In this case, it's annoying because you'll have missed a semi-rapid and the next comparable train to Tsukuba will leave 9 minutes later and arrive 17 minutes later.
It's not a 40 minute thing, this isn't Caltrain, but it's still annoying.
I loved (not really) how sometimes on Caltrain, if the trains were delayed, you could get on a delayed train after you had planned to travel, and get home sooner than if the trains had been running on time.
The same often happened when I travelled by train in Ontario (Canada) where the trains shared the line with freight service, and so sometimes a train was poorly timed such that it always had to wait for freight to clear first. In those cases, if a train was delayed, the delay occurred at the station such that by the time the train left the station, the freight had already cleared and the time spent on the train was less than it normally would be. Also, delays often meant the train had fewer passengers, so it would stop for less time at each stop... am I on the right track? ;-)
The freight reason is not it. If the freight got out of the way at the same time it normally would, you would decrease your travel time, but arrive at your destination no earlier than a normal arrival.
The second reason is closer, but not exact. Caltrain has a variety of different types of trains, some stop at all the stops, some stop at only a few. Here's the scenario: there is a fast train then a slow train. Your normal schedule doesn't allow you to get to the station on time to take the fast train, so you normally take the slow train. If both trains are behind schedule, you might be able to make it to the fast train, and since it goes faster you might get to your destination earlier than normal.
The frustrating thing of course, is that even if the trains are severely delayed, they have (or had, depending on whether they go out of business soon) a policy of running the exact schedule for each train as if normal. So even if all the trains are piled up, delayed, they would make local stops, etc. even though everyone wanted just to get to the end by express.
Sad that this kind of issue was so common (1x per month at least) that I blame them for not having efficient accident backup plans.
Yes, yes, I realize that there's the problem of having trains go express when they're all stacked up.
I once changed trains to take an express (skipping stops), realized I’d left my laptop on the first train, got off at the next express stop and waited for the slowpoke, and got my laptop!
could make different stops. Not stop as many times. I had to watch out for that when riding the commuter rail in boston. Make sure to get on the right train, or you won't get your stop
Why don't they just build out BART between Millbrae and Santa Clara? Once the Silicon Valley Extension is finished, BART will be almost a loop around the Bay except for that gap.
One reason that extending BART down the peninsula is a non-starter is the political power of the owners of hundreds of properties that you’d have to eminent-domain and knock down.
Plus the fact that the citizens (through their representatives) voted against it decades ago, so it was removed from the original plan. Given the current fuss among the citizenry over similar problems with running the nascent high-speed rail up the Caltrain corridor, I’d guess a vote today on BART would have the same outcome.
> One reason that extending BART down the peninsula is a non-starter is the political power of the owners of hundreds of properties that you’d have to eminent-domain and knock down.
Couldn't they build a tunnel? With a tunnel, the requirements for eminent domain would be relatively limited (portals, station entrances, maybe some ventilation/utility buildings)
Sydney, Australia's new metro system which is being built relies mostly on tunnels (plus some conversion of existing surface lines, and elevated rail in outer suburban areas where land is relatively cheap). Sydney's metro area (5.2 million) isn't hugely larger than the Bay Area's (4.7 million).
Tunneling in the US is massively expensive, which is a huge problem for infrastructure projects. There have been some previous posts on exactly this topic ("why do projects in the US cost so much?").
And we are out of money / unwilling to pay for such projects. Australia is still relatively swimming in its natural resource boom and has funds to do that. And political willingness to invest in public transportation that's clean and efficient.
In California, public transport seems to be relegated to the status of a homeless mobility system / shelter, that most people reluctantly take and have to wonder why it's so badly operated. I don't think the idea will get far to tunnel under the rest of the peninsula. We can't even sort out the remaining 1 mile of Caltrain that was planned to connect to downtown SF and the Transbay center.
Aside from that, I believe there's a groundwater level problem under most of the places where such a line would go? I'm not an expert on that though.
> And we are out of money / unwilling to pay for such projects. Australia is still relatively swimming in its natural resource boom and has funds to do that.
On a per capita basis, the US is richer than Australia. According to 2019 IMF estimates, US's nominal GDP per capita is US$65,111 (ranked 7th), Australia's nominal GDP per capita is only US$53,825 (ranked 10th) [1]. Similarly, the US's PPP GDP per capita (2020 IMF estimates) is US$67,426 (ranked 10th), while Australia's is only US$54,799 (ranked 19th) [2].
The US is a richer country than Australia in both relative (per capita GDP) and absolute (overall GDP) terms (and both nominally and at PPP). If Australia can afford tunnels, why can't a richer country like the US afford them too? (Especially in the Bay Area Peninsula, which is one of the wealthiest areas in the whole of the US.)
But the important other factor is government debt.
Australia's national debt is less than 1/2 of the US's in terms of % of GDP. (US has basically 100% of its annual GDP in debt). Australia has a lot more room to consider big projects as a result.
I think a lot of people have an excessive fear of government debt, especially given how low interest rates are nowadays. Countries (including the US) should be borrowing more to stimulate their COVID-afflicted economies.
Putting that aside, a common trick used in countries like Australia and the UK is to keep big projects off the government's balance sheet through public-private partnerships – private corporations do most of the borrowing, not the government, and end up owning the infrastructure (often under some deal where it reverts to government ownership in 50 or 100 years time). But I get the impression that approach is far less common in the US. (Despite the fact that it is the more capitalist/free-market approach – allow private investors to own public infrastructure – and the US is generally thought of as a more capitalist/free-market country than the UK or Australia are.)
Public-private partnerships are often criticised as being inferior to government borrowing, due to higher private sector borrowing costs, and I agree with that criticism. But, even though I think it is best to build with government borrowing, if one has a government debt allergy preventing that, then building with private borrowing seems better than not building at all.
It's not a 40 minute thing, this isn't Caltrain, but it's still annoying.