7 ms·

The product of the railways is the timetable

92 points by NaOH 1y ago

jacknews 1y ago
It's one product, sure. Arguably more important is standard time. Before the railways towns ran on local-noon time, so the railways and their timetables required time to be synchronized across regions.
- immibis 1y ago
  The most important product a train system offers is getting you from A to B.
  - mschuster91 1y ago
    The GP is referring to the very early days of railway - only in 1840, the railway emergence led to standardized time [1] to make drafting timetables and schedules easier. The benefits and downsides are something that we still experience two centuries later, all thanks to the railways. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_time
    - immibis 1y ago
      And yet, the most important product provided by the railways is getting you (or stuff) from A to B.
dajonker 1y ago
That graphic from the Swiss Railways is absolutely wonderful https://sma-partner.com/storage/app/media/Dokumente/Netzgrafiken/2025-01-15_NGCH2025.pdf https://sma-partner.com/storage/app/media/Dokumente/Netzgraf...
- globular-toast 1y ago
  If I could find one like that for London I'd probably get it printed and hang it on my wall.
  - deleted 1y ago
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  - 6LLvveMx2koXfwn 1y ago
    Not quite but nearly: https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/travel-information/maps-of-the-national-rail-network/ https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/travel-information/maps-of-th...
- bloak 1y ago
  Nice, but I did one of the obvious things and looked for Geneva. Near the bottom left it says "Genève-Aéroport". Is that labelling the small portrait-format grey rectangle to the left of the larger landscape-format rectangle that should be labelled Genève-Cornavin?
  - lmm 1y ago
    Yes. I guess the main station is considered obvious from context?
  - telefun5463 1y ago
    Noticed it as well, it seems they forgot the Genève-Cornavin label indeed.
- superpope99 1y ago
  huh I find this totally incomprehensible. Is this easier to read if you spend a lot of time looking at wiring diagrams?
  - brainwad 1y ago
    It's a technical diagram - it's really not supposed to be that comprehensible, but more of a reference. The passenger-facing publications use regular timetable layouts.
  - 1718627440 1y ago
    Is it? What problems do you face?
  - crote 1y ago
    As someone who spends a lot of time looking at wiring diagrams: not really. I think the concept of the map is neat (the arrival/departure times let you plan transfers!), but it is way too busy to be practical. It has at the same time too many details to give you a high-level overview, and not enough details for trip planning. For a general idea a map like [0] would be better: it shows the stations and track layouts, so it gives you a general feeling of where to go. Want to go from Utrecht to Zutphen? You'll have to go either over Arnhem or Amersfoort. Want to go from Amsterdam to Groningen, but there are issues in Zwolle? Yeah, you're screwed. For planning purposes a map like [1] is better: it shows you the actual services being run, with a vague indication of their frequency. It tells you that an issue in Alphen isn't a big issue for your journey from Utrecht to Leiden, as there are six trains an hour going Utrecht-Schiphol-Leiden. Want to go from Utrecht to Amsterdam? Don't bother planning, there are trains every 5 minutes. Want to go from Den Haag to Groningen? A direct connection is possible - but only once an hour, so don't be late or you risk having to transfer in Zwolle! But honestly? They are more for nerds than practical use. Transit planner apps are far easier to use, will be more accurate, and provide exactly the information which is relevant to your journey. [0]: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0e/f9/2b/0ef92b7c4f2cf4d1b0c1b723dea051d9.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0e/f9/2b/0ef92b7c4f2cf4d1b0c1... [1]: https://nieuws.ns.nl/download/c10b58e3-54fc-4577-bf95-931b03a1e12c/spoorkaart2025.pdf https://nieuws.ns.nl/download/c10b58e3-54fc-4577-bf95-931b03...
- deleted 1y ago
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globular-toast 1y ago
This is the way I like to think about problems. Essentially you start backwards from the problem and (hopefully) arrive at a solution. If at some point in the depths of abstraction you lose touch or forget what that original problem was, you've already failed. Building infrastructure for the sake of infrastructure is a good example of being completely out of touch. The problem was there weren't enough trains at the right time to the right places. The bridge builders clearly weren't thinking about that. In my work this often happens because of the XY problem. People ask for X, but in fact they need Y and X is just their proposed solution. This would be like people asking for a new train from Cambridge to London, but in fact they are really going to Oxford and were only using London to connect. There are also assumptions that even the most pedantic people don't mention all the time. If people ask for more comfortable seats on trains, they implicitly also mean at the right time. They don't mean a comfortable seat at 2:00 in the morning that takes 3x as long to get there. I've often thought some kind of daily meditation to remind yourself of what the problems are is useful. There are the "bedrock" problems (like the train timetable) that never change, and there is the specific problem you are trying to solve right now (like connecting Cambridge to Oxford). I think it's worth thinking about it every day lest you lose sight and build the bridge nobody needed.
