> The whole system would collapse if a train is 10 minutes late... Short-term collapses do happen fairly regularly. For fifteen years, until COVID, I commuted

> The whole system would collapse if a train is 10 minutes late... Short-term collapses do happen fairly regularly. For fifteen years, until COVID, I commuted every day between Yokohama and Tokyo. In the morning, I went from Yokohama to Shibuya on the Toyoko Line (a non-JR private line); most evenings, I returned home through Shinagawa on JR. I remember many mornings when the trains to Shibuya were delayed by ten or twenty minutes or longer; like other lines into Tokyo, the trains ran at full capacity and at maximum closeness to each other during morning rush hour, and the slightest problem could cause a backup. (Evening rush hour is more spread out, and I experienced fewer delays then.) Anyone who rides Tokyo trains regularly has similar stories. But it is true that, overall, Japanese trains, including the trains in the Tokyo area, are reliable and even pleasant to ride. In the ongoing discussion of working at home vs. office [1], many people have named commuting as a negative aspect of working in an office. I actually didn’t mind my commute—the walk to and from the stations was good exercise, the bustle of stations like Shibuya and Shinagawa was stimulating, and the train rides gave me time to think, read, and listen to music. While I am now happy to be working at home, I hope the pandemic quiets down enough for me to start feeling confident about going places by train again, both in the Tokyo area and throughout Japan. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30239441 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30239441