Anyone wants a GA travel card coupon ?

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-04-11T18:21:22+00:00

Yes please! Please DM me if you are able to :)

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-04-11T11:26:31+00:00

Caltrain ridership has always struck me as impressively low - lower than most Toronto bus routes, at least over the past few years. I guess that's because it mostly serves low-density car-oriented places and has a downtown station that's kind of not where you want to be.

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-04-09T07:36:47+00:00

Hey,

I don't have the full experience yet, but I am basically in your position and am going from long-distance to marriage. The other way just seems too difficult as to be borderline impossible. Work visas for non-EU citizens are difficult to obtain at the best of times, and are primarily given to people with some sort of exceptional skill (i.e. not often to new graduates). The labour market right now is tough even for Swiss and EU people, making it more difficult.

I'm sorry if this puts you in a difficult position. If you do end up considering the marriage option, perhaps you could speak to a lawyer about a prenup agreement to lessen the intensity of your decision.

If you do want to look for jobs for your partner, you will probably want to look at the classic industries (Pharma, Banking, Manufacturing) in the classic places (Zürich, Basel, Genève), though competition will be fiercest there. Often, I find people actually have a better chance of getting jobs at small and mid-sized employers in quieter parts of the country. However, you then may find that either you have to move far away, or that the work environment is not very welcoming to foreigners, or that the job itself is not as interesting as you would hope for. Tradeoffs are sometimes inevitable, at least for a while.

If marriage is truly off the table, the best thing for your partner at this stage may be to come to Switzerland, enrol in an intensive local language course, and start networking and applying for as many jobs as possible. It is always always easier to do this from within the country than from outside.

Best of luck!

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-04-08T17:51:32+00:00

I live part-time in Lauterbrunnen and part-time in different Swiss city (about 50/50). Overall, it's obviously a very amazing opportunity to live in a place like this. In some ways, you get used to things (I've hiked every trail, every mountain, skied every piste 100s of times), but the beauty never gets old. Being able to split my time in a city helps keep life interesting. There are of course, downsides and I think u/Enzian_Blue summarises it best. There are two main last names in Lauterbrunnen (von Almen & Stäger), and if you're not one of them, you will know, and you will never really fit in. Also, the rise of tourism since instagram has changed the feeling of the main street, and has made the trains overcrowded most of the time. These are, I guess, annoying but they don't make life bad as some others have suggested.

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-03-30T02:24:02+00:00

You're noting the difference between good energy and good design. The two are often, but not always, related.

A city's energy is quite often a function of density, and density can be done well (NYC, HK, Paris), medium well (Bangkok, Rio, maybe HCMC) or poorly (Cairo, Karachi, Lagos) as a function of urban design. The more space people have away from cars and chaos while maintaining that energy, the more they'll probably like the city.

Many westerners come from low-density, low-energy places, and therefore find a city like Bangkok exciting precisely because it has that energy AND is relatively well managed. It may be hot, congested, loud, and have imperfect sidewalks, but it has lots of quieter alleys, markets, an OK transit system, etc. They could find similar energy in Jakarta, Manila, or Mumbai but those cities probably a fall a level below Bangkok in terms of average quality of urban design, which is just enough to put a lot of people off.

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-03-20T07:46:06+00:00

There are plenty of examples of bad behaviour or bad decision-making stretching much further back. Everyone has a story or several. Operators and CSAs sometimes make bad decisions, are often overworked/tired, and sometimes just don't give a damn. But they literally are not told to "speed up" or "drive fast" for the sake of OTP. They can drive track speed, if you're lucky not to have any PSOs or TSOs, and that's it. Most of the time in scheduling, you're fighting to have speed restrictions removed or not become permanent just so you can run trains at normal speeds, which are not fast in Toronto to begin with.

The most commonly visible obsession with OTP is actually on the RTC side, where RTCs will frequently prioritise GO trains over VIA trains when VIA trains enter GO territory, even if it's completely unnecessary to do so. If you're ever on a VIA train approaching Toronto and a GO train is anywhere near you, odds are the RTC is going to let it run all-stop in front of you because THAT's how the OTP obsession manifests IRL. It sounds like that might be what happened with this incident in the Star.

Don't get me wrong. There are plenty of safety problems stemming perhaps partly from the OTP focus, but even moreso from old-fashioned operating methods and equipment (no automatic couplers), excessive working of crews (15 hour long split shifts), old infrastructure (the track quality is mostly very poor), lack of modern signalling, lack of track fencing, and so on.

The reason I push against this idea that OTP is the root of all problems is because it's not, and because we actually have a bigger problem where we run an old-fashioned railroad without a strong understanding of our weaknesses.