hshdhdhehd 1y ago
He missed something. The train means you dont have to park. That is often a big advantage. Parking is expensive and stressful if there are not many spots. In a city the train system can probably get you closer to where you want to be. Especially if you dont want to pay top $ for parking. Parking in cities is also stressful with finding tbe entry on the correct one where you booked. And you miss the entry? Yep that is a one way street. Go round the block? No right turn? Satnav says 15 minutes to get back there again.
- globular-toast 1y ago
  If the only train was 6 hours before you needed to be there then you'd probably just deal with parking instead. The point isn't that the timetable is the only reason to use a train, it's that without a good timetable it really doesn't matter what other advantages it offers and planners need to keep this in mind at all times.
  - Tade0 1y ago
    A while ago a train line that's around a kilometre from my place reopened after 20 years and I wanted to use it, as it would outright teleport me to the city centre in 8 minutes having no stops in between(vs 20min by tram), but it appears to depart every 1,5h on average and isn't very compatible with commuting.
    - hshdhdhehd 1y ago
      That could be great for a 9-5 job. Get the same train each day. Maybe grab dinner after work then get that 6pm train home. I like those anonomolies. Like a place that seems far from the city (maybe even completely outside and in a other city!) but due to some quirk there is a way to get some weird train or bus there very quickly.
      - Tade0 1y ago
        The very last train from that station departs at 10:38pm, meaning it leaves the central station at 10:30pm, arriving to a city 53km away ten minutes before midnight. You could almost have a nightlife with this, but somehow there's still a 1,5h gap during commuting hours.
the_gipsy 1y ago
Contrived conclusion: Given a good frequency, passengers can completely ignore schedules.
- th0ma5 1y ago
  Truly a wonderful revelation I had to stop reading the time table and see that it says every 15 minutes or so a bus will come during the times I'd expect it to, worst case 45, etc.
- immibis 1y ago
  In Berlin, in a large part of the city, the trains come every 4-5 minutes. You rarely need to check a timetable (and when you do, you'd rather check the app, which knows where the trains actually are, not just where they should be). You just show up at the station and wait for the next train.
- richardwhiuk 1y ago
  If trains are frequent enough, passengers do ignore schedules and just turn up. This is common on metro/subway/underground services.
- deleted 1y ago
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- VBprogrammer 1y ago
  Something which I only realised by watching a London Underground driver who was vlogging for a while (before he was asked to stop) is that, yes, the frequency of the trains is the main metric for customers. However, once things go off schedule it can have pretty acute consequences for drivers and operational staff. The timetables are built around having drivers at specific places at specific times who will have required breaks at certain times and a maximum allowable working time. The rolling stock itself needs to be where it's needed as well, it's easy for it to get bunched up behind a track circuit failure etc.
- decimalenough 1y ago
  Yes, that works great in dense cities that can justify running a train every 5 minutes. What sets Switzerland apart is that it can offer reliable, punctual service to tiny mountain villages that may only have a couple of trains a day, but those trains are carefully scheduled so that you can get there from Zurich or wherever with an absolute minimum of waiting around for your connections or fretting if you'll make it. (In the unlikely event that your train is a few minutes late, they will hold the connection.)
deleted 1y ago
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dvdkon 1y ago
This is an interesting conclusion to a problem other countries are facing as well. The Czech Republic fully divided its railway infrastructure (under SŽ) and national train operator (ČD) sooner than most of the EU. SŽ being incompetent is a favourite topic of railway fans here, but most everyone agrees that this kind of split was for the best, at least for long-distance trains. Pretty soon after the railways were opened to non-state operators, quality of long-distance train routes improved, both by new trains by private operators and increased competition forcing ČD to improve. On regional railways, where the state pays for train operations, costs have gone down thanks to competition. It seems to me like this model can work well, you just need an infrastructure operator that's receptive to its "customers" (which SŽ often isn't), or a political structure that can force them to listen.
- mschuster91 1y ago
