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Comment by aix1 | Hacker News Reader

What they do is very interesting, though IMO "refuse to enter the country" sounds harsher than it actually is.

If an inbound German train is late to Basel by more than 20 minutes, the Swiss run their own substitute train from Basel (they keep rolling stock on standby). The replacement train runs to the original timetable so that local passengers are unaffected. The late train is then pulled out of service at Basel (there are frequent onward connections).

They do something similar at Schaffhausen.

Trains that are late into St. Margrethen are made to queue behind local traffic.

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That sounds like an excellent solution for locals.

But it also seems very inefficient because of the need to keep rolling stock in reserve, ready to go just in case. That’s a lot of maintenance, staff, and machine time to burn.

> But it also seems very inefficient because of the need to keep rolling stock in reserve, ready to go just in case. That’s a lot of maintenance, staff, and machine time to burn.

Considering how often the Deutsche Bahn isn't on time (I say this as a German), the SBB should have use for this rolling stock nearly all the time - so it's rather efficient. :-)

It was the locals who decided that it was worth the extra hassle and expense (and that doing the same thing at St. Margrethen wasn't).

There was probably a referendum at some point. :)

I am not sure whether the stats are comparable, but I read somewhere that about half of Deutsche Bahn trains are late into Basel (and there are many trains a day). While I don't know this for a fact, it wouldn't surpise me if patterns of delays are relatively predictable and can be planned for.

There was some talk about just ending those routes at Basel at some far-away point in the future, but I'm not sure if that's something that's been decided.

Inefficient compared to what? DB being on time is not an alternative that the Swiss can choose.

That inefficiency is the very reason, why the Swiss have a more reliable network. The DB used to have all these inefficiency too and was reliable. Then they decided to cut all that and that's the current state now.

Personally I think that there is no "real inefficiency", the money just achieves something else, that you don't consider the goal yet. Sometimes that is making someone else richer, sometimes that is making the system more reliable in ways you couldn't plan.

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