Talk:Rapid transit/Archive 1

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Misc.

I am bothered by the line that says that the tunnels are sealed from groundwater by concrete. Very bothered. As anyone with construction experience would know concrete is porous and water passes right through it, this is not a defficiency of concrete, its a strength, since water makes concrete (a lot) harder. What I am trying to say here is that while tunnels are often lined with concrete, concrete itself can't seal against water the concrete is primarily structural.. even though it does stop some water.

For any one out there about to bring up a dam, take this into account: Concrete lining a metro tunnel is probably no more that 40-50 cm (probably less, this is an estimate, im not an expert). Dams are way thicker, the water that seeps through is a neglible ammount. They are probably made of a special kind of concrete anyways.

point being, can anyone fix that line? i would have done it myself.. but i do not know what to say.. i'll say this though concrete is mostly structural, while it does stop some ground water from seeping in, thats not its porpouse, if you made a bucket out of concrete and filled it, the next day it would probably be empty. Think of it as a paper water cone.. yeah it works as a cup for a couple of minutes, but would you ever considering using it as a long-term cup?

Lightning 17:34, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)


This page is now part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Streetcars. On Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Streetcars we are developing a great place to talk over our ideas and work out our differences about articles.

For reference purposes, here is a listing of some of the WP articles which relate to streetcars. Please add to the list for project for working purposes.

WikiProject Streetcars

User: Vaoverland

I am from Richmond, Virginia, where Frank J. Sprague is credited with creating the first successful electric trolley-powered streetcar system on some of our 7 hills in 1887-1888. The last streetcars operated here in 1949. However, Richmond has plans underway here for a heritage streetcar system, such as currently described in the Wikipedia article tram. I hope we can have some fun here. Vaoverland 23:09, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)

terminology, U.S. vs others

When working on articles for Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains, we have been confronted with a problem in major differences in terminology used around the world. This is going to come up in this WikiProject as well.

Here are 2 examples already:

  • streetcar Should this really be redirected to tram, which is an obscure usage in US? I have never heard the term tram used here except referring to some small rubber-tired people movers used for parking shuttles at places like theme parks and major events.
  • subway should this really be redirected to metro, an inapplicable usage in US? The only time I hear metro used here is occasionally for the formal or slang name of a subway system, such as Metro in Washington, DC.

How can we incorporate the differences and educate everyone?

Comments on the above, anyone? Vaoverland 22:57, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)

Well, I think if the article is talking about a system in an American city, then we should say streetcar. Tram simply isn't used in the United States. Ditto with metro. Mackensen (talk) 23:54, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
That is my thinking also. I think we should have articles under subway and streetcar which indicate to SEE metro and SEE tram respectively for the non-North American version, and vice versa, if that is the proper way to differentiate. This would help readers find what they are looking for. This approach would allow us to pull out most of the U.S. related content in each article, and make room for more photos and content. I think the next step would be to post this on the talk pages for tram and metro, and solicit comments and help from other writers to be discussed here. Vaoverland 19:32, Dec 25, 2004 (UTC)
Sounds like a plan. Mackensen (talk) 19:35, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It appear we have a quorum, so I will make it so, and we'll seee what we hear. Vaoverland 20:04, Dec 25, 2004 (UTC)


Should this page perhaps be relocated to Metro? I am a bit uncertain... --Anders Törlind

nomenclature, again. What about an entry that begins with the fact that the words "underground" (British), "subway" (American - New York City and some others), and "metro" (French, American - Washington, D.C. and some others) are by way of being TRADE NAMES for the same phenomenon, which are public transportation systems with underground rail lines, though some of them have stretches of surface lines or even elevated lines as well. Set up at least 2 redirect pages, one for Metro and one for Subway. Leave the initial entry where it was. --MichaelTinkler

Thought as much. Ill do the redirect from subway then --Anders Törlind

Yay, Wiki at its best!

Does anyone know if the #2 and 3 uses of Underground are derived specifically from the London Underground? When is "Notes from Undergound" (and its concomitant usages of the term) first published? All ideas for expansion of the entry.

Ho hum. I should have known that a list of the worlds most famous undergrounds would turn into "oh, i'll add my local subway since this is a list". Facing the inevitable, i'll rephrase th listings heading. :-) --Anders Törlind

I removed the list of cities having undergrounds, which was totally worthless in my mind. Reinstate when you feel strongly about it, and state here why a list of all tube in the world is encyclopedia knowledge. Sounds more like the telephone book to me.