  > On regional railways, where the state pays for train operations, costs have gone down thanks to competition. German here. Yes, costs have gone down thanks to competition, but at what cost? IMHO, the cost of "competition" on regionals has been massive. A lot of infrastructure has had to be rebuilt (e.g. maintenance shops), a huge expense and waste of space (think about how long a regional train is - easily 150 meters [1], which means the shop has to be at least that long). Some operators chose to run with old, run-down rolling stock or go for the absolutely cheapest options. Others, and that has happened at least twice in the last few years, calculate their offers to be barely profitable and then a crisis (Covid, Russian invasion and energy cost explosion) hits, forcing the companies into bankruptcy. Cleanliness of trains, regular expulsion of toilets takes a hit as that's a very easy way to save a few hundred euros. In the case of demand surges (e.g. soccer games, Oktoberfest, Karneval), there's no way to ad-hoc add rolling stock and drivers because there are no spares and modern rolling stock isn't compatible with anything other than its specific model and configuration. And some regional tender processes have gotten even worse, where the state prescribes or outright buys the rolling stock... and suddenly the only way the providers can compete is staffing cost. Thanks but no thanks, I'd rather like the old system back! [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_Desiro_HC https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_Desiro_HC
  - 1y ago
walthamstow 1y ago
I'm surprised the author doesn't mention that centralised time itself was a product of the railway. Prior to that, every town had its own time, London and Bristol were 20 mins apart. In order to have a central timetable, there had to be a central time.
- zzbn00 1y ago
  Yes, and it was a huge thing at the time. The social effects of all this time coordination and time tabling are one of the underlying themes of Stoker's novel Dracula.
  - Juliate 1y ago
    And it's still a huge thing that shifted with the Internet too. Prior to it, yes, there was international phone lines, but those were still expensive enough you might ignore them. Before then, I'd say around start of the 90's in Europe, you did not represent yourself being in sync with someone, anyone abroad (but perhaps that started to become conceivable for people who could afford frequent international calls or travel). And that conditioned how you perceived your own time, the time of others, the events here and over there, and the effort you took into communicating long distance, through letters.
    - Symbiote 1y ago
      I was recently a guest staying at an elderly woman's large house. The room I slept in was full of junk, but what caught my eye were envelopes with stamps from the 1950s/1960s. The "From" name was the woman's late husband, and they were all from two African countries that were then part of the British Empire. I had heard her talk about when her husband was working in Africa, but until I saw the big pile of letters I hadn't considered that this was the only way the young couple could keep in contact when someone's work required long periods of international travel.
      - zzbn00 1y ago
        No need to go as far as Africa. Basic landline telephones spread into poorer/more rural parts of Europe only in 1980s and 1990s. Until then it was either taking the bus to see people in person, or sending a letter.... E.g. quick search revealed this pamphlet from 1988 Spain, showing that ~30% of households did not at time yet have a telephone: https://www.telefonica.com/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2021/08/1988_basic_telephone.pdf https://www.telefonica.com/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/202...
MomsAVoxell 1y ago
The product of the railways is the successful arrival of passengers at their chosen destination. The fact that this isn't obvious, and that instead the means by which that product is delivered is considered more important than the actual arrival of passengers, is very telling. This is a common issue in the technology world - too often, the actual end result is overlooked, for the sake of the means by which that product is produced. Your special organisational tricks mean nothing if the customer is left at the station, standing in the rain, hundreds of kilometres from home. The timetable doesn't get anyone home. The trains do. The timetable just describes the intent - it is a requirement which describes a service, not a product. The train is required to show up at that time, and by publishing it the train company is establishing agreement with its customers in an open and fair manner. A product is something which is produced, and the word 'product' describes, after the fact, that which was produced. A service is an act which is performed in support of producing something. Timetables are a service which are subservient to the fact of actually producing the desired result. I do not go to the train station to look at the services being promised delivery; I go to engage in the act of using that service, to gain my desired product: my ass at home, making a cuppa. Disclaimer: if you've taken a train in any one of 38 different countries around the world, chances are your safety has been being predicted by SIL4-level online tests I've written for that purpose ..
- winternewt 1y ago
  The article got off on the wrong foot from the start by separating the purpose from the product. To my mind the purpose is the product and always will be.
  - crote 1y ago
    > To my mind the purpose is the product and always will be. A lot of industries would disagree with you. There are plenty of products where the physical form and direct purpose of the product itself is quite disjoint from the product they are actually selling. For example, Hermès doesn't sell bags to carry stuff in - they sell status symbols. Restaurants don't sell food for sustenance - they sell a dining experience. Car companies only tangentially sell modes of transportation - they are treated more like fashion items in practice. Items like wedding rings have zero purpose - what they are selling is a physical manifestation of an emotion. If everything we ever interacted with was 100% utilitarian, we'd be living in a very dull world.
Juliate 1y ago
