My experience of German trains is one train arriving on time, to find my connection is delayed, but actually leaving earlier because the same train 1h before was 54 minutes late and I could get that instead.
I'm rather skeptic of this take. Railway operators provide services by reserving track sections and train stations in specific time windows which take into account travel speed and scheduling. Rail track capacity is typically reserved for periods of over a year. If german trains run on time in Germany and swiss trains run on time in Switzerland, then it sounds like germany's trains being delayed when entering swiss lines is an impedance problem caused by the way the swiss infrastructure manager is handling german trains.
A train that never arrives is not counted as delayed. About 30% of German trains do not arrive at their destination.
In Switzerland, the stats are single low percentage digits.
After multiple ultimatums, Switzerland stopped allowing German trains into Switzerland. The most popular connection between Switzerland and Germany (Zurich-Munich) has been kept but is now operated by Switzerland even though most of the ride is in Germany.
This is shameful and a lose-lose for all parties, but necessary.
This can be a lesson on how to run complex systems in general.
This is what Rail Baltica is going to be. The Baltics are using the Russian gauge, but RB will be using the standard gauge. And it won't be connected to the existing railway system. So if it all works out - we'll finally have a high-speed rail line from Tallinn to Warsaw,
> This can be a lesson on how to run complex systems in general.
This sounds like cargo culting. Japan has great train system, it has to be because of separate gauges!
Jevon's paradox [1] probably. The most profitable part of the rail system will grow to crowd out and interfere with the rest. By keeping it different gauges, they all operate independent of each other's incentives.
People read too much into this, it's mostly just historical reasons. Most slow Japanese rail has a quite narrow gauge which is less suitable for high speed trains. The interoperability benefit is limited since you typically won't want to operate both Shinkanzens and local trains on the same rail.
Having different gauges provides no real benefit. It's just that unifying gauges provides too little benefit to justify the massive investment required. I expect this to be the same for most other countries. (and for similar problems like different railway electrification systems within/across countries)
> Having different gauges provides no real benefit.
The only place it would be beneficial to have the same gauge would be at stations, to have fewer, more flexibile platforms and smaller train stations.
Unless you live in the Europe of Napoleon or Hitler, when they were built. Then the benefit is huge and obvious. Imagine how much easier the life would had been for Ukranians if the Russian trains that transport heavy army stuff would operate by default in a different rail width
Building a whole new infrastructure from the ground up, would not only be absurdly expensive, it would also be absurdly impractical and take literally 50 years if it would ever happen.
Yes, Japan is correct that sometimes, more separation is a good thing if your network can be simpler.
But at the same time you can't just reverse that and then conclude that 'lets make everything as different as possible' and believe that's somehow going to turn into an efficient system.
We can not just simply ignore 200 years of train history and evolution each countries system has. I'm all for learning from Japan, but we also can't and shouldn't just copy Japan.
https://www.seat61.com/trains-and-routes/berlin-to-warsaw-by...
The EU seemed (2021) to be working on it https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_...
Apparently, railway companies cannot make sites.
Both can be true at the same time.
Developing enough capacity to avoid non-blocking train systems and bunching is a difficult issue.
Good thing I left early in the morning because the later trains to Germany all got stuck in heavy snow downfalls. \o/
Trains in Poland work great, trains in Germany work pretty well but every train I've taken between Poland and Germany has been delayed. The standard thing is that while you're in Poland they claim the delay is because of previous delays in Germany and while you're in Germany they blame delays from Poland.
If you're trying to do something more advanced like get across Germany to Belgium or France & eventually the UK the it gets quite annoying.