I have no kids, work 40 h/Week and only have a 6 min bike-commute left (used to be 55 min by train from a bigger city).
So in the summer I get up at 5:50, leave for work at 6:50, start work at 7 till 16:30 and am back home at 16:40 (Fridays are shorter). I go to bed at around 23:00. In the winter i sometimes shift the whole thing back by 1 hour.

So on a normal weekday I have ~6,5 hours left to cook, clean, meet friends, do sports. So yes, i am absolutely going to the lake at 8pm.

In the winter it’s still dark 4 days a week, when I get home. So no visit to the lake, no long bike-tours etc… All activities that require sunlight have to take place on saturday/sunday. I could really use more sunlight in the winter.

Thats a good one. Do you have horizontal traffic lights, or what is the connection to the red light?

True. That’s a flaw with the english words.

Yet the exit would always be on the stationboard side (left or right). So you would never know which side of the train to exit.

I’m not sure. It has always been done like this here.

I think it’s just a convenience thing. Might be useful in crowded trains, so people know which doors they should not stand in front of.

Maybe its the wrong english word but portside is shorter than “left in the direction of travel”.
Even more in my language.

If you want to include logic in the matter, then yes; you are absolutely right.
But i do like nautical terms.

Because it’s a (barely) established abbreviation for exactly those directions.