The obsession is not just with stations;everything is bigger over there. My first visit to the US, I was traveling from Japan. The difference in size of things in the two countries is uncanny. From people to cars to food;my impression was Americans like it bigger.
People living in Japan are used proper train boarding and exiting - they stand on the correct entry markers and the train doors will be on these markers once it stops. In the same manner no one blocks the exit markers and people stand in the queue behind the train door ready to disembark quickly.
Only this makes the 90 second Shinkansen stops possible as well as the 3 minute cadence between trains we saw in Hiroshima station possible. Not only is the platform used very efficiently, there is even a small Soba restaurant in the middle of the platform! :)
In comparison here in Europe (CZ) the trains are usually late and you migh only lern the platform couple minutes before the train arrives - and it might even change at the last minute! There are no door markers and trains stop preatty much at random somewhere at the platform. Most traincars still have stairs and people are not used to proper queueing, so they form a fan around every door that blocks people from quickly getting eiter in or out.
The trains are also slow (160 km/h max on parts of track and on a good day) and mostly not EMUs, so you have platform space used up by the locomotive. Oh well.
Please don't generalise all of Europe based on circumstances in a single country.
In the three European countries I'm most familiar with, at least some types of train stop in a consistent position, with platform markings and queuing.
Isn't that because of the obvious - Americans generally are bigger than Japanese people and America is bigger than Japan? I'm not sure it's a preference as much as an adjustment.
I suppose I'm destined to wander around my small(er than most other places in the world) Japanese flat, with fittings made for someone much shorter than I am even though I'm average height in my own country, and ponder on the existence of downvotes for a fairly innocuous musing.
Perhaps I should leave comments like "Japanese people just like things smaller because when I was there everything was so small" and not notice that they have a lack of space and are on average, smaller, hence the need for space saving measures and smaller fittings, or is that just one more, in my opinion, fairly innocuous musing that must not be stated… maybe it's just me? Maybe.[1][2]
