NYC Subways and then some.

September 26, 2002 6:23 AM

NYC Subways and then some. This has been one of my favorite sites for a long time. It's amazingly comprehensive, and not just being content with New York, it covers nearly every other subway in the world as well. If you're not into the technical details, just enjoy the thousands of pretty pictures.
posted by The Michael The (20 comments total)

As if that weren't enough, here's similar coverage of the Chicago "L" system(including the new "Circle Line" plans), or better yet, Cincinnati's abandoned subway project.
posted by 40 Watt at 6:56 AM on September 26, 2002

Cool. Thanks for the link.
posted by hackly_fracture at 7:47 AM on September 26, 2002

[This is porn]
Thanks for these links, I love it when they reappear.
Allow me to present Stockholm's humble subway.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 8:04 AM on September 26, 2002

[this is subwayporn]
Wow, that Stockholm subway is really cool! Humble? What??
posted by 40 Watt at 8:07 AM on September 26, 2002

I was maybe eight or nine years old the last time I was in Stockholm. I remember being really impressed at the uneven rock walls with interesting stuff painted on them.

Hadn't thought about Stockholm's subway in a long time; thanks for bringing back a childhood memory.
posted by Vidiot at 8:42 AM on September 26, 2002

NYCSubway.org is a great site! :) I used to read it all the time, and it was a really great resource for a paper I wrote for my social/urban architecture class. The guy running it is really dedicated.
posted by cyrusdogstar at 8:56 AM on September 26, 2002

Great images of the scrapyards. Thanks for an interesting link.
posted by internook at 9:03 AM on September 26, 2002

NYCsubway.org is one of my favorite web sites.

The equivalent for Moscow's elegant metro is Metro.ru (Be warned, it's in Russian.)
posted by andrewraff at 10:36 AM on September 26, 2002

I love Metroplanet for all my metro-spotting needs.
posted by Razzle Bathbone at 11:14 AM on September 26, 2002

Prague also has a pretty subway! I found the link to its official site while browsing this, a lovely site all things considered.

As for Stockholm's subway, it has its moments, but I used to work there, so I have a severe love/hate relationship with it.

This is the station closest to my home, by the way!
posted by soundofsuburbia at 11:36 AM on September 26, 2002

After preview, what Razzle Bathbone said.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 11:39 AM on September 26, 2002

Love the T-bana. I still have some tickets here somewhere...

How many subway-like-metro-rail-based-commuter-systems have you ridden? My list is short: New York, Chicago, Washington, Stockholm, Paris, Caracas, Miami (hardly counts) and Athens.
posted by Mo Nickels at 4:28 PM on September 26, 2002

I went to school in Boston. Although cool at first, the "T" ultimately creeped me out: it reminded me of what New York's Subway would be if New York was a real city. In other words, Boston is a small, provincal town. No subway should take you to a dog racing track. Oh, never mind: private joke. I mean trauma...
posted by ParisParamus at 5:51 PM on September 26, 2002

Also, I first rode the Paris subway in 1984, and fell in love with Paris, generally (as well as at least two of its residents). By the time I came back a few years later, I was out-of-love, and even worse the stops I had frequented in 1984, especially the Montparnasse stop on the Ligne 4, no longer reeked of tobaco. And despite detesting smoking, I wanted them to smell that way again. Oh forget it.
posted by ParisParamus at 5:55 PM on September 26, 2002

Why do NYC's subways run so slowly, slower than they did in 1960 or 1990. They talk about the signals being antiquated, but would it really be that expensive to install a wireless signaling system? Come on!
posted by ParisParamus at 5:57 PM on September 26, 2002

Great link, The Michael The. The dc metro, the BART, nyc subways, the t, the LA metro (ha!), how they run, where they run, when they run, speaks volumes about the city they serve. Here's train worship from an different perspective, back when things was gritty. Also, I remember a great New Yorker article about a man with Asperger's (similar to autism) who was obsessed with the ny subway, who made friends with conductors, collected uniforms, and worked shifts, totally unauthorized. The best I could do was find this link to a nytimes article, but I don't have an account to verify the contents. Cheers.
posted by eddydamascene at 9:03 PM on September 26, 2002

The Boy Who Loved Transit actually appeared in Harper's, although I believe the New Yorker ran a short item in "Talk of the Town"; the man's name is Darius McCollum.

Paris: a bit about NYCTA signaling being converted to a computerized system (using Ada) that may help. See also. It may all trace back to a 1995 accident traced to operator flouting of speed limits and block signals and the new speed indicators subsequently installed on cars. The Chicago CTA has had two accidents in the past year associated with operator error and speeding.
posted by dhartung at 10:13 PM on September 26, 2002

thanks dhartung, your memory serves.
posted by eddydamascene at 12:50 AM on September 27, 2002

dhartung: wow. Very impressive. Thanks. Hope you never have to stare into the control room at the front of the F train at West 4th at 1:55am, waiting for a light which never appears on that ancient map thing they have on the wall...
posted by ParisParamus at 10:07 PM on September 29, 2002

Tokyo's brain-meltingly complex system. Sparklingly clean, never late but closes down at 1 am. Also unfortunately riddled with molesters.
posted by dydecker at 11:59 PM on September 29, 2002