Underground metro style train systems

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

How many have you ridden on and which one was the best or worst?

My current list stands at 7. Done the London one, a smattering of European ones, Tyne and Wear and Merseyrail (technically an normal suburban rail system you might say but the bits in Liverpool are underground so FUCK OFF)

Just got back from Barcelona, that's a very odd one. There's about 30 different lines and a bunch of different component parts but they're all quite tenuously linked to each other so you have to make about 3 connections to get anywhere. I've often associated the circle line with abject human misery but if there's any city that could benefit from one it's that one.

Please share your underground metro style train systems info / opinions / anecdotes here please.

[bgmnts]

Paris was very nice, London was shit because Londoners just give off an air mega cuntery, I don't know why but they seem to have contempt for human life.

New York is a mixed bag, it's classic but some of the conditions are disgusting and I imagine have been that way since the 70s, 34 st - Herald Square almost always smells like shit, it never fails to make me gag. Stuff seems to happen to you on the NYC subway due to the unique and diverse sets of people, not to mention the scummers. Was once sexually assaulted (I think) by a pissed up prossie getting on the F train on a Sunday morning.

Budapest is sort of nice but one time I was there they were doing repairs and had a bus replacement service going round the city. Bizarre as fuck ticketing system though.

[earl_sleek]

I like Prague's metro a lot. The platforms are nicer than London's, it's quicker and generally more pleasant (possibly because it's much smaller and simpler). Or public transport in Prague generally pleasant to use, especially when you see someone who's failed to understand the ticket system and has been caught and you get to feel smug.

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

The Prague transport was very good, I liked the preponderance of trams - don't think I saw or used a bus for 2 days apart from the airport transfer one. How could you fail to understand the ticket system though? From what I remember doesn't a ticket let you use all the different bits of it?

[earl_sleek]

A lot of people forget, or don't realise, that you have to validate them before using them.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

The ones I've used and can recall:

Barcelona - easy to use but as mentioned, difficult to get to where you want to go without switching lines all the time. General standard pretty good.

Brussels - a bit grungey, expensive and largely unnecessary for tourists who don't want to go to Heysel or the Atomium

Budapest - distinctively different lines. Yellow is the heritage Austrian era line. Tiny narrow tunnels, wooden, leather, squeaky, quaint signal bell, but easy off the street access. Green line hypermodern, striking megastructure pop art meets brutalist stations and easily comparable with any modern metro anywhere. Blue line knackered and 80s feeling, currently under a major reconstruction

Frongfoor: A little dirty and on the functional rather than flashy side. But once you get out of the main bits quite a neighbourly feel which I liked

Genoa - 1 line.

Hannover - only used it once but it was as you'd expect from Germany. Chunky, functional and efficient.

London - basically really good until humans start getting involved. Can't knock how comprehensive it is, until South London anyway. Some parts are genuinely characterful and you can appreciate why tourists get excited, also why locals sigh and behave like cunts

Madrid - fairly fun to use as trains are pretty regular. We made decent use of the 3 day pass, or whatever it was.

Newcastle - a fun retro bunch of lads and an oddity for the UK generally, let alone for that size city

New York - benefits from having a short distance between the street and the tracks. As others have said, iconic and fairly uniform. Metal, gritty, rattly but at the same time fucking quality.

Nuremberg - not many lines but it's absolutely brilliant and goes straight to the airport. Each station is unique, although there is a consistent modern style. My favourite.

Prague - I used the tube a fair amount due to living in Holesovice for a week. Each line is well maintained and the trains are regular and rarely cramped. It's also exceptional good value. Nevertheless, people should take a look at the trams which are more fun and cover some important districts.

Vienna - I actually tried not to use it and focus on trams but I ended up using it once or twice and not a single thing strikes me now to say about it. So I was either drugged and raped on it or had a dull time


I think that's all the underground mass transit I've used.

Apparently Leeds is the biggest city without any form of mass transit (tram/underground/trolleybus) which might be why I'm fairly excited when I try these out in other cities.

[Inspector Norse]

Stockholm has a decent metro system. Very good coverage, and well-connected buses, light rail trams and local trains in areas without a metro station. The metro card even gets you onto boats between the inner-city islands. Cleanish, modernish, regular and a handful of stations with neat arty decor. The company who run it are shit at communications and information, but that's a minor quibble really.

