Gostav
Member
- Joined
- 14 May 2016
- Messages
- 420
I think compared with a "continental system" such as Swiss Railway, UK Railways seems to be more worthy of benchmarking with Japanese Railways, which also is an independent island system.
Why is this relevant?3.NO EU
I've heard they are getting rid of those. They are not equitable as each municipality gets the same number of tickets regardless of population. So Zurich gets the same as a small town.Note that an other specific Swiss offer is also: local communes can buy daypasses from SBB and resell them at a little more to their own inhabitants-or sometimes even for a little more CHF to anyone
The Swiss voted narrowly in a referendum to end free movement from the EU, but it was deemed impractical, so was eventually dropped. That shows they are capable of commonsense and don't blindly follow the outcome of referendums.Indeed although that was just yes/no, with one of the options being the status quo and the other having nothing defined behind it. It was also advisory.
In Switzerland the deal would have been negotiated first at painstaking effort and then put to the vote as a fully costed proposal. This vote would then be binding.
Aren’t the railways designed with huge amounts of slack anyways - so as to fit in with the Taktfahrplan (clockface timetable)?Done many times over the years, simply a marvellous country to travel around. But enjoy it while you are working, up to four years after retirement you can’t
So earlier this year I treated myself to a 15 day Swiss Travel Pass instead. For sad amusement I recorded the timekeeping of just over 100 trains I travelled on. PPM (0-5) came out at 98.6%, soured only by a fatality near Bern. Right time was actually comparatively low, around 60%, with those trains that failed right time around 1-3 minutes late, but you can’t grumble at that.
That said after the fatality we were waiting at Thun for a train and the only information available was on the Swiss Railway app. The platform indicators struggled to cope with the constantly changing situation. No staff visible, and many confused passengers as they aren’t used to Swiss Railways going wrong.
It’s a bit like what Tesco have recently done with Clubcard prices. They seem to have put their ordinary prices up but continue to charge the old lower prices as “Clubcard prices,” so everyone thinks Clubcards give you a great deal - they don’t, they just stop you paying the inflated price.Yep, it's quite clever like that. "Think of a reasonable fare, double it then apply the half fare card discount".
The upsides of this are twofold. First of all you can charge a "tourist tax". Secondly, when you have bought your half fare card you're "invested" in it so are more likely to travel by rail to get value out of it. The Network Railcard was born out of a similar idea.
Aren’t the railways designed with huge amounts of slack anyways - so as to fit in with the Taktfahrplan (clockface timetable)?
I think compared with a "continental system" such as Swiss Railway, UK Railways seems to be more worthy of benchmarking with Japanese Railways, which also is an independent island system.
Aren’t the railways designed with huge amounts of slack anyways - so as to fit in with the Taktfahrplan (clockface timetable)?
Yep, it's quite clever like that. "Think of a reasonable fare, double it then apply the half fare card discount".
The upsides of this are twofold. First of all you can charge a "tourist tax". Secondly, when you have bought your half fare card you're "invested" in it so are more likely to travel by rail to get value out of it. The Network Railcard was born out of a similar idea.
The Netherlands are not a federalised country. The Netherlands just has provinces which are similar to counties in the UK. Belgium definitely is a federation of Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels.Germany, Netherlands and Austria are other federalised countries, and some would say Belgium is too.
However, they are fully integrated in the domestic network, running instead of a domestic IC service for example between Interlaken - Bern and Basel, or between Basel and Zürich.I don’t see why that should be the case, international trains are only a tiny percentage of the trains running in Switzerland.
I don’t see why that should be the case, international trains are only a tiny percentage of the trains running in Switzerland.
I agree however that comparisons are unfair because of the size of the network and the country. The Swiss system can certainly not be exported 1:1 to a country like the UK.
The Netherlands are not a federalised country. The Netherlands just has provinces which are similar to counties in the UK. Belgium definitely is a federation of Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels.
I think that most consumers realise that the likes of Go Outdoors, Tesco, Boots etc. 'member only' prices are just the normal prices. But what it really gives these companies is something more valuable, the data. They can chain together your purchases by forcing you to scan your card every time to get their normal prices. So perhaps the better way to see it is the higher prices on the shelves are the premium for paying with anonymity. The fact that there's often a large difference, as much as 20 - 30% on some items, goes to show just how valuable the data is to these companies.It’s a bit like what Tesco have recently done with Clubcard prices. They seem to have put their ordinary prices up but continue to charge the old lower prices as “Clubcard prices,” so everyone thinks Clubcards give you a great deal - they don’t, they just stop you paying the inflated price.