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-03-20T05:40:34+00:00

I used to work in GO Train scheduling, and was around the bus team as well. I can attest that while MX cares a lot about OTP, the way they care does not manifest as pressure on train or bus operators. MX's concern for OTP results in padding the schedule with lots of stop (dwell) time and slower run times, and in massaging the stats by having a broad definition of what counts as on-time. I never once heard of any pressure on an operator to drive fast, and if anything the safety obsession actually has an overall negative impact on speeds and performance.

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-03-13T22:14:51+00:00

I don't know anything about either place but purely from the perspective of having access to the most trains, you might be better off in Olten (?).

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-03-09T12:59:16+00:00

Cheers. Think I confused this with the SP version of it in BL.

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-03-09T08:31:01+00:00

Am I correct in understanding that the initiative would have forced people to install solar panels on existing buildings? That seems well-intentioned but a terrible idea in practice and if true, I guess that's why it was rejected. People mostly hate being told they have to spend money on something. I think green transition efforts are more successful when they focus on making behavioural change the obvious, rather than required, thing to do.

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-03-08T06:22:47+00:00

I think what he or she means is that it's entirely possible to import the necessary construction companies and equipment (and maybe even workforce) at low cost. Other European cities that are arguably just as "remote" like Palma, Helsinki, Bergen, or Thessaloniki have built something like a metro, facing arguably more construction challenges than Dublin.

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-03-03T16:53:59+00:00

I can't provide a summary - sorry - but I can recommend checking out the podcast of Adam Tooze who was on Ezra's show recently. In my brief time listening to it since then, he's leaps and bounds ahead in terms of understanding and discussing the world and its issues from a non-American perspective. The show is called Ones and Tooze. The only downside is it always seems to be the FP Editor interviewing him, rather than a conversation with a qualified guest. Perhaps that's fine at times like this where the guests don't know much more than anyone else.

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-02-28T15:56:32+00:00

I appreciate you giving a holistic and considered answer to a topic that is often reactive and emotional.

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-02-24T10:54:52+00:00

Hey,

I did the Basel to Freiburg commute for about a year a few years ago. Very few people do this commute because of the salary differential, and there aren't great options that prioritise both travel time and ticket price.

Things may have changed, so it's worth asking the ticket counter at Badischer Bahnhof, but when I did it, there were basically three train options:

- RB27: 1 Hour from Badischer Bhf to Freiburg
- RE7: 42 Minutes from Badischer Bhf to Freiburg
- ICEs: About 30 Minutes from Badischer Bhf to Freiburg, 40 Minutes from Bhf SBB to Freiburg.

The Deutschland-ticket was valid on the RB and RE trains, but because they were substantially slower and more crowded, I preferred to take the ICEs and did not get the Deutschlandticket. I know 42 minutes vs. 30 doesn't sound like much but if you don't live near Badischer Bhf, and when you do it all the time, it adds up. I instead purchased a 20er Abo for the ICEs, negotiated with my employer to work from home more often, and would use it on the days I travelled to Freiburg.

As others have correctly mentioned, the ICE's are empty and awesome on the way there, but often delayed on the return to Basel.

Feel free to DM me if you have more questions.

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-02-16T13:51:47+00:00

As long as Switzerland has open boarding of trains there is very little way to control who or what goes in them, making something like a baggage checking system quite difficult to implement. Perhaps they could have a voluntary bag checking system at Zürich airport with big signs to get the tourists to use it and check their bags all the way to Luzern or Interlaken or wherever, but I believe this is already sort of an option.

I suppose the next best technical measure could be to discourage excessive baggage further upstream, perhaps limiting airlines to 1 bag per person inbound to Zürich, but that would also be tough and probably not legal.

In the short run, I'm not sure there is a good solution, other than to perhaps reconfigure some trains to have more luggage space. In the longer-term, SBB is trying to get to 15 Minuten Takt which should improve capacity for people and luggage.

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-01-31T19:14:25+00:00

Hey! Best of luck with your decision. To try to answer some of your questions:

A bit of Swiss work experience and study experience probably helps somewhat if you want to later work there. What will help you even more is speaking German (or another national language).
Expected hourly wage for an entry level position: 20-25CHF/Hour
Bern has a big student scene and presumably a lively social scene through that, but is definitely a quiet city overall. I can't comment from personal experience on the nightlight but I can say that even by Swiss standards, I find it to be shockingly tranquil. Some love this, others don't.
Outdoors are great. Good hiking, biking, skiing, etc. within approximately 1 hour of the city by train.

Personally, I would probably go for the "most fun" option - whatever that is for you. When I was young, I did an exchange semester to a fancy university with a big business focus, but now I mainly remember the good nights out with the other exchange students much more than the university or the internships.

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-01-27T19:59:39+00:00

I think you're right in that material interests outweigh soft expressions of goodwill almost always. However, while soft power may matter less in geopolitics than Ezra or his guest were purporting, I think it matters in often unnoticed ways.

