Nobody really cares if a train is on-time. They care about the consequences of being late wherever it is they have to go. If transportation is generally unreliable across an entire country, then appointment times will be lax, nobody will be fired for being a few minutes late, your date won't decide they don't like you, etc. It's all about the surrounding expectations and how other people will treat you because of them. If Western European countries also had a culture of no hard timelines and schedules only being suggestions, then people who lived there wouldn't get stressed over a late train.