It's an interesting take, and you may as well map it to industrial projects, architecture, software to see it from a different perspective. The timetable is the specs. The product is what your customers experience. The specs (loose or... very specific) is definitely a major product step. But in that it is a mean to deliver the service/experience in the end. Without the implementation details (that do not live in the spec), you get often unsatisfied people everywhere.
maelito 1y ago
In codeberg.org/cartes/serveur I'm building a stack to visualise transit plans using node-GTFS and setup and update a motis instance for transit calculations. Open source transit plans are under-developped. Almost everything still needs to be invented.
emersion 1y ago
There are open-source projects trying to replace older closed-source software used to produce these timetables: - Netzgrafik-Editor: https://github.com/OpenRailAssociation/netzgrafik-editor-frontend https://github.com/OpenRailAssociation/netzgrafik-editor-fro... - OSRD: https://osrd.fr/en/ https://osrd.fr/en/ (Disclaimer: I'm working on OSRD.)
jsdalton 1y ago
I simply don’t agree with the conclusion though I appreciate the approach to thinking about products. I recently chose to take the train vs driving and the factors behind that decision were: * Time, yes. Train was approximately the same but an actually a bit slower. * Cost. Train was slightly cheaper when looking at the true cost of driving. Also significantly cheaper than flying. * Experience. This is entirely overlooked in the timetable centric approach. Train is simply the most pleasant way to travel long distances (maybe ferry is competitive there). I was able to move around and get work done and enjoy the view. If the train company had swapped my train for a bus I would NOT have been a satisfied customer. * City center to city center (vs airport to airport). Had the train company said “we swapped the arrival location to the airport but technically we still got you to the city” I would NOT have been a happy customer. The “trains as timetables” hypothesis would imply that the train could meet my needs via something other than rail travel and would definitely lose me as a customer. On the other hand, improvements such as better wifi service (it was terrible and not sure why cell service is also poor on a train) or a route that was more scenic but did not impact my arrival time significantly would positively affect my likelihood of choosing train. So the better lesson is know your customer needs and know their specific jobs to be done and center your hypothesis around this.
- crote 1y ago
  I think a lot of that is colored by the fact that you were doing a long-distance trip. I would completely agree with your points if I were, say, living in Frankfurt and planning a holiday in Paris. But the math is a lot different for regular day-to-day trips, and for that I do think the timetable is the primary product. My goal is to get from A to B, and do so 1) reliably, 2) quickly, and 3) affordably. I don't really care if this means taking the car, the bus, the underground, the train, my bicycle, or a ferry - I'll use whatever option is most convenient. If I'm only in/on there for 30 minutes, I could not care less for a scenic view. It matters far more whether there is a frequent service I can rely on, which doesn't involve half a dozen needless busy-work with transfers and endless waiting and anxiety for each connecting service. The more it acts like a taxi, the happier I am.
NoNameHaveI 1y ago
"The product of the railways is the successful arrival of passengers at their chosen destination." Clearly, this was not written in the USA. With a few exceptions (NE corridor, Wolverine route), Amtrak is forced to share rails with host freight (goods) railroads who could give a hoot about the expedient delivery of passengers. The Big 4 (BNSF, UP, CSX, NS) would rather just let their freight have priority and pay a minimal fine. Sadly, this will continue to be the case where Amtrak does not have their own right of way (NE Corridor, Wolverine).
- crote 1y ago
  The US is very much the exception, not the rule.
nitwit005 1y ago
I can make some guesses as to where the author lives, purely from their confidence that trains will keep to their schedule. People will still show up for trains that fail to meet their schedules. They just have to have a high enough frequency that you aren't sitting there for hours, or for there to simply be no other option.
ekjhgkejhgk 1y ago
Is anyone else getting bored with these "insights" which are flippant to the point of being rdiculous? Many things are necessary to have a "product", not just a timetable. Anyone can scribble a time table. I swear this is an industry. "I'm so insightful, don't forget to like and subscribe"
metalman 1y ago
the title, and the author, are uninformed railways are the most cost effective and resiliant means of terrestrial transportation. Rail networks have continued to function under the worst conditions of war and economic hardship. Railways main asset durring better times are there rights of way, which, when you look into it, exist in a special category of "no, No, NO, you cant move it or build on it, block it, or anything else" no matter how dissused it looks. which is to say that railways exist outside of time, and are in essence a physical manifestation of pragmatism, realism, whatever you want to call it, in these easy times, when people flirt with the "whens" and "whys", "wouldn't it be nices's" rather then songs extolling the great strength and worth of railroad ,trains, and the excitement that comes from people standing up under adversity and thriving get you some train songs in your feed, see what I mean

