Reply With QuoteWhat would never happen? Leaving early or a rail company apologising? ;)
"A rail company in Japan has apologised after one of its trains departed 20 seconds early."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-42009839
Would never happen here.
What would never happen? Leaving early or a rail company apologising? ;)
With every train running late, leaving early is physically impossible....
Public transport in Japan is phenomenal.
If your train is late you get a full refund, not sure what the situation is if it's early...
And if top gear is to be believed, a letter for your boss explaining your tardinessOriginally Posted by al1991
As a commuter on South Western trains this story made me laugh. Then I cried.
Do you mean Waterloo based South Western Railway’s as it’s been rebranded?
Shocking at the moment. This franchising and bidding doesn’t work, barely adequate South West Trains losing the bidding process to dreadful South Western Railways.
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This is quite true. “The train was late” is a near-fantastical excuse in Japan and thus requires written evidence.
In india one time, waiting for an express train. Express trains in india are the pride of the network, and timekeeping is pretty good compared to the rest of the services.
So the train is pulling up to the station and the announcement says 'those of you waiting for the express train, please don't get on it, as it is yesterday's express train that is running 24 hours late'.
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
That was the thing I found when attending a first training course in Germany; the first 20 minutes of each day didn't involve people recounting their seat-of-the-pants, Plane, Trains & Automobile-style journey to the venue. They just got there. On time.
In the Sotadic Zone, apparently.
... and that with 1,4 million employees! No typo.
I had high hopes when I travelled through Switzerland by train. 'Like a Swiss watch' used to be an expression overhere in Holland, regarding the Swiss railways. Well, not in real life. In fact it's disappointing. On different occasions (winter and summer), using more than one train, none of these trains arrived on time or left the station on time. The scenery was stunning so I could live with the disappointment. Btw, I was impressed by their attitude towards snow and sleet: shovels, heated rails etc.
Menno
I was once on the Narita Express from downtown Tokyo to the airport and about half way it stopped...no explanation and after five minutes the younger Japanese got their phones out and started watching telly and stuff and the older folks were clearly getting irritated..after 20 minutes there was nearly a riot amongst the older generation and luckily we commenced the journey before somebody was murdered! Being late was clearly not part of the vocabulary of the older Japanese (40+). I thought it was highly amusing at the time and when I got to the airport sent a message to the Japanese office boss who worked for me along the lines of "so much for Japans efficiency and great rail network etc...." - first of all he didn't believe me, thought it was an English joke and then once he realised I was being truthful he was mortified, called me straight away to apologies on behalf of Japan etc.. So they take this stuff seriously. I never did find out what caused it to stop and wish I'd known about that refund..bit late now! Other than that event though and the inability of me to navigate the various lines with any success, they do have a great system.
Keith
Was on a self guided holiday using the railway there recently. Was worried beforehand as some of my connections were a little tight, but everything runs to the minute so no probs
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This does actually happen. It's rare - as things are basically on-time without exception - but works well.
It's actually a superbly useful situation when travelling far outside the main cities, and station names are no longer in our alphabet (as they are in Tokyo centre). If the ticket says you will arrive at 15:02, go to platform 3, and get on another train at 15:17, you can do exactly that and know you are getting off at the right station, and getting onto the correct next train. If I tried that here.....maybe a 1 in 10 chance I'd end up where I thought I was going to! :-) But do that in Japan all the time. Takes a bit of getting used to, but absolutely reliable.
Agreed, super efficient and never late or delayed
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