top of my head you have (MARC?), SEPTA, NJT, LIRR, Metro North (and MBTA?) offering many routes with a full service not just aimed at commuting flows.

Only really in the sense that they offer regular services outside rush hour. They're still focused on serving NY/Philly commuters, and rail service outside that is definitely well below European levels.

 

[tasky]

There are probably a dozen fully-fledged commuter rail systems in the US with less than 5,000 daily riders, if you can believe it.

For example, in Portland Oregon, a city considered to have quite good public transport by US standards, the WES Commuter Rail service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WES_Commuter_Rail runs trains every 30 minutes in the peaks and 45 minutes the rest of the time,

Its ridership peaked at around 2,000 people a day in 2014 but has been falling steadily... it was 1,500 before the pandemic in 2019, and did not recover in 2021 with just 400 people using it a day. It's incredible that it's even open.

 

[AdamWW]

Only really in the sense that they offer regular services outside rush hour. They're still focused on serving NY/Philly commuters, and rail service outside that is definitely well below European levels.

I'm not going to spend the time looking through lots of timetables but that's not how it felt to me travelling on various systems in the North East (admittedly some time ago). Of course it depends where in Europe you compare it to and the appropriate way would be to look at population density. I've no idea how it would come out if you did that.

As for the other side of the country, just as an example looking at the Coaster service on the West Coast there are 10 trains each way at weekends and 15 on weekdays. Yes with some clustering of trains in the rush hour but the majority of trains are outside that. And there are also Amtrak services on the same route (which have interavailability for season tickets). I'm sure I could find places in Europe with a similar service but maybe not with similar populations potentially using it.

 

[deltic]

Presently interrailing and my observations are


France - TGV - nice bar
Italy - hit by short notice strike - no-one seemed to know what may or may not be running
Switzerland - varied - frequent trains but often full of fresh air - waiting for connections means train got later and later meaning passengers missed connections further along the line - however some quite rural stations were surprisingly busy
Austria - again often long local trains 6/8 carriages with few passengers
Germany - again often long local trains with few passengers - one intercity train missing its through carriages, first class and catering - no announcement at station or along the way what to do for those who were meant to be travelling in the missing section till late on when staff went through the train advising what to so

Station infrastructure considerable in last two countries - frequently 3/4 platform stations with canopies serving quite small rural towns with limited services where in UK it would have been a bus shelter on town windswept platforms.

Slovenia - modern rolling stock on a fairly dilapidated network.

General points - trains all had very clean toilets, staff often multi-lingual enough to handle basic queries, announcements about catering virtually non-existent. Eg, the German train missing its catering had a lady join serving passengers from a trolley in the bike area but the only people who knew she was there were the passengers in that carriage. And obviously compared to the UK virtually all electric - only seen one DMU so far and that was in Salzburg.

 

[Beebman]

Station infrastructure considerable in last two countries - frequently 3/4 platform stations with canopies serving quite small rural towns with limited services where in UK it would have been a bus shelter on town windswept platforms.

That's what struck me most on my recent Interrail trip, that so many minor stations had buildings and even passing loops. However one small niggle is that SBB seemed to be miserly with station nameboards, even some quite large stations just had one nameboard at either end of each platform with nothing inbetween.

And obviously compared to the UK virtually all electric - only seen one DMU so far and that was in Salzburg.

I did some line-bashing on the Austrian-Hungarian border network of GySEV. Apart from modern EMUs I travelled on two fairly elderly DMUs, one single-car and one 2-car. Both had very comfortable seating with headrests with 'wings', rather better than on 153s and 156s in the UK.

 

[TheSeeker]

Do other countries in general allow tax deduction on items that are wholly, but not exclusively, for business purpose?

Yes. There is no equivalent of the UKs PAYE here in Belgium. As a normal employee I still have to file my own taxes each year. Many things can be deducted. I found out recently that childrens birthday parties and having your boiler cleaned can be deducted.

 

[nw1]

I'm not going to spend the time looking through lots of timetables but that's not how it felt to me travelling on various systems in the North East (admittedly some time ago). Of course it depends where in Europe you compare it to and the appropriate way would be to look at population density. I've no idea how it would come out if you did that.

