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Your characterization of the Swiss situation is inaccurate - it’s much more complex than you say for three reasons: 1) There are actually many more corridors,

by t8sr 3y ago

Your characterization of the Swiss situation is inaccurate - it’s much more complex than you say for three reasons: 1) There are actually many more corridors, of which Basel-Geneva is not really an important one. St Gallen - Zurich - Bern - Geneva and Basel-Lugano are the main ones, but there are two routes between Bern and Geneva, there are trains connecting Zurich to the South East and trains connecting Bern to Visp and Sion. On top of that you have non-SBB companies like ZB. 2) The topography of the country is complex with lakes and mountains everywhere. 3) The scale is off: Germany is massive and you’re showing a map that includes the Berlin S-bahn, while only showing major connections for Switzerland, even though that mapped is 4 times more zoomed in.

Archelaos 3y ago
Ad 1) I was perhaps not clear enough that I was talking about the main transit routes. I agree that especially the situation in northern Switzerland could be described as being more complicated and the route from Innsbruck to Zurich should have been included. The area between Basel, Bern and Zürich is indeed the place where traffic from different origins and destinations intermingles. Ad 2) True. Ad 3) Perhaps a better map to support my point is this one about the core Trans-European freight train network: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-European_Transport_Network#/media/File:Trans-European_Transport_Network.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-European_Transport_Netwo... Of course this map is limited, as it does not cover passenger transport and does not show transport volume. However, the fundamental topological problem of the network in Germany should be quite apparent as there are a lot of options were traffic is changing directions and a congestion in a specific place may easily spread to other hubs. -- It is perhaps no coincidence that Europe's two largest marshalling yards are in Germany: Maschen Rangierbahnhof[1] near Hamburg and Mannheim Rangierbahnhof[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maschen_Marshalling_Yard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maschen_Marshalling_Yard [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannheim_Rangierbahnhof https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannheim_Rangierbahnhof

by t8sr 3y ago

Archelaos 3y ago

Ad 1) I was perhaps not clear enough that I was talking about the main transit routes. I agree that especially the situation in northern Switzerland could be described as being more complicated and the route from Innsbruck to Zurich should have been included. The area between Basel, Bern and Zürich is indeed the place where traffic from different origins and destinations intermingles. Ad 2) True. Ad 3) Perhaps a better map to support my point is this one about the core Trans-European freight train network: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-European_Transport_Network#/media/File:Trans-European_Transport_Network.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-European_Transport_Netwo... Of course this map is limited, as it does not cover passenger transport and does not show transport volume. However, the fundamental topological problem of the network in Germany should be quite apparent as there are a lot of options were traffic is changing directions and a congestion in a specific place may easily spread to other hubs. -- It is perhaps no coincidence that Europe's two largest marshalling yards are in Germany: Maschen Rangierbahnhof[1] near Hamburg and Mannheim Rangierbahnhof[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maschen_Marshalling_Yard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maschen_Marshalling_Yard [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannheim_Rangierbahnhof https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannheim_Rangierbahnhof