Suburbia

To give you an idea of how small the area where I am is.
There is only one track running to the train station closest to me (the Iyotetsu line, Iyo being the old name for Ehime). I couldn't figure out how that worked for a while. I just thought the trains going the other way must lead to station located somewhere else, until I realized that trains going in both directions ran on the same track. The trains run so infrequently that they just have a few stations with two tracks and the trains must wait at those key point stations for the ones coming from the opposite direction to pass before they go. During the rush hour periods, the trains run every 15 minutes or so, in the early morning and late evenings every 30 minutes...

edit: it's actually the yokogawa line of the iyotetsu company. which runs all of two maybe three lines.

The trains are also only about two or three cars long and late at night, when there is no longer anybody manning the stations the conductor has to get out of his little conducting booth and collect tickets from alighting passengers. When the station exit is on the opposite end of what it was at the previous stop, it's quite funny to see him walk quite rapidly as soon as the train is in motion from one end to the other so that he can get off as soon as the train doors open to collect tickets. Not because people will run out on the train fare, I think, but to prevent people from having to wait...(There are other ways to evade the train fare if you really wanted to).

There are also various payment systems involving the honor code, that wouldn't fly in the U.S. but I'll leave that for another day.