92 points by NaOH 1y ago

It's one product, sure. Arguably more important is standard time. Before the railways towns ran on local-noon time, so the railways and their timetables required time to be synchronized across regions.

immibis 1y ago
The most important product a train system offers is getting you from A to B.
- mschuster91 1y ago
  The GP is referring to the very early days of railway - only in 1840, the railway emergence led to standardized time [1] to make drafting timetables and schedules easier. The benefits and downsides are something that we still experience two centuries later, all thanks to the railways. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_time
  - immibis 1y ago
    And yet, the most important product provided by the railways is getting you (or stuff) from A to B.

dajonker 1y ago

That graphic from the Swiss Railways is absolutely wonderful https://sma-partner.com/storage/app/media/Dokumente/Netzgrafiken/2025-01-15_NGCH2025.pdf https://sma-partner.com/storage/app/media/Dokumente/Netzgraf...

globular-toast 1y ago
If I could find one like that for London I'd probably get it printed and hang it on my wall.
- deleted 1y ago
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- 6LLvveMx2koXfwn 1y ago
  Not quite but nearly: https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/travel-information/maps-of-the-national-rail-network/ https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/travel-information/maps-of-th...
bloak 1y ago
Nice, but I did one of the obvious things and looked for Geneva. Near the bottom left it says "Genève-Aéroport". Is that labelling the small portrait-format grey rectangle to the left of the larger landscape-format rectangle that should be labelled Genève-Cornavin?
- lmm 1y ago
  Yes. I guess the main station is considered obvious from context?
- telefun5463 1y ago
  Noticed it as well, it seems they forgot the Genève-Cornavin label indeed.
superpope99 1y ago
huh I find this totally incomprehensible. Is this easier to read if you spend a lot of time looking at wiring diagrams?
- brainwad 1y ago
  It's a technical diagram - it's really not supposed to be that comprehensible, but more of a reference. The passenger-facing publications use regular timetable layouts.
- 1718627440 1y ago
  Is it? What problems do you face?
- crote 1y ago
  As someone who spends a lot of time looking at wiring diagrams: not really. I think the concept of the map is neat (the arrival/departure times let you plan transfers!), but it is way too busy to be practical. It has at the same time too many details to give you a high-level overview, and not enough details for trip planning. For a general idea a map like [0] would be better: it shows the stations and track layouts, so it gives you a general feeling of where to go. Want to go from Utrecht to Zutphen? You'll have to go either over Arnhem or Amersfoort. Want to go from Amsterdam to Groningen, but there are issues in Zwolle? Yeah, you're screwed. For planning purposes a map like [1] is better: it shows you the actual services being run, with a vague indication of their frequency. It tells you that an issue in Alphen isn't a big issue for your journey from Utrecht to Leiden, as there are six trains an hour going Utrecht-Schiphol-Leiden. Want to go from Utrecht to Amsterdam? Don't bother planning, there are trains every 5 minutes. Want to go from Den Haag to Groningen? A direct connection is possible - but only once an hour, so don't be late or you risk having to transfer in Zwolle! But honestly? They are more for nerds than practical use. Transit planner apps are far easier to use, will be more accurate, and provide exactly the information which is relevant to your journey. [0]: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0e/f9/2b/0ef92b7c4f2cf4d1b0c1b723dea051d9.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0e/f9/2b/0ef92b7c4f2cf4d1b0c1... [1]: https://nieuws.ns.nl/download/c10b58e3-54fc-4577-bf95-931b03a1e12c/spoorkaart2025.pdf https://nieuws.ns.nl/download/c10b58e3-54fc-4577-bf95-931b03...
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globular-toast 1y ago

This is the way I like to think about problems. Essentially you start backwards from the problem and (hopefully) arrive at a solution. If at some point in the depths of abstraction you lose touch or forget what that original problem was, you've already failed. Building infrastructure for the sake of infrastructure is a good example of being completely out of touch. The problem was there weren't enough trains at the right time to the right places. The bridge builders clearly weren't thinking about that. In my work this often happens because of the XY problem. People ask for X, but in fact they need Y and X is just their proposed solution. This would be like people asking for a new train from Cambridge to London, but in fact they are really going to Oxford and were only using London to connect. There are also assumptions that even the most pedantic people don't mention all the time. If people ask for more comfortable seats on trains, they implicitly also mean at the right time. They don't mean a comfortable seat at 2:00 in the morning that takes 3x as long to get there. I've often thought some kind of daily meditation to remind yourself of what the problems are is useful. There are the "bedrock" problems (like the train timetable) that never change, and there is the specific problem you are trying to solve right now (like connecting Cambridge to Oxford). I think it's worth thinking about it every day lest you lose sight and build the bridge nobody needed.