Or yes. They do add quite a lot of intermediate padding which the UK doesn't.
Such an extensive integration is even rare in continental Europe, maybe the integration of Amsterdam - Berlin into the Amsterdam - Amersfoort IC services comes closest,
A federal country needs to be a federation of states/members which are or were independent. The constitution (written or not) needs to start from the premise that the members are the most important and proscribe what the federation can and cannot do. The members have the most power and transferred part of it to the federation. Members also should be equal.Which is in many ways similar to England, Wales, NI and Scotland in its uncomfortable nature, but of course the UK is a not quite federal bodge.
There was a time when trains to Milan were very unreliable, so SBB timetabled on a duplicate IC train within a few minutes of the international train so that domestic travellers weren't inconvenienced.
If you mean Brig to Geneva that was never part of the Takt and was laid on top. However in some cases they do keep a set and crew ready to drop an "Ersatzzug" in.
They do add the recovery margins they need to make the timetable work, but in general, there is no exaggerated slack and very often, timetables are very tight.
It’s not rare. Germany does it, Austria too, and many countries towards the East. It’s actually how international services should be done if you want them to work. There are not that many international flows where you can fill trains without carrying domestic traffic too.
There's a difference between international trains carrying domestic passengers (as is of course usually the case in Europe) and an international train taking the place of a domestic one in a fixed interval timetable, which is I think what was originally being referred to.
Standard practice is for a double unit to run domestically with one unit continuing on to Italy. In the reverse direction, the single unit from Italy couples on to the 'domestic' unit and contiues as one train domestically. If the inbound train from Italy is late (which is far from a rare occurence, particularly for trains from further out than Milan), then the 'domestic' unit travels on its own, on time, and the international unit travels on independently whenever it decides to show up.Nowadays, the Zurich to Milan train is fully integrated into the timetable.
Currently that change is cross-platform, so there aren't really any time challenges there. I think there's a 7 minute dwell too. A lot of thought goes in to making the connection times shorter. That's also why you'll often see that even comparitively small stations may have multiple subways to get between platforms. It is far more expensive to upgrade a line so that a train arrives a minute earlier, than it is to build an extra subway so that the connection time between trains can be made a minute faster.A significant difficulty with the SBB regular interval timetable is that the connections are often too tight for inexperienced passengers (be they foriegn visitors or infrequent swiss travellers). For example - in the past the fast Gotthard trains overtook the slows at Arth-Goldau. Many passengers needed to change trains because each hour one of the trains came from Basel and the other came from Zurich. Regular passengers knew how little time they had to change and where they needed to get to to board. I have seen plenty of folk getting left behind!
This is an artificial and - with all due respect - useless distinction. In Germany as in Austria, international trains are part of the domestic Takt and wholly integrated. Whether every single train of a Takt line crosses a border, or only one in every two or every four is really besides the point. In these two countries, international services are organized the same way as in Switzerland.
Standard practice is for a double unit to run domestically with one unit continuing on to Italy. In the reverse direction, the single unit from Italy couples on to the 'domestic' unit and contiues as one train domestically. If the inbound train from Italy is late (which is far from a rare occurence, particularly for trains from further out than Milan), then the 'domestic' unit travels on its own, on time, and the international unit travels on independently whenever it decides to show up.
Maybe.
Personally I see a distinction between a clockface domestic timetable where some of the trains extend as an international journey, and a clockface timetable where international trains run in addition (and possibly with different stopping patterns).
This is an artificial and - with all due respect - useless distinction. In Germany as in Austria, international trains are part of the domestic Takt and wholly integrated. Whether every single train of a Takt line crosses a border, or only one in every two or every four is really besides the point. In these two countries, international services are organized the same way as in Switzerland.
You can differentiate if you want,
but the fact remains that in Austria and Germany, international trains *are*, just as in Switzerland, integrated into the domestic Takt. So Switzerland is far from unique in this regard.
We don't seem to go for this kind of pattern in the UK, for whatever reason.
And indeed I shall.
My reaction probably was due to the fact that some things that are found surprising on the forum are just so normal where I come from. Sorry about that!