> The other advantage of rail is that rail is generally less affected by weather
That one does certainly depend on the amount of money the rail operator(s) invest in maintenance and upkeep, as well as how much area on the sides of the track they bought. In Germany, rail has three major issues with weather:
- during cold times, railroad switches freeze because they lack heatings and so they become stuck, and special maintenance teams have to be at standby across the country (source: was part of such a team for one season, well paid but shit that was cold)
- during storms, stuff gets blown onto the rail. Mostly dead trees, the problem is when the area next to the rails didn't get cleaned up (trees so high that they could fall into the rails are cut to a safe height or removed altogether). This can be caused either by a lack of upkeep - or because the surrounding area is not owned by the train operator
- during hot periods, the running gag in Germany is "how many trains will fuck up today?". The trains are either not properly maintained (due to a lack of funds) or simply have not been ordered with strong enough air conditioners.
tl;dr: getting rail immune from weather-related influences takes serious money. The Swiss and Japanese railroads did the proper investments and thus have next to zero weather related problems, the German railroads are seen as a cash cow ready to be milked by the politicians, consequences be damned.
As you say, rail systems aren't immune to weather.
But the German experience is that lack of funding is usually exaggerated as a reason. It's caused by many things, but mostly underappreciated is zoning, eminent domain (or lack thereof) as well as just basic technology.
The three main reasons for delays in Germany are:
1) suicides (up to two per day in the whole of Germany)
2) trees/branches falling on cables/tracks
3) train system overheating
Also rail is affected by
4) catastrophes that are happening next to the tracks: As rail tracks usually are next to industrial areas a burning industrial plant usually brings all train traffic to halt.
5) Germany being densely populated: Cars get stuck on crossings and trucks get stuck under rail bridges constantly.
6) forced interruptions, e.g. by people who steal power lines.
(4), (5) and (6) have nothing to do with rail funding. (1) Suicides are not caused by a lack of funding. (3) System collapses are caused by money restraints, but those trains were designed decades ago and the Bahn usually manages heating issues pretty well by shutting off single wagons.
On 2 (wood interrupting trains): A problem that would disappear if the Bahn could enforce a buffer zone around its tracks, where trees are to be cut off. But due to environmentalists, noise and zoning restrictions, the Bahn has to play gardener and spend millions on cutting trees each day.
> (4), (5) and (6) have nothing to do with rail funding.
Oh yes they do. There is a total lack of redundancy in the German network, which was only recently shown when that Rheintalbahn tunnel caved in during construction and took out the major traffic artery above for months.
1) Suicides: they can be prevented by walling off the tracks, which is thankfully done for the new high speed routes and as rework to existing routes. In addition to preventing suicides these also prevent wildlife accidents (a herd of sheep, for example, caused an ICE to derail in a tunnel once).
Ad 5) this could be solved by removing at-level crossings (and remotely supervising those which cannot be removed) and by reworking those bridges that get often hit by cars. This is a lack of funding.
Ad 6) walling off the tracks would help there too. Or providing enough rail service even at nighttimes...
Hey your problems are too serious, in France, each autumn, we'll get delays because of tree leaves on the tracks! (in addition to the cold/storm/hot problems) From what I understood, the leaves increase braking distances, so the trains have to be slowed.
> in France, each autumn, we'll get delays because of tree leaves on the tracks!
Yeah we get these too, but that's just delays, not the complete shutdown of the entire country's railroad system for sometimes days like last autumn after storm Xavier.
I think I was lucky since I avoided the worst of the latest storm. I just had a lot of delays on my first day of work this year: they had a tree fallen on the tracks, but they had managed to keep a few trains rolling.
That one does certainly depend on the amount of money the rail operator(s) invest in maintenance and upkeep, as well as how much area on the sides of the track they bought. In Germany, rail has three major issues with weather:
- during cold times, railroad switches freeze because they lack heatings and so they become stuck, and special maintenance teams have to be at standby across the country (source: was part of such a team for one season, well paid but shit that was cold)
- during storms, stuff gets blown onto the rail. Mostly dead trees, the problem is when the area next to the rails didn't get cleaned up (trees so high that they could fall into the rails are cut to a safe height or removed altogether). This can be caused either by a lack of upkeep - or because the surrounding area is not owned by the train operator
- during hot periods, the running gag in Germany is "how many trains will fuck up today?". The trains are either not properly maintained (due to a lack of funds) or simply have not been ordered with strong enough air conditioners.
tl;dr: getting rail immune from weather-related influences takes serious money. The Swiss and Japanese railroads did the proper investments and thus have next to zero weather related problems, the German railroads are seen as a cash cow ready to be milked by the politicians, consequences be damned.