Railway Story

 I read through a story from HR (our Hessen public TV network)....over local public transport (mostly railway segments).

For three years, the regional Bahn group has been reviewing plans to expand out the local train network. 

Their chief goal?  To handle 30-percent more passengers by 2030.

The key phrase they tend to use?  Efficiency.

If you've ever ridden around the Rhein Valley area (Mainz, Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Darmstadt, etc)....you'd tend to say that in the rush-hour period (7 AM to 9 AM, and later in the afternoon)....the trains are crammed full.  In some cases, I'd say one out of every four passengers are standing because there's no seating left.  Adding more cars?  Well....that's already been done. 

The general suggestion is that somehow....in this key rush-hour period....they might be able to add five or six more trains to the schedule, and not have 'conflicts' to occur.

I'm mostly shaking my head.  I've ridden on some of these crowded trains, and usually around one day out of twenty....because of maintenance problems....the whole network starts to shutdown.  What should be a simple 30-minute ride....then turns into a 75-minute ride.

This convincing act on being able to handle 30-percent more human traffic?  I consider it mostly bogus.  Maybe on paper, and in a perfect world.....it might all come together to make sense.  In this case of reality, you will simply convince people in five years that it makes no sense to ride a rail system that cannot function to the 9th degree.