I just found this [0] paper about the development of the Tsukuba Express, one of the more recent train lines into central Tokyo.

Land owners whose land is taken away are given new plots of land that are smaller, but closer to stations. These smaller plots are worth more than the original land because they are now near (future) train stations.

[0] http://www.wctrs-society.com/wp-content/uploads/abstracts/ri...

That's really clever idea, no wonder they can get it to work, thanks for the article!

BTW, that's something else I noticed in Japan - train stations are almost always hubs of commercial and often also cultural activity - there are shops, hotels, good restaurants and often also galleries, event spaces, monuments and even the buildings themselves are often architectonic masterpieces (for example JR Kyoto station, just check it out!). This definitely helps with passenger numbers and keeps the whole thing sustainable not to mention profitable.

In comparison Czech & Slovak railway stations (Prague, Brno, Bratislava) are often run down, dirty, fregvented by questionable people who aren't going to ride the trains and any shops or food places are cheap low quality ones. As a result one tries to spend as little as possible on these train station, let alone spend there any money for the few sub-par amenities available.

It's really strange why it is like this, given the missed commercial opportunities, seems to be much better in other european countries (Vienna, Eindhoven, etc.).

In Japan, the train companies own the land immediately around the station to develop themselves, so the incentives line up to provide both good transportation service and things people actually need near the stations.

I feel like all these urban-Japan examples are more "only in the most densely populated places" rather than "even". If demand is high enough then you can absolutely support multiple competing routes: they all get enough passengers to survive, and the denser coverage is beneficial. It's when you get a bit further out and into smaller or less dense areas that it starts to get tricky -- different private railways end up complementary to each other as they serve different suburbs but are the only railway for most of the places they serve.

"yes, but:" the lines don't provide the same service along their path. Just because you can get from some point in Tokyo to NRT airport on 3 different services doesn't mean that these 3 services are competing on everything else. Same for the different lines and companies in other places.

I would actually consider this an odd example of "long-range" transport.