4 ms·

I always wondered why they didn't just keep the trains running, even if only for a handful of runs overnight. Seems worth it to keep drunk salarymen from wander

I always wondered why they didn't just keep the trains running, even if only for a handful of runs overnight. Seems worth it to keep drunk salarymen from wandering around the streets until morning only to have to go back to work.

Liftyee 2y ago
Maintenance, perhaps? For the London Underground at least, the power is switched off after the trains stop running (4th rail) so workers can safely go onto the tracks. Also, it would almost definitely run at a loss (excluding externalities)... same reason why many Chinese cities' subsidised metros close quite early. Agreed that it's probably beneficial in the big picture but maybe hard to justify to superiors?
- singleshot_ 2y ago
  May I ask what the third rail is for in your neck of the woods?
  - itcrowd 2y ago
    https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/fourth_rail https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/fourth_rail
  - jffry 2y ago
    It seems the London Underground uses a four-rail system http://www.trainweb.org/tubeprune/tractioncurr.htm http://www.trainweb.org/tubeprune/tractioncurr.htm
  - daedrdev 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_electrification#Fourth_rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_electrification#Fourth...
rtpg 2y ago
My understanding is they do a _lot_ of maintenance at night. I have to imagine it might not be worth it though. The whole "city that never sleeps" vibe is relatively localized to a couple neighborhoods and having all lines run through the night would be a bit of an extravagance (all that for, what, the 5 hours they're not running?). Train drivers aren't cheap! And we invented technology for getting small groups of people home already, it's called taxis. Post COVID I think there's been a huge push to just chill out even with the 24 hour stuff. Lots of places close earlier than they used to, and some places that used to be 24 hours just go until midnight now. There was a bus that would go between a couple of the nightclub spots throughout the night, never took it though. Maybe there would be a decent business in running "commuter"-y buses throughout the night between certain areas, at least to try and get closer home.
decimalenough 2y ago
I've heard the theory floated that this is at least in part due to furious lobbying against it by taxi companies, who currently have a de facto monopoly on transport at night. More likely it's just for train maintenance, and indeed, 24-hour train operation is vanishingly rare, with NYC and Chicago the only well-known major cities with it. Tokyo does stand out by not even having night buses though. (It used to have a skeletal network, but even that was killed off by COVID.)
- nicoburns 2y ago
  > More likely it's just for train maintenance, and indeed, 24-hour train operation is vanishingly rare, with NYC and Chicago the only well-known major cities with it. Yes, and at least NYC is notorious for how poorly it's train network is maintained, which I suspect is no coincidence.
grayfaced 2y ago
They could get rid of this phenomena if they had the train schedule end in a lively area. Meaning the last train arriving an endpoint is followed by a single last train that only goes halfway. I imagine that extra half-route is opposite that most passengers are traveling though.
jdietrich 2y ago
As others have suggested, running trains overnight hugely complicates routine maintenance. When people are working on the line, any train movements will hugely increase the risk profile. The more sensible option is generally night buses, which are considerably less expensive. The London Underground runs a limited night service on some lines on Friday and Saturday nights, but London has a fairly extensive night bus service.
adrianmonk 2y ago
Like others said, it's probably maintenance. But presumably they could run late night bus service along essentially the same routes as the trains. Trains are good at bypassing traffic and carrying large numbers of people, but you don't need to worry about those things in the middle of the night, so a bus should work fine as substitute.
- Symbiote 2y ago
  Many European cities do run buses at night, often replacing rail services. The largest ones run the metro/trains, sometimes only on Friday and Saturday night. It's not only useful for people leaving a party, but workers on early or late shifts like cleaning out working in restaurants.
Spooky23 2y ago
24 hour service is one of the factors that make NYC Subway maintenance difficult. They literally have switches from the 1930s that are impossible to replace - they have machine shops that fabricate spare parts.
NalNezumi 2y ago
Other's have said maintenance, which is right. But the context is also important in that if the trains are delayed by 5 minutes in Tokyo at peak hours, the congestion can be so bad that many people won't even fit in the next train. This can have a cascading effect, and since so many use the public transport, opting for car is not a workable solution in such density. So it actually makes sense to focus on efficiency and reliability at peak hours, at the cost of running it 24hours. Tokyos rail line are one of the few trains in the world that actually make profit (although not all of it from trains) and reliability is kinda key to this profit margin, especially at prime time. (Most major stations have malls and commercial activities in Japan. And those are run by the train companies, and surprisingly the majority of the profit for Train companies are not the trains but those activities. Those are not open past 22:00 in most places, so that's another reason) Edit: Not just bike mentioned it on this video (timestamp) https://youtu.be/6dKiEY0UOtA?t=887 https://youtu.be/6dKiEY0UOtA?t=887
SapporoChris 2y ago
In addition to the maintenance comments. There are many residential areas and hotels that are very close to the tracks. Having a few hours of no trains running is important for those wishing to sleep. Example: Tokyo City View Hotel (Tabita station), rooms approximately 13 meters from tracks.
- mitthrowaway2 2y ago
  The trains themselves are pretty quiet going past, but the railway crossing bells can be quite irritating at night.
- autoexec 2y ago
  That's a great point!
rsynnott 2y ago
I used to live beside a commuter train elevated line (in Ireland, not Japan). Many nights after the line shut down, there’d be at least some maintenance going on, sometimes extensive maintenance. And that was just on the short stretch I could see. Heavy rail takes a fair bit of maintenance, and 24 hour buses can _mostly_ plug the gap in places that have them (volumes are way lower at night). Irish Rail sometimes runs late services around Christmas and New Year, but have been fairly clear that it’s not sustainable, and even then there’s an hour or so gap where the tracks are cleared before normal service starts up around 05:30.
derr1 2y ago
They do a lot of nighttime maintenance work. It's very difficult to shut down train lines in the daytime considering the massive ridership