hshdhdhehd 1y ago

He missed something. The train means you dont have to park. That is often a big advantage. Parking is expensive and stressful if there are not many spots. In a city the train system can probably get you closer to where you want to be. Especially if you dont want to pay top $ for parking. Parking in cities is also stressful with finding tbe entry on the correct one where you booked. And you miss the entry? Yep that is a one way street. Go round the block? No right turn? Satnav says 15 minutes to get back there again.

globular-toast 1y ago
If the only train was 6 hours before you needed to be there then you'd probably just deal with parking instead. The point isn't that the timetable is the only reason to use a train, it's that without a good timetable it really doesn't matter what other advantages it offers and planners need to keep this in mind at all times.
- Tade0 1y ago
  A while ago a train line that's around a kilometre from my place reopened after 20 years and I wanted to use it, as it would outright teleport me to the city centre in 8 minutes having no stops in between(vs 20min by tram), but it appears to depart every 1,5h on average and isn't very compatible with commuting.
  - hshdhdhehd 1y ago
    That could be great for a 9-5 job. Get the same train each day. Maybe grab dinner after work then get that 6pm train home. I like those anonomolies. Like a place that seems far from the city (maybe even completely outside and in a other city!) but due to some quirk there is a way to get some weird train or bus there very quickly.
    - Tade0 1y ago
      The very last train from that station departs at 10:38pm, meaning it leaves the central station at 10:30pm, arriving to a city 53km away ten minutes before midnight. You could almost have a nightlife with this, but somehow there's still a 1,5h gap during commuting hours.

the_gipsy 1y ago

Contrived conclusion: Given a good frequency, passengers can completely ignore schedules.

th0ma5 1y ago
Truly a wonderful revelation I had to stop reading the time table and see that it says every 15 minutes or so a bus will come during the times I'd expect it to, worst case 45, etc.
immibis 1y ago
In Berlin, in a large part of the city, the trains come every 4-5 minutes. You rarely need to check a timetable (and when you do, you'd rather check the app, which knows where the trains actually are, not just where they should be). You just show up at the station and wait for the next train.
richardwhiuk 1y ago
If trains are frequent enough, passengers do ignore schedules and just turn up. This is common on metro/subway/underground services.
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VBprogrammer 1y ago
Something which I only realised by watching a London Underground driver who was vlogging for a while (before he was asked to stop) is that, yes, the frequency of the trains is the main metric for customers. However, once things go off schedule it can have pretty acute consequences for drivers and operational staff. The timetables are built around having drivers at specific places at specific times who will have required breaks at certain times and a maximum allowable working time. The rolling stock itself needs to be where it's needed as well, it's easy for it to get bunched up behind a track circuit failure etc.
decimalenough 1y ago
Yes, that works great in dense cities that can justify running a train every 5 minutes. What sets Switzerland apart is that it can offer reliable, punctual service to tiny mountain villages that may only have a couple of trains a day, but those trains are carefully scheduled so that you can get there from Zurich or wherever with an absolute minimum of waiting around for your connections or fretting if you'll make it. (In the unlikely event that your train is a few minutes late, they will hold the connection.)

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dvdkon 1y ago

This is an interesting conclusion to a problem other countries are facing as well. The Czech Republic fully divided its railway infrastructure (under SŽ) and national train operator (ČD) sooner than most of the EU. SŽ being incompetent is a favourite topic of railway fans here, but most everyone agrees that this kind of split was for the best, at least for long-distance trains. Pretty soon after the railways were opened to non-state operators, quality of long-distance train routes improved, both by new trains by private operators and increased competition forcing ČD to improve. On regional railways, where the state pays for train operations, costs have gone down thanks to competition. It seems to me like this model can work well, you just need an infrastructure operator that's receptive to its "customers" (which SŽ often isn't), or a political structure that can force them to listen.

