And London runs like a clock as compared to Rome or Paris which are more like ballpark suggestions rather than a schedule.

It really depends on the line/station. For example, the trains leaving Montparnasse are nearly always on time.

The rail schedule in Paris is just a guy smoking a Gauloises and shrugging.

Here in Ireland it's you, sitting at a bar, waiting for a pint of Guinness to settle.

As you stare deeper into the rising, darkening mist of the pint, you edge ever closer to it. Until the darkness obscures all else in your view.

The LUAS and DART aren’t half bad if you’re in Dublin at least.

The Luas is frequent which makes up for a lot, but the schedule is given as (every X minutes) and often misses that due to sharing with road traffic for large parts of the track.

Still better than bus eireann, where if you're getting on in the last 25% of the route, the timetable is often every hour, +/- 30 minutes, which means there could be a bus at any time and it's not likely to be the scheduled time.