Liftyee 2y ago

Maintenance, perhaps? For the London Underground at least, the power is switched off after the trains stop running (4th rail) so workers can safely go onto the tracks. Also, it would almost definitely run at a loss (excluding externalities)... same reason why many Chinese cities' subsidised metros close quite early. Agreed that it's probably beneficial in the big picture but maybe hard to justify to superiors?

singleshot_ 2y ago
May I ask what the third rail is for in your neck of the woods?
- itcrowd 2y ago
  https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/fourth_rail https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/fourth_rail
- jffry 2y ago
  It seems the London Underground uses a four-rail system http://www.trainweb.org/tubeprune/tractioncurr.htm http://www.trainweb.org/tubeprune/tractioncurr.htm
- daedrdev 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_electrification#Fourth_rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_electrification#Fourth...

rtpg 2y ago

My understanding is they do a _lot_ of maintenance at night. I have to imagine it might not be worth it though. The whole "city that never sleeps" vibe is relatively localized to a couple neighborhoods and having all lines run through the night would be a bit of an extravagance (all that for, what, the 5 hours they're not running?). Train drivers aren't cheap! And we invented technology for getting small groups of people home already, it's called taxis. Post COVID I think there's been a huge push to just chill out even with the 24 hour stuff. Lots of places close earlier than they used to, and some places that used to be 24 hours just go until midnight now. There was a bus that would go between a couple of the nightclub spots throughout the night, never took it though. Maybe there would be a decent business in running "commuter"-y buses throughout the night between certain areas, at least to try and get closer home.

decimalenough 2y ago

I've heard the theory floated that this is at least in part due to furious lobbying against it by taxi companies, who currently have a de facto monopoly on transport at night. More likely it's just for train maintenance, and indeed, 24-hour train operation is vanishingly rare, with NYC and Chicago the only well-known major cities with it. Tokyo does stand out by not even having night buses though. (It used to have a skeletal network, but even that was killed off by COVID.)

nicoburns 2y ago
> More likely it's just for train maintenance, and indeed, 24-hour train operation is vanishingly rare, with NYC and Chicago the only well-known major cities with it. Yes, and at least NYC is notorious for how poorly it's train network is maintained, which I suspect is no coincidence.

grayfaced 2y ago

They could get rid of this phenomena if they had the train schedule end in a lively area. Meaning the last train arriving an endpoint is followed by a single last train that only goes halfway. I imagine that extra half-route is opposite that most passengers are traveling though.

jdietrich 2y ago

As others have suggested, running trains overnight hugely complicates routine maintenance. When people are working on the line, any train movements will hugely increase the risk profile. The more sensible option is generally night buses, which are considerably less expensive. The London Underground runs a limited night service on some lines on Friday and Saturday nights, but London has a fairly extensive night bus service.

adrianmonk 2y ago

Like others said, it's probably maintenance. But presumably they could run late night bus service along essentially the same routes as the trains. Trains are good at bypassing traffic and carrying large numbers of people, but you don't need to worry about those things in the middle of the night, so a bus should work fine as substitute.

Symbiote 2y ago
Many European cities do run buses at night, often replacing rail services. The largest ones run the metro/trains, sometimes only on Friday and Saturday night. It's not only useful for people leaving a party, but workers on early or late shifts like cleaning out working in restaurants.

Spooky23 2y ago

24 hour service is one of the factors that make NYC Subway maintenance difficult. They literally have switches from the 1930s that are impossible to replace - they have machine shops that fabricate spare parts.

NalNezumi 2y ago

Other's have said maintenance, which is right. But the context is also important in that if the trains are delayed by 5 minutes in Tokyo at peak hours, the congestion can be so bad that many people won't even fit in the next train. This can have a cascading effect, and since so many use the public transport, opting for car is not a workable solution in such density. So it actually makes sense to focus on efficiency and reliability at peak hours, at the cost of running it 24hours. Tokyos rail line are one of the few trains in the world that actually make profit (although not all of it from trains) and reliability is kinda key to this profit margin, especially at prime time. (Most major stations have malls and commercial activities in Japan. And those are run by the train companies, and surprisingly the majority of the profit for Train companies are not the trains but those activities. Those are not open past 22:00 in most places, so that's another reason) Edit: Not just bike mentioned it on this video (timestamp) https://youtu.be/6dKiEY0UOtA?t=887 https://youtu.be/6dKiEY0UOtA?t=887

SapporoChris 2y ago

In addition to the maintenance comments. There are many residential areas and hotels that are very close to the tracks. Having a few hours of no trains running is important for those wishing to sleep. Example: Tokyo City View Hotel (Tabita station), rooms approximately 13 meters from tracks.

mitthrowaway2 2y ago
The trains themselves are pretty quiet going past, but the railway crossing bells can be quite irritating at night.
autoexec 2y ago
That's a great point!

rsynnott 2y ago

I used to live beside a commuter train elevated line (in Ireland, not Japan). Many nights after the line shut down, there’d be at least some maintenance going on, sometimes extensive maintenance. And that was just on the short stretch I could see. Heavy rail takes a fair bit of maintenance, and 24 hour buses can _mostly_ plug the gap in places that have them (volumes are way lower at night). Irish Rail sometimes runs late services around Christmas and New Year, but have been fairly clear that it’s not sustainable, and even then there’s an hour or so gap where the tracks are cleared before normal service starts up around 05:30.

derr1 2y ago

They do a lot of nighttime maintenance work. It's very difficult to shut down train lines in the daytime considering the massive ridership