mschuster91 1y ago
> On regional railways, where the state pays for train operations, costs have gone down thanks to competition. German here. Yes, costs have gone down thanks to competition, but at what cost? IMHO, the cost of "competition" on regionals has been massive. A lot of infrastructure has had to be rebuilt (e.g. maintenance shops), a huge expense and waste of space (think about how long a regional train is - easily 150 meters [1], which means the shop has to be at least that long). Some operators chose to run with old, run-down rolling stock or go for the absolutely cheapest options. Others, and that has happened at least twice in the last few years, calculate their offers to be barely profitable and then a crisis (Covid, Russian invasion and energy cost explosion) hits, forcing the companies into bankruptcy. Cleanliness of trains, regular expulsion of toilets takes a hit as that's a very easy way to save a few hundred euros. In the case of demand surges (e.g. soccer games, Oktoberfest, Karneval), there's no way to ad-hoc add rolling stock and drivers because there are no spares and modern rolling stock isn't compatible with anything other than its specific model and configuration. And some regional tender processes have gotten even worse, where the state prescribes or outright buys the rolling stock... and suddenly the only way the providers can compete is staffing cost. Thanks but no thanks, I'd rather like the old system back! [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_Desiro_HC https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_Desiro_HC
- 1y ago

walthamstow 1y ago

I'm surprised the author doesn't mention that centralised time itself was a product of the railway. Prior to that, every town had its own time, London and Bristol were 20 mins apart. In order to have a central timetable, there had to be a central time.

zzbn00 1y ago
Yes, and it was a huge thing at the time. The social effects of all this time coordination and time tabling are one of the underlying themes of Stoker's novel Dracula.
- Juliate 1y ago
  And it's still a huge thing that shifted with the Internet too. Prior to it, yes, there was international phone lines, but those were still expensive enough you might ignore them. Before then, I'd say around start of the 90's in Europe, you did not represent yourself being in sync with someone, anyone abroad (but perhaps that started to become conceivable for people who could afford frequent international calls or travel). And that conditioned how you perceived your own time, the time of others, the events here and over there, and the effort you took into communicating long distance, through letters.
  - Symbiote 1y ago
    I was recently a guest staying at an elderly woman's large house. The room I slept in was full of junk, but what caught my eye were envelopes with stamps from the 1950s/1960s. The "From" name was the woman's late husband, and they were all from two African countries that were then part of the British Empire. I had heard her talk about when her husband was working in Africa, but until I saw the big pile of letters I hadn't considered that this was the only way the young couple could keep in contact when someone's work required long periods of international travel.
    - zzbn00 1y ago
      No need to go as far as Africa. Basic landline telephones spread into poorer/more rural parts of Europe only in 1980s and 1990s. Until then it was either taking the bus to see people in person, or sending a letter.... E.g. quick search revealed this pamphlet from 1988 Spain, showing that ~30% of households did not at time yet have a telephone: https://www.telefonica.com/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2021/08/1988_basic_telephone.pdf https://www.telefonica.com/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/202...

MomsAVoxell 1y ago

The product of the railways is the successful arrival of passengers at their chosen destination. The fact that this isn't obvious, and that instead the means by which that product is delivered is considered more important than the actual arrival of passengers, is very telling. This is a common issue in the technology world - too often, the actual end result is overlooked, for the sake of the means by which that product is produced. Your special organisational tricks mean nothing if the customer is left at the station, standing in the rain, hundreds of kilometres from home. The timetable doesn't get anyone home. The trains do. The timetable just describes the intent - it is a requirement which describes a service, not a product. The train is required to show up at that time, and by publishing it the train company is establishing agreement with its customers in an open and fair manner. A product is something which is produced, and the word 'product' describes, after the fact, that which was produced. A service is an act which is performed in support of producing something. Timetables are a service which are subservient to the fact of actually producing the desired result. I do not go to the train station to look at the services being promised delivery; I go to engage in the act of using that service, to gain my desired product: my ass at home, making a cuppa. Disclaimer: if you've taken a train in any one of 38 different countries around the world, chances are your safety has been being predicted by SIL4-level online tests I've written for that purpose ..

winternewt 1y ago
The article got off on the wrong foot from the start by separating the purpose from the product. To my mind the purpose is the product and always will be.
- crote 1y ago
  > To my mind the purpose is the product and always will be. A lot of industries would disagree with you. There are plenty of products where the physical form and direct purpose of the product itself is quite disjoint from the product they are actually selling. For example, Hermès doesn't sell bags to carry stuff in - they sell status symbols. Restaurants don't sell food for sustenance - they sell a dining experience. Car companies only tangentially sell modes of transportation - they are treated more like fashion items in practice. Items like wedding rings have zero purpose - what they are selling is a physical manifestation of an emotion. If everything we ever interacted with was 100% utilitarian, we'd be living in a very dull world.