London is fascinating, each line with its own character and history and mythology. But it's also rickety, crowded and noisy.

Newcastle is amusingly pointless. It's a small city anyway and the metro barely covers most of it. Clean and efficient though.

Madrid is very good. Shockingly efficient for the Spanish, they've let their standards slip there. Although if I remember rightly the signs did count the minutes since the last train rather than until the next one, in an admirable attempt to avoid being too punctual.
Good coverage and, like everywhere and everything else in that city, there's always something going on. It was odd the way that they used to close it down at night despite nobody there ever going to bed.

Barcelona is, as others have said, a bit messy but generally OK.

I don't remember much about Lisbon other than it being poorly signposted which led to me getting hopelessly lost out in the suburbs and winding up on a cliff edge - but then I headed off along the cliff road and wound up at the first stop on the Quaint Olde Tram through the old town, which was nice.

I've been to quite a lot of other major European cities but mostly as a teenager and I don't recall anything about their metro systems.

[BlodwynPig]

Moscow has some beautiful stations

Both Womble ones

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Newcastle is amusingly pointless. It's a small city anyway and the metro barely covers most of it. Clean and efficient though.

Very harsh, it's a fairly extensive suburban rail line really, just with a few underground bits. Massively more useful than anything most other UK cities have to offer.

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

Plus it's very handy if you want to escape Sunderland in a hurry, which is always valuable.

[Inspector Norse]

Very harsh, it's a fairly extensive suburban rail line really, just with a few underground bits. Massively more useful than anything most other UK cities have to offer.

But it extends to places like Whitley Bay while avoiding most of Newcastle's suburbs.

Though to be fair it does call itself Tyne and Wear metro so it's operating on a different level to your standard city commuter transport. I just got the feeling they thought it'd be cool to have an underground instead of ordinary commuter trains or a better bus network.

[Icehaven]

I was surprised to learn Glasgow has one. I've never been there myself, I was just surprised. Third oldest one in the world apparently.

[DistressedArea]

Amazing thing about the London Underground, is that nobody knows who built all those tunnels, or why they built them.

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

^ but their legacy remains, hewn into the living rock...

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Amazing thing about the London Underground, is that nobody knows who built all those tunnels, or why they built them.

Best guess, (I have thought about this really carefully)

1)Navvies
2)Bumming in the era of illegal gayness

[greencalx]

London - not much to say that's not been said already. I never cease to be amazed at how the doors open during rush hour to reveal densely packed human beings whose outer envelope exactly matches the shape of the train, and still more people get on.

Glasgow - they try and con you into thinking that there are two lines by calling them the "inner" and "outer" circles. They are very coy about the fact that the inner one is only a couple of yards inside the outer one, and just runs in the opposite direction. Fittingly, the trains also have a very circular profile.

Paris - I only have Level 0 Paris Metro skillz. It took me until my third use to purchase a ticket that wasn't touted, and ticket confusion has caused me to do the turnstile jump thing that all the locals seem to be proficient at. I'm starting to get the hang of it now, but I still find some of the entrances to be a bit too well hidden (Concord was particularly challenging) and I am not yet brave enough to jump on if the horn is already sounding, much to the consternation of the locals. As far as I am aware you can't buy child fares singly, only in books of ten, which means I've got some left over if anyone wants them.

Frankfurt/Munich/Berlin/... - Germans like public transit systems and they tend to be well organised and efficient. Purchasing tickets can require degree-level knowledge of the language, and may involve entering 42-digit shortcodes into a machine that only accepts 20 Pfennig pieces. Then there is some uncertainty as to whether you then need to validate the ticket separately or not. But once you've figured this out, you generally find you can sit back and relax. Even small towns can have good tram networks. You can probably tell I'm a fan.

Vienna - as Shoulders says, this is not a memorable experience. If I recall the network has an odd layout, with all lines leading to Karlsplatz and a high probability you will have to change there.

Lisbon - seem to recall this was straightforward even with a child in tow. Had a local guide though.

Malaga/Palma/Nice/... - fairly simple one-line point-to-point jobs (the points in question usually being the airport and the city centre). What else is there to say?

Outside Europe the only light rail transit I've braved are the Baltimore tramway to the airport, and the New Orleans streetcars. Can't say I felt particularly safe on either of them, though they were very cheap. These two facts may be correlated.

