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I mean in the UK ours are terrible. We dream of European efficiency as much as you do.
by ck425 6y ago
I mean in the UK ours are terrible. We dream of European efficiency as much as you do.
- neffy 6y agoErm... when the trains are late in the US it can be by hours (NY -- Boston), or even a day or so (on the transcontinental route). Amtrak gets severely outcompeted on most routes by a somewhat informal "chinatown" bus network.
- pmyteh 6y agoYeah. I'm British, and a few years ago spent several weeks travelling around the US by Amtrak. Not one of my trains was actually on time, and the Sunset Limited (LA -> New Orleans) was over a day late. Our trains aren't great for punctuality, but they're nowhere near that bad. Of course, the reasons are somewhat different, too. In the UK the problem is mostly that the tracks are very heavily timetabled with passenger trains, such that there's very little slack: an issue with one service can screw up an entire chunk of the network with effects that last for hours. In the US, freight trains have priority outside the Northeast Corridor, so we would get looped for several hours to wait for a train of oil tankers going the other way.
- cr1895 6y agoDoesn't this have something to do with priority given to freight rail in the US?
- Barrin92 6y agoHaving moved from Germany to the UK I'm actually positively surprised by public transport which I rely on every day. (living in London). The only thing I've noticed is that it is quite expensive.