I did, out of interest, look at the Metro North timetables out of Grand Central some years ago (probably about five years ago). They were very much reminiscent of a British commuter railway (or, more accurately, a British commuter railway in the 80s or 90s with a notable increase in services in the peak). Also I did briefly visit Grand Central when I went to New York in 2004 and it did remind me rather of a British mid-distance commuter railway, such as the Southern Region, with various EMUs going to far-flung destinations.

 

[AdamWW]

I did, out of interest, look at the Metro North timetables out of Grand Central some years ago (probably about five years ago). They were very much reminiscent of a British commuter railway (or, more accurately, a British commuter railway in the 80s or 90s with a notable increase in services in the peak). Also I did briefly visit Grand Central when I went to New York in 2004 and it did remind me rather of a British mid-distance commuter railway, such as the Southern Region, with various EMUs going to far-flung destinations.

I found the Long Island Railroad quite fascinating when I used it a few times in the 90's. Intensive 3rd rail EMU "suburban" services with diesel hauled trains going further afield. (And at the time actually running their own freight trains too - a rarity in the US having one company handling both passengers and freight). In some ways it felt familiar from the UK. On the other hand aspects of the "long distance" services certainly didn't - open corridor connections and very low platforms gave it a certain charm, now I believe all swept away for trains that don't look as if they've come from a museum and can be used by people who can't scramble up into carriages a long way up from the platform.

 

[nw1]

I found the Long Island Railroad quite fascinating when I used it a few times in the 90's. Intensive 3rd rail EMU "suburban" services with diesel hauled trains going further afield.

Now you mention it, I think the Metro North also had such things (when I looked into it a few years ago - a mix of timetables and Wikipedia info). There was a Hudson valley route which was diesel-hauled, ISTR, and was fast to quite some distance out of New York, perhaps similar to services running fast to Woking on the Southern Region. Also another route which headed up into the wilds of the New York-Connecticut border region, in the foothills of the Appalachians, which also had diesel services in its outermost stretch, if I remember right (with New York passengers needing to change from an EMU to a diesel-hauled train en route, I think).

 

[AdamWW]

Now you mention it, I think the Metro North also had such things (when I looked into it a few years ago - a mix of timetables and Wikipedia info). There was a Hudson valley route which was diesel-hauled, ISTR, and was fast to quite some distance out of New York, perhaps similar to services running fast to Woking on the Southern Region. Also another route which headed up into the wilds of the New York-Connecticut border region, in the foothills of the Appalachians, which also had diesel services for the longest-distance services, if I remember right.

New Jersey Transit also had diesel (and electric) loco hauled services along with EMUs, but the Long Island RailRoad seemed to have a somewhat denser (and more UK-like) network of EMU operated suburban services than the others.

There was also (and appears still to be) the rather curious New Jersey Transit line that turns into Metro North when it gets to the New York border. Rather like an international train in Europe being operated by the appropriate national railway company.

 

[Segedunum]

I'm currently in the Czech Republic and always have quite an affection for their railways.

Unfortunately the punctuality here isn't much to speak of. While trains (within reason) tend to wait for one another, they're very regularly late. With all the works going on currently on the mainline between Prague and Ostrava, timekeeping is particularly dire. There's very few massive disruptions with trains just sort of getting in each others way instead.

On the plus side; they have a very dense network of railways with services largely timed to connect with one another and a nice variety of stock. Ridership is also fairly high- all the trains seem to be well used at all hours.

Replacement buses are also very well organised. The shortest amount of line possible seems to be bustituted during works with conductors and drivers also joining the passengers if a blockade occurs mid-route.

 

[67thave]

New Jersey Transit also had diesel (and electric) loco hauled services along with EMUs, but the Long Island Railroad seemed to have a somewhat denser (and more UK-like) network of EMU operated suburban services than the others.

There was also (and appears still to be) the rather curious New Jersey Transit line that turns into Metro North when it gets to the New York border. Rather like an international train in Europe being operated by the appropriate national railway company.

There are actually two joint New Jersey Transit/Metro-North train lines - the Pascack Valley and Main/Bergen County/Port Jervis lines (I assume that you're talking about the latter). In both cases, trains are operated by New Jersey Transit once they cross into New York State - Metro-North simply ponies up the money to keep them running and does not run them on a day-to-day basis, though there is some Metro-North rolling stock on those trains (which occasionally appear on other New Jersey Transit diesel services radiating from Hoboken as well).