[BlodwynPig]

Very harsh, it's a fairly extensive suburban rail line really, just with a few underground bits. Massively more useful than anything most other UK cities have to offer.

Yeh, its actually decent and covers Tyne and Wear. Doesnt serve West End but gets you to all the main attractions... the coast, airport, howden sewage treatment works.

[BlodwynPig]

But it extends to places like Whitley Bay while avoiding most of Newcastle's suburbs.

Though to be fair it does call itself Tyne and Wear metro so it's operating on a different level to your standard city commuter transport. I just got the feeling they thought it'd be cool to have an underground instead of ordinary commuter trains or a better bus network.

Before austerity they had a pretty good integrated transport system with hubs like Four Lane Ends, Kingston Park and Haymarket. They've fucked that up with some services stopping even reaching Four Lane Ends hub now (No. 1)

[Blinder Data]

Malaga/Palma/Nice/... - fairly simple one-line point-to-point jobs (the points in question usually being the airport and the city centre). What else is there to say?

Woah woah woah. You've got a tramway in there. I don't wanna come off as some kind of transport Nazi but that is not cool. Any more mentions of systems that are predominantly light railway or tramway-based and this thread is getting reported to the moderator.

-----

Glasgow's Subway is definitely worth going on if you're visiting. Absolutely tiny, and if you miss your stop you just stay on it for another 20 minutes and you'll be there again.

I agree Madrid is probably the best overall for cleanliness, modernity and simplicity. It's also nice that it's not deep into the bowels of the earth like the tube.

Paris I always find too mucky and stressful. Recent experience of Lisbon was pleasant for its uniqueness, like wood pannelling on the walls of the carriages, but suffers from lack of stops to change at. Brussels was pretty grim, though I was hungover. Montreal is a good'un. Tokyo was special too, for the no-harassment lady-only carriages and sight of people falling asleep everywhere.

Shout out goes to Lyon where I used to live which has four distinct lines, one of which goes up the bastard hill of the Croix-Rousse and another which is completely automated. Great bunch of lines.

Interesting to hear people say that it's odd for Newcastle to have the Tyne and Wear Metro. Go to France/Germany and every city has a well-established metro/tramway system. Really the T&WM is the bare minimum a city like Newcastle should aim for but because the UK is RUBBISH we just aren't used to the idea that all cities should provide mass transit for its residents.

[BlodwynPig]

I like Toronto's but only used about 5% of it. Brussels is populated by crazies and zombies and in Munich me and an old lady got stuck in overnight hoarding on a way to a job interview.

[Pseudopath]

Munich...there is some uncertainty as to whether you then need to validate the ticket separately or not.

I never figured that out either. Fortunately, MVV seem to run the entire transit system as a charity and don't bother employing ticket inspectors. I think they assume that anyone rich enough to live in Bavaria wouldn't dream of travelling without a valid ticket.

[greencalx]

Woah woah woah. You've got a tramway in there. I don't wanna come off as some kind of transport Nazi but that is not cool. Any more mentions of systems that are predominantly light railway or tramway-based and this thread is getting reported to the moderator.

As of last week Nice's tramway goes underground. Get with it, grandad.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Manchester, earlier.

[Captain Crunch]

London was shit because Londoners just give off an air mega cuntery, I don't know why but they seem to have contempt for human life.

Were you standing on the right like a mug?

The culture of the Newcastle Metro is taking a bit of getting used to for me.  Using the tube or the DLR you have an automatic right, duty in fact to elbow, shove or shoulder-barge anyone who tries to get on before people have got off.  Metro it's all a bit loose and people just merge in gently.  Very odd.

Some beautiful stations though and I like the habit people have of leaving tickets out for someone else to use. 

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Interesting to hear people say that it's odd for Newcastle to have the Tyne and Wear Metro. Go to France/Germany and every city has a well-established metro/tramway system. Really the T&WM is the bare minimum a city like Newcastle should aim for but because the UK is RUBBISH we just aren't used to the idea that all cities should provide mass transit for its residents

Exactly. That's why it's odd.

But we were previously used to the idea of mass transit, then, in the 50s the UK cashed all its chips in that cars were the future and now we're stuck deeply lamenting that mistake/in denial we did anything wrong.