Juliate 1y ago

It's an interesting take, and you may as well map it to industrial projects, architecture, software to see it from a different perspective. The timetable is the specs. The product is what your customers experience. The specs (loose or... very specific) is definitely a major product step. But in that it is a mean to deliver the service/experience in the end. Without the implementation details (that do not live in the spec), you get often unsatisfied people everywhere.

maelito 1y ago

In codeberg.org/cartes/serveur I'm building a stack to visualise transit plans using node-GTFS and setup and update a motis instance for transit calculations. Open source transit plans are under-developped. Almost everything still needs to be invented.

emersion 1y ago

There are open-source projects trying to replace older closed-source software used to produce these timetables: - Netzgrafik-Editor: https://github.com/OpenRailAssociation/netzgrafik-editor-frontend https://github.com/OpenRailAssociation/netzgrafik-editor-fro... - OSRD: https://osrd.fr/en/ https://osrd.fr/en/ (Disclaimer: I'm working on OSRD.)

jsdalton 1y ago

I simply don’t agree with the conclusion though I appreciate the approach to thinking about products. I recently chose to take the train vs driving and the factors behind that decision were: * Time, yes. Train was approximately the same but an actually a bit slower. * Cost. Train was slightly cheaper when looking at the true cost of driving. Also significantly cheaper than flying. * Experience. This is entirely overlooked in the timetable centric approach. Train is simply the most pleasant way to travel long distances (maybe ferry is competitive there). I was able to move around and get work done and enjoy the view. If the train company had swapped my train for a bus I would NOT have been a satisfied customer. * City center to city center (vs airport to airport). Had the train company said “we swapped the arrival location to the airport but technically we still got you to the city” I would NOT have been a happy customer. The “trains as timetables” hypothesis would imply that the train could meet my needs via something other than rail travel and would definitely lose me as a customer. On the other hand, improvements such as better wifi service (it was terrible and not sure why cell service is also poor on a train) or a route that was more scenic but did not impact my arrival time significantly would positively affect my likelihood of choosing train. So the better lesson is know your customer needs and know their specific jobs to be done and center your hypothesis around this.

crote 1y ago
I think a lot of that is colored by the fact that you were doing a long-distance trip. I would completely agree with your points if I were, say, living in Frankfurt and planning a holiday in Paris. But the math is a lot different for regular day-to-day trips, and for that I do think the timetable is the primary product. My goal is to get from A to B, and do so 1) reliably, 2) quickly, and 3) affordably. I don't really care if this means taking the car, the bus, the underground, the train, my bicycle, or a ferry - I'll use whatever option is most convenient. If I'm only in/on there for 30 minutes, I could not care less for a scenic view. It matters far more whether there is a frequent service I can rely on, which doesn't involve half a dozen needless busy-work with transfers and endless waiting and anxiety for each connecting service. The more it acts like a taxi, the happier I am.

NoNameHaveI 1y ago

"The product of the railways is the successful arrival of passengers at their chosen destination." Clearly, this was not written in the USA. With a few exceptions (NE corridor, Wolverine route), Amtrak is forced to share rails with host freight (goods) railroads who could give a hoot about the expedient delivery of passengers. The Big 4 (BNSF, UP, CSX, NS) would rather just let their freight have priority and pay a minimal fine. Sadly, this will continue to be the case where Amtrak does not have their own right of way (NE Corridor, Wolverine).

crote 1y ago
The US is very much the exception, not the rule.

nitwit005 1y ago

I can make some guesses as to where the author lives, purely from their confidence that trains will keep to their schedule. People will still show up for trains that fail to meet their schedules. They just have to have a high enough frequency that you aren't sitting there for hours, or for there to simply be no other option.

ekjhgkejhgk 1y ago

Is anyone else getting bored with these "insights" which are flippant to the point of being rdiculous? Many things are necessary to have a "product", not just a timetable. Anyone can scribble a time table. I swear this is an industry. "I'm so insightful, don't forget to like and subscribe"

metalman 1y ago

the title, and the author, are uninformed railways are the most cost effective and resiliant means of terrestrial transportation. Rail networks have continued to function under the worst conditions of war and economic hardship. Railways main asset durring better times are there rights of way, which, when you look into it, exist in a special category of "no, No, NO, you cant move it or build on it, block it, or anything else" no matter how dissused it looks. which is to say that railways exist outside of time, and are in essence a physical manifestation of pragmatism, realism, whatever you want to call it, in these easy times, when people flirt with the "whens" and "whys", "wouldn't it be nices's" rather then songs extolling the great strength and worth of railroad ,trains, and the excitement that comes from people standing up under adversity and thriving get you some train songs in your feed, see what I mean