I think this constant 'foreign railways are so much better' attitude is very tiresome and tends to peddled by those with very limited experiences of overseas rail travel at best.
Well, I've had periods of commuting by train in Brussels, Amsterdam, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Southern California, Zurich, Oslo, Prague and multiple locations in France (including Paris).
I've done business travel by both local and long-distance train in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Italy, Southern California, all over Australia, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Austria and possibly a couple more I've forgotten.
I've done leisure travel by both local and long-distance train in all the above countries, plus many more including Russia, China, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Japan, Uzbekistan, Peru, all over the USA, Morocco...
So I do have some experience.
The least comfortable journey I've done was a 3 hour ride in a Russian commuter train - 6 across (wide gauge), on uncovered, upright wooden benches. Ouch. The most crowded, predictably, was in Mumbai, on the suburban lines. You don't realise until you go there what a prime position the 'clinging to the outside of the doors' spot it!
Where I lived in France, we didn't have TGV, so I was on TER and Corail. At one point, I lived in Strasbourg, meaning it was a mix of SNCF Alsace (running on the right - they still think they're German) and DB - usually on a Schoenes Wochenendeticket, so on RB, D and RE trains only, all round Baden-Wuerttemberg.
But, you know, I have never, in Western Europe, found a train with seats as narrow as a UK 5-across commuter train. I have never found a cross-country train where I can't physically fit in an airline-style seat, like on CrossCountry 170s. I've never been on an inter-city train where I can't get a table seat with the people I'm travelling with, like on FGW. I've never been on a long-distance train where I feel ill, like on a Voyager. I've never been on a premium route where I've been unabled to use a laptop on a seat-back drop down, like on East Coast.
And you know, France is significantly less densely populated than we are. Many of the branch lines with poor services would simply not exist here. Where there is a similar population density (particularly in the north), the service is much better - look at TER Nord Pas de Calais or TER Picardie. Actually, Amiens is a good example - no TGV, but about 90 miles from Paris, only 135k population, and few other population centres around. And yet still you have an hourly service to Paris and Lille, with plenty of rural services connecting into it.
As for Switzerland, catching an inter-regional or inter-city train there isn't an event. There's no prebooking, planning weeks in advance, queueing up at the terminal station... Nope, it's just how people travel. The trains are busy but never full, and full of people - gasp - talking to each other. In most of the country (certainly the more central Cantons), you could set your watch by them. And they are spotlessly clean.
Perhaps in this country we insist on carpeting and excessive padding. Personally, give me a Swiss or Belgian 'bench-type' seat any day over any regional offering in this country.
Yes, I've had delays. Yes, I've been on overcrowded trains. Yes, I've seen patchy services, or ones that stop absurdly early in the evening. I've seen fares go up and up and I've seen the cheapest fares moved to inflexible tickets.
However, I've never turned up at a station abroad to find a public overbridge blocked by aggressive ticket inspectors (happens to me regularly here). I haven't seen people shouted at for bringing on a folding bike that's "slightly too large" into an empty luggage rack. I haven't seen fares increase by a factor of 10 because I couldn't determine business plans far in advance. I've never been left for an hour with no information during a problem, only to be told they can't get me home that day, whether by bus or taxi, because I have a bike with me. I've never had to change 3 times on an indirect route to get to a major terminus on the same line because it's cheaper to run non-stop trains than run services at the speed they were designed for. I've never turned up a a major commuter hub to find there are no connecting buses, just some irregular routes a 10-minute walk away.
Yes, of course there are problems abroad too. No systems are perfect. And yes, there are some things that we do well. I wouldn't use train as my primary form of transport if there weren't. But this kind of defensive complacency is exactly what keeps the railways in the state they are in today.
so i doubt we concerntrate our resources there