More useful may be some notable undergrounds (the first; the biggest; fastest; still operated by horse carriage; etc.) --Robbe

I thought the purpose of the list was to list the different names of the subway systems. If no one cares about the aliases of such systems then I would propose removing the reference to metro because the name metro does not reflect the underground nature of the railroad like underground or subway do.
To this i disagree. There is only a need to list the most commonly used names, in the same way as we do not list all translation in all languages to all world in this dictionary. The three most commonly used terms should cover 99% of what readers will search for, of this i am certain. If you wish, a Underground listing page linked from Underground (and vice versa) should do nicely. --Anders Törlind
I disagree with your assumption. "Underground" and "Metro" should not be listed as the most commonly used names, though this article title uses "underground". If you judge by the number of passengers that call their local mass transit systems, then subway should be the common name by a big margin because there are multiple subway systems in the US and almost all American knows what subway means. Underground? What a strange name! If you judge by the population of the cities which runs a subway systems, then you cannot omit Hong Kong and Tokyo. Are you telling me these wo major cities only consist of 1% of mass transit riders?
If you were to examine subway and metro, you would experience something interesting. Also, see the first line of the page and underground listing. Personally, I cannot fathom that this subject could evoke so strong feelings. If you are bristling for a fight, may I direct you to football or perhaps Gun/Politics? --Anders Törlind (oh, and by the way, I'm telling you that only 1% of the readers of the english wikipedia would not use either subway, underground or metro when searching for general information on this kind of public transportation system)

My. Folks. Nothing queerer. I guess we should have known it would turn into a list of all public transportations underground. --MichaelTinkler

I see no problem with the list. There is a list of Cities in the world. Is that really necessary? No, but it serves as a centralized place to link all the cities on one page. Same for the Biography list, the Wikipedian list and so on. Then why are people so pissed off when the underground list was formed? I am really puzzled. Perhaps it is because of the phase of the moon!

There are certainly more-or-less useful lists of cities imaginable under different criteria: all the cities, cities with population above one million, cities more than 1000m above sea-level, cities with a subway system, etc. Of these the last definitely belongs to the lesser useful . All of these lists are arguably not traditional encylopedia material. --Robbe

I understand the rationale behind the article title, but I feel the term "underground" is misleading because not all metro systems are underground. For this reason, I prefer the term "metro." In addition to being a very international term (many, many languages, including English, French, Spanish, Esperanto, Finnish, Italian, Arabic, Greek, and Russian, off the top of my head, use it), whereas not all undergrounds are underground, all metros are certainly metropolitan.

Robert Schwandl of metropla.net defines a metro as follows:


  1. ) An urban electric mass rail transport system, i.e. it is primarily used to move within the city
  2. ) Totally independent from other traffic, rail or street traffic
  3. ) High frequency service (maximum interval approx. 10 minutes during normal daytime service)

(P.S. There is a complete list of world metro systems on metropla.net .)

-montréalais

I agree. Not all metro systems are underground. In my country, the first such system is completely elevated (except for the Terminal tracks). The second such railway completed is mostly above ground and elevated. Only 5% of that is underground. Maybe the definition should be changed so that it would say "although some such systems do not have underground portions". —seav
Most people seem to be in favor of moving this article to "metro", so I have done that. - Patrick 14:31 Feb 28, 2003 (UTC)

That definition of "metro" excludes most of the Toronto system.

We need to recognize that there are multiple terms, and each of them also has other meanings: "Toronto metro" isn't the transit system run by the TTC, it's the Toronto metropolitan area. In London, a "subway" is a pedestrian underpass. And an "underground" can also be a political organization. I'd leave the main article where it is (though I was raised riding a subway, not an underground), with redirects from metro and subway. Vicki Rosenzweig

In what way does it exclude the Toronto system? - Montréalais

Shouldent this page be moved to something neutral like say Mass transport rail systems. The term "Metro" in this context is little know in Britain, the word "Metro" is usually taken to mean a car of the same name. We had a similar debate over rail transport because Americans call them Railroads, and every other English speaking country calls them Railways. G-Man 17:54, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