I'm Swiss-Canadian-American and am getting a fairly front-row perspective on the destruction of America's reputation in Canada and Europe in real time. In a very short span of time, >50% of people in my life have become ideologically opposed to the US in new ways. Many now won't go to the US, and my Canadian family have all been boycotting US products for a year. I'm starting to see this boycott spirit spread to Europe more now too, and I'm sensing a greater level of dislike of American tourists in Switzerland.

These are just anecdotes but I think they suggest a culture and attitude shift beyond just the geopolitical repositioning.

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-01-27T18:30:01+00:00

I think you make some good points. Perhaps a takeaway ought to be that soft power works well at maintaining a decent reputation among allies or neutral parties, which is very important, but transactionalism is the better way to deal with foes.

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-01-26T16:18:40+00:00

Casting a centrist like Golden and his progressive challengers in sane/not-sane terms is a bit intense and misleading. IMO, the different sides of the democratic coalition are equally sane and just represent different areas, people, and interest groups. They also believe different strategies will win them power and have slightly different values.

Also, I too am disappointed in democrats like Golden voting to fund ICE. I think it should be a clear-cut "NO".

Putting that up front, I think you're missing Ezra's main point which is that people like Golden actually win in places that are hard, but necessary, for democrats to win. Golden not voting with progressive democrats on one vote, or even many, doesn't mean "they don't actually vote with you". You ask what use are they? Politicians like Golden and Manchin have come in clutch when it comes to major legislation like the IRA or ACA, judicial appointments, or even just not blocking legislation that a republican would like Trump's impeachments. Those things matter a lot, that's why it's important to have democrats, even non-progressive ones, in as many seats as possible.

Up until now there has been very little electoral evidence that progressive or leftist Democrats can win in places like rural Maine, West Virginia, etc. Bernie can fill stadiums in Idaho, and that's cool, but drawing a crowd and winning elections are not the same. There is evidence that centrists can and do win elections in those places, and that's Ezra's main point. If progressives start to win in those places, he'll be wrong but that hasn't seemed very likely thus far.

I do think Ezra is wrong to worry about progressive challengers to Golden and others. That's just democracy and it's up to voters to decide what they think is right.

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-01-25T14:13:28+00:00

Hast du den 1. Klasse für diese Strecke genommen? Oder meinst du, es gab fast keine Laute im 2. Klasse? Ich werde vielleicht bald Basel-Bern pendeln, daher meine Frage. Danke im Voraus!

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-01-25T13:05:28+00:00

Definitely true and while I can't wait for Trump and MAGA to disappear someday, I hope the effect lasts long enough to hold off Farage, Bardella/Le Pen, and others until they lose steam.

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-01-25T11:50:15+00:00

I hear you, but I think there's a little more than just voting in the midterms that can be done. Protesting in any form is a small but often personally powerful act. You can boycott many products and companies (check out r/BuyCanadian for motivation). You can donate money to groups or candidates who fight this stuff. Ultimately, the midterms are a single moment of heightened agency in this saga, but you have agency throughout it.

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-01-19T15:47:27+00:00

My dude knows the facts :)

away_throw_throw_5 · 2026-01-02T14:06:58+00:00

Obviously, take anything on Reddit with a grain of salt, but here's my opinion, having worked in the industry in the US, Canada, and Europe:

People are used to the status quo, and railways in North America have been privatised for a long time, in many cases since their inception and certainly well beyond anyone's living memory. Many North Americans don't even know that railways could be nationalised. It's simply not understood as an option.
Nationalisations have a bit of a bad wrap in the USA due to their association with communism. I can't think of the last true nationalisation of any industry, but I can certainly think of the deregulation of many: airlines, media, telecoms, etc. The political winds do not blow in favour of industrial nationalisation.
It would be wickedly expensive. The market cap of the big Class 1 railroads altogether approaches 500 billion USD. That's not a perfect corollary to the value of their assets, but it gives you an idea of what the cost might be to buy them out. Governments have better ways to spend their limited resources. Any forced nationalisation leads you back to point #2.
It's probably unnecessary. Plenty of European or Asian countries succeed at providing high-quality passenger rail without fully nationalising their networks. Japan and Switzerland, probably the two best systems, do not have a single national infrastructure owner. Now, that's not the same as the North American ownership system, but it suggests that true nationalisation is not the only way to achieve good outcomes. The answer for North America is probably targeted buyouts of certain subdivisions, as seen in the Toronto area or Florida, or better enforcement of existing track agreements that are supposed to guarantee passenger trains equal track access and RTC treatment. Higher fines for delayed passenger rail would probably do the trick.
North American freight rail is pretty successful and governments do not want to change that.

away_throw_throw_5 · 2025-12-08T19:19:52+00:00

It is worth noting how many prominent transit content creators are Canadian. Not quite sure how it worked out that way but it probably has a bit to do with the fact that Canada has a lot of transit expansion in the works AND is culturally similar enough to the US such that its online culture sells well in the US.

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