tac,
Do they at least wait for the passengers to load and the doors to close before departing the station? 
Yup. Or they did when I used to travel on them. V. clever way the seating was simply reversed when they came back to Tokyo too, just like old-style street cars, to save trying to turn them. Mind you, a 21-car train of 90foot cars needs a lot of room for a turning Y.
tac, ig & The Josephine County Boys
Hmmm. I think that you somehow missing the point here. If JR post the journey to take 3hrs 21min and 45 seconds, then that is what the computers driving the train will make sure happens. The driver/engineer/pilot is there to make sure that nothing goes wrong - he can override the controls but very rarely needs to do so. No cows on the tracks, no people, no grade crossings, either. Nor any interference from other trains. They run on standard-gauge track, unlike the rest of Japan that runs on Cape Gauge [3ft 6in] and their routes are totally isloated from other train routes.
You can make fun all you like, but a train that takes me where I want to go and 220mph and gets me there at the right time is something I can live with. Getting the Daylight Coastal āexpressā from Eugene to KF last year it was three hours late arriving in Eugene, and the crew had run out of hours by the time they arrived in KF.
tac, ig & The Cascadian Boys
Terry,
Iām just a simple man, just ask anyone.
If Com Pewter runs the trains, and the human āengineerā is there to override Com Pewter if everything goes South, why does the human take the blame if the train runs a few seconds late?
That does not Com Pewt.
Steve Featherkile said:
Terry,Iām just a simple man, just ask anyone.
If Com Pewter runs the trains, and the human āengineerā is there to override Com Pewter if everything goes South, why does the human take the blame if the train runs a few seconds late?
That does not Com Pewt.
As any IT techdroid will you (and it will :P), any error is always the operatorās. Pewters are never wrong. All hail the Pewter.