The word metro is also little known in the US, except maybe in Washington, DC. We usually call it the subway here in the US, but of course that means something different in the UK. I generally associate the term metro with Paris and other continental European cities. (It's also called the metro in Montreal, Canada, but most people there speak French.) Mass transport rail systems seems unwieldy and overbroad; it could also include, at a minimum, commuter rail systems. There's also a US/UK problem there: in the US, we say mass transit rather than mass transport. I see no perfect solution to the problem of what to call this page, and think metro is as good a compromise as any. -- Cjmnyc 04:16, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Metro seems a decent compromise to me, although we never use it here in the US. I do think some of the more specific information should be moved elsewhere: construction information about subways should be moved to either subway or underground (actually probably to either subway or underground (subway) to disambiguate underground). The continental European lack of distinction between underground transport and above-ground transport is not universal: in Japan, for example, the subways and above-ground light rail are two distinct systems, discussed separately and often with separate tickets (most above-ground rail is run by JR, while many subways are privately-operated). --Delirium 00:32, Jun 9, 2004 (UTC)

I don't think we need a link to every metro system in the world on this page. And definitely we don't need 4 links to different Iranian metro sites, some of which are not even in English. Paranoid 10:00, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

'operation of trains on the Victoria Line has been automatic since its opening in 1968.' I need to check this, because I find it a little bit difficult to believe. I think the author may be getting Victoria and Jubilee lines muddled up.

See [1] for a description of the Victoria Line system. It has indeed been in use since 1968, while the Jubilee Line still does not have ATO as far as I know. --rbrwr± 22:22, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, and a list of all the underground/light/metropolitan railways in the world sounds like a really good idea to me. It would appeal to all the railway fanatics out there.


Please complete the chapters "Special constructions" and "Metros for mail transport". There are also some information about it in the German article!

First underground street railroad

This paragraph appears in the article:

In 1850 the Long Island Rail Road bricked over the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel (which had been an open cut), carrying its line for about 500 m under the streets of Brooklyn (now part of New York City). Although sometimes called the "world's oldest subway tunnel", this had no stations and was used for long-distance as well as suburban trains.

Does anyone know when the tunnels on the New York and Harlem Railroad were made tunnels (if they were open cuts)? --SPUI (talk) 00:24, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Detroit Metro?

I feel the following text is POV and would like to see sources for the statements as well. I substituted some language in the article which I feel still makes the general point about the lack of metro type systems in the U.S. and basic causes without making misleading allegations against only certain companies and only about Detroit. There is an article which covers the urban myth of a formal conspiracy. (See General Motors streetcar conspiracy)

The fact is that the problem identified is bigger and has more causes. As a bus transportation professional in U.S. with over 30 years experience, in my opinion and that of many others in the industry and government, the problem the U.S. now faces for efficient public transportation in the future is cultural as much as corporate. Generally, the citizens see cars as freedom except in a few big cities. IE, "YOU should ride a bus, I prefer my car."

I saved the text in question which follows:

"Many people cite the lack of a Detroit Metro to be the fault of the extreme power of the “Big 3” or Detroit based Auto Companies of Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors. The Detroit area politics has long been run by money from these companies (sometimes behind the scenes). In a move some cite as direct corruption and manipulation of power, the Big 3 bought and shut down the only existing trolley public transportation that was supposed to become a full Metro. Many say the Detroit want to become a “car only” non-public transit city to aid the Big 3 fueled this idea."

Let's discuss improving the article if anyone has a problem with the changes I made, and reach for a consensus. Vaoverland 02:22, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

How do the trains get underground?

In systems where the tracks don't go overground, how do the trains actually get placed underground? Scott Gall 11:08, 2005 Apr 17 (UTC)

Not sure in general. On the BMT 14th Street-Eastern District Line in New York City, when they had only built part of it, they built a ramp to the surface connecting to a line of the Long Island Rail Road. There always has to be a yard and shops for the system, so it's probably likely that access will be made there. --SPUI (talk) 11:25, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The Waterloo & City Line of the London Underground used to have a special hoist to the mainline tracks at Waterloo but now uses a crane on the road outside the station to lift rolling stock up a shaft from the underground depot. The original City & South London Railway (now part of the Northern Line) had a steep incline at Stockwell to haul stock up to (and lower it down from) a surface depot by cable, though this has been out of use for many decades. The Glasgow Subway apparently used to use a crane but now has a track connection to a surface depot. --rbrwr± 13:08, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
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