Many, many years ago, a Scottish friend of mine who had moved to Basel, where I also lived at the time, was telling me how difficult it was living in Switzerland, compared to, say, in Greece or even the UK. The reason, he explained, was that in Greece one was prepared that most "things" were not working properly, you, therefore, were prepared to face adverse situations and, in the end, everything went smoothly. In contrast, in 99% of the cases, everything was painless in Switzerland, yet one would have to worry about the unexpected, unforeseen, improbable, unanticipated 1% of dodgy events, making one really nervous all the time. ;)

This is very true. In fact in my visit last week, I planned several itineraries by train and they all had 2-3 minute connections at semi-rural stations (some of these were not official connections according to SBB/CFF/FFS). In the end everything went perfectly and I made all the connections with lots of time to spare, as many trains arrive earlier than the timetable says. But I was quite nervous the entire trip!

I have also done similar trips in the UK, but basically here you have a 50% chance of success so you need to have a plan B.