When you think of the tram networks and the train network we used to have, it's a fucking embarrassment that our stupid fucking shit for brains leaders led us to this.

[alan nagsworth]

Were you standing on the right like a mug?

standing on the right of the escalator is correct, you MUG

i fucking absolutely love trains and any chance i get to go on a rail system in another new place thrills me. trains are amazing. one of my all time favourites was the amtrak surfliner in california but that's not an underground so i'll leave off it

london is still the absolute best. every day i travel about the city for various jobs and just marvel at the efficiency of it. people will moan when there's the slightest delay and you have to wait more than three minutes for the train but really 95% of the time it runs perfectly and the trains are clean and the announcements are clear and regular. i love it. i understand why people view london commuters as hugely miserable loathsome cunts but it's not all like that. i have plenty of encounters where people are polite and interact with me pleasantly if offering a seat or apologise for stepping on a shoe or whatever. and the staff are often excellent in their helpfulness.

[Captain Z]

The last major European city I visited was Turin, and one evening walking back to the hotel I saw what looked like an entrance to an underground station (still open late evening, illuminated sign with initials and nondescript logo, ticket-machine-type units inside) and pointed it out to a colleague. As I was saying the words it dawned on me that we'd been there several days, visiting all the major places, hadn't seen any other underground metro stations, and had made plenty of use of the extensive overground tram system, and that I might not be engaging my brain here. My colleague pointed out that it was merely an indoor ATM.

But here's the twist - apparently Turin does have an underground metro line, however I saw no absolutely no evidence of it while I was there.

[alan nagsworth]

that's because they hide it under the ground mate

[Captain Z]

And I suppose those tunnels were dug by La Mole Antonelliana. It all makes sense now.

[a duncandisorderly]

let's see, now....

london. I was once in the habit of telling visitors that the london underground was a working museum for the entertainment of tourists, & that us residents used a newer, boring, state-of-the-art system only accessible to people who pay their council tax within the M25. its actual quality varies enormously, reflecting its provenance, but even the fairly modern & important bits of it are deeply unsatisfactory in terms of noise, comfort, reliability & so on. but it is very very old. something like 43% of it is actually underground &, like NYC, a fair bit of it is above street height in places. good map, but since the circle line changes of a few years back, it feels like it's been interfered with. one of the things I dislike the most about all of TfL's vehicular offerings is the upholstered seats. I'd rather they used plastic so it can be hosed down of a night, instead of this grubby worn industrial carpeted cushioning that soaks up piss & fart & then disgorges it again onto your clean strides. yuk.

madrid. brilliant. bright, large carriages, decent service, nice stations, good 3G coverage, usb charging sockets all over the place. my local station in vicalvaro has a library between the ticket barriers & the platforms. incidentally, the buses in madrid have had free wifi for over a decade. on the madrid metro, it's perfectly possible to carry on a conversation without yelling, even with people on the other side of the carriages. I let the kids roam freely, knowing that there won't suddenly be 5Gs (haha see what I did there?) knocking them over as we round a bend where the tunnellers encountered dinosaur bones or something. good map, but some of the signage in the stations could use a bit of work.
[*edit- they added a station at the very far end of the line that I live at the other end of &, casting about for a name, someone suggested the recently deceased guitar maestro paco de lucia. so that's what the station got called. why the fuck can't we have that in london? stations named after artists, I mean.]

vienna. yes, per an earlier comment- strangely bland, unmemorable, decent & efficient for the most part (& thus in stark contrast to schwechat, which is one of the shittest airports I've ever used). again, the noise levels are way way better than london or NYC. impenetrable map, last time I saw it.

munich. see above. when I was last there in 2001, they were retiring stock that was newer than most of what TfL were using. can't remember the map.

NYC. noisy as fuck, but with a sort of relentless purposefulness about it- "don't worry, we'll get you there. 'pelham 123' was made-up, shit like that doesn't happen". ok map, but you have to watch out for the trains that don't stop everywhere.

philly. can't really remember... slightly cleaner version of NYC, I think, & fewer concessions to spanish speakers.

paris. what I can remember is a quiet, reasonably comfortable ride, because tyres. awful maps. crammed, but spacious carriages. dreadful stations. trains going up & down bits of gradient, which was odd.

stockholm. brilliant. a bit rattly, but lovely stations, not too noisy, very efficient.