(Sorry if this is in the wrong subforum)
As the title says, have you been to the twin town(s) / sister city / cities of your home town (or of nearby settlements if your own isn't twinned with anywhere)? How do the public transport networks in them compare?
Hemel Hempstead isn't twinned with anywhere, but Dacorum as a whole is twinned with Neu-Isenburg. I'd say that Neu-Isenburg wins. There's a tram every fifteen minutes to Frankfurt (Main) Hbf, taking a quarter of an hour, and four S-Bahn services per hour between Frankfurt and Langen (two continuing to Darmstadt). Neither the tram stop nor the railway station are particularly central, but the same applies to Hemel Hempstead and Apsley stations (4 / 2 tph to Euston, 2 tph to Milton Keynes Central).
For Watford and Mainz, I think Mainz wins overall. Four Overground trains, four Tube trains and five LNR services to London per hour is better than what Mainz gets to Frankfurt (looking at 11:00–11:59 tomorrow, five direct trains taking 30-40 minutes), but connections between Mainz and Wiesbaden are better than between Watford and anywhere except central London and Harrow. (I suspect that part of the difference on the first point might be that Mainz has double Watford's population as well as being a state capital, so I'd guess has more inbound commuting.) Mainz also has a sizable tramway network and much further (but less regular) intercity services; a train every two hours to Berlin, as well as the Berlin – Brussels Nightjet, bihourly services to Basel and deeper into Switzerland, and a daily Amsterdam service (although leaving at 03:48 and arriving at 09:58 and having a return journey of 19:44–01:40 may not be to everybody's taste). Watford's 1 tph Avanti to Birmingham (currently extending to at least Preston in the mornings, but that's mostly going at some point) and 1 LNR tph via Northampton, a few early morning / evening services to / from Manchester, Liverpool and Scotland, and the Lowlander isn't terrible, and apart from restoring direct Brighton services (not enough capacity through Croydon and Gatwick, I presume) and stops on the Highlander, there's not much which can really be done without HS2, but I'd still put Mainz's long-distance connections above Watford's apart from in frequency.
I haven't been to Nanterre, Pesaro (Italy), Veliky Novgorod (Russia, if that twinning still stands) or Wilmington (Delaware). From a quick search Wilmington's the thirteenth-busiest Amtrak station, with 1-2 tph to Philadelphia (~30 miles), with most of those carrying on to New York, and there's a roughly hourly service to DC a hundred miles away, plus services to Chicago, Charlotte, New Orleans, Savannah, Miami, and St. Albans (a much longer distance than the Abbey line). There's SEPTA's Wilmington / Newark line as well but that's only hourly with some two hour gaps.
(The bit below put in quotes to make it easier to skip.)
As the title says, have you been to the twin town(s) / sister city / cities of your home town (or of nearby settlements if your own isn't twinned with anywhere)? How do the public transport networks in them compare?
Hemel Hempstead isn't twinned with anywhere, but Dacorum as a whole is twinned with Neu-Isenburg. I'd say that Neu-Isenburg wins. There's a tram every fifteen minutes to Frankfurt (Main) Hbf, taking a quarter of an hour, and four S-Bahn services per hour between Frankfurt and Langen (two continuing to Darmstadt). Neither the tram stop nor the railway station are particularly central, but the same applies to Hemel Hempstead and Apsley stations (4 / 2 tph to Euston, 2 tph to Milton Keynes Central).
For Watford and Mainz, I think Mainz wins overall. Four Overground trains, four Tube trains and five LNR services to London per hour is better than what Mainz gets to Frankfurt (looking at 11:00–11:59 tomorrow, five direct trains taking 30-40 minutes), but connections between Mainz and Wiesbaden are better than between Watford and anywhere except central London and Harrow. (I suspect that part of the difference on the first point might be that Mainz has double Watford's population as well as being a state capital, so I'd guess has more inbound commuting.) Mainz also has a sizable tramway network and much further (but less regular) intercity services; a train every two hours to Berlin, as well as the Berlin – Brussels Nightjet, bihourly services to Basel and deeper into Switzerland, and a daily Amsterdam service (although leaving at 03:48 and arriving at 09:58 and having a return journey of 19:44–01:40 may not be to everybody's taste). Watford's 1 tph Avanti to Birmingham (currently extending to at least Preston in the mornings, but that's mostly going at some point) and 1 LNR tph via Northampton, a few early morning / evening services to / from Manchester, Liverpool and Scotland, and the Lowlander isn't terrible, and apart from restoring direct Brighton services (not enough capacity through Croydon and Gatwick, I presume) and stops on the Highlander, there's not much which can really be done without HS2, but I'd still put Mainz's long-distance connections above Watford's apart from in frequency.
I haven't been to Nanterre, Pesaro (Italy), Veliky Novgorod (Russia, if that twinning still stands) or Wilmington (Delaware). From a quick search Wilmington's the thirteenth-busiest Amtrak station, with 1-2 tph to Philadelphia (~30 miles), with most of those carrying on to New York, and there's a roughly hourly service to DC a hundred miles away, plus services to Chicago, Charlotte, New Orleans, Savannah, Miami, and St. Albans (a much longer distance than the Abbey line). There's SEPTA's Wilmington / Newark line as well but that's only hourly with some two hour gaps.
(The bit below put in quotes to make it easier to skip.)
