The trains run on time

I actually read this editorial from the weekend Financial Times on the train from the Zurich Airport to Basel this morning, and it quite nicely manages to make fun of both the UK and Switzerland (it is true, by the way, what they say about Swiss trains--you can generally set your watch to them, and people get really uptight if they're running even a minute late):

Modern railways

In the 1949 film The Third Man, Orson Welles's Harry Lime cynically noted that the only thing Switzerland had to show for 500 years of brotherly love, democracy and peace was the cuckoo clock. This was, of course, a monstrous calumny; the cuckoo clock was invented in Germany. But Switzerland's even more remarkable contribution to civilisation was the concept of the train that runs on time.

Swiss trains are so reliable you can set your cuckoo clock by them. But this Sunday, Swiss National Railways is making the biggest changes to its timetable in more than 20 years, altering the times of most of the trains and meddling with one of the few great certainties in the nation's daily life.

There are two ways to run a railway. The Swiss model, essentially modern, is based on the idea that the railway timetable is literally true and that the trains will run at the stated times. The British model, essentially postmodern, rejects the idea that railway timetables are capable of conveying a fixed meaning or universal truth, holding that train times can only be shifting, relative and provisional.

Next to the simplicity and rationality of the Swiss model, British-style dysfunctionalism may appear unsatisfactory. But there are enormous advantages in living with a rail system that simply cannot get any worse. Having no expectations that a train will ever appear on time, passengers are amazed and delighted when it does, so life contains only pleasant surprises. The Swiss model, in contrast, produces only a sense of boredom when a train appears on time, yet produces anger or despondency when it is late, so passengers are doomed to disappointment.

No wonder the Swiss are so glum. For their sake, let us hope the new timetable is a disaster.