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48 Comments
My personal favourite one is Ascensore Castello d'Albertis-Montegalletto, Genoa, which is the most insane mixture of an elevator and a railway one can ever come up with.
I’d like to hear your thoughts on Detroits People Mover.
I’m not sure if you’ve ever commented on it before, but am interested to hear if you have any opinion on it!
Ok, I live a few hours from lyon and I've never heard about or tried taking the metro line C. I need to go try it!
I think as far as North America transit systems, the Loop in downtown Chicago is incredibly unique. In some ways it reminds me of the Wuppertal in Germany as it’s a structure that could have only been brought up during a very specific time period (late 1800s-early 1900s) and stands today as a relic of a bygone era. There are lots of elevated metro rail systems all over the world but most aren’t running through the heart of downtown like in Chicago
No mention of the lartigue monorail—The world’s first commercial monorail?
As soon as you mentioned Australia, my mind immediately went to the Zig Zag Railway in Lithgow, NSW.
stourbridge junction to stourbridge town line in the UK, with the class 139 units.
Another weird thiny thing is Ascensore Castello d'Albertis-Montegalletto close to Genoa Piazza Principe Station. A couple of cabins moves along an horizontal tunnel as funicular and a vertical shaft as a lift. They retrofitted an older elevator to do it.
Maybe we will see other solutions like this in future because combining vertical and horizontal tracks could be extremely useful in many difficult urban environments with underground already crowded of structures and buildings. Tracks and "stations" could be even at high floors of buildings.
Haifa carmelit
Nice film, but your incessant tendency to modify the word "unique" detracts from your commentary. "Really unique": is that better than "kinda unique"? Unique means it's one-of-a-kind, it cannot be modified with an adverb.
I believe there's an impressive maglev that's an airport express in Shanghai. I believe it's currently the world's fastest.
I'm interested in the Shonan suspended monorail as it seems very unique. Although it has traffic both ways, much of the line is single track with a switch before and after stations (timing is everything). Because it's suspended, the switching mechanism is much simpler than on a stradle monorail.
The rotating cars was 1st pioneered in the Elevator cars for the Gateway Arch in St Louis.
In Haifa, Israel there is an underground urban funicular called "Carmelit" that is actually acting like a metro with 6 stations along the way. the line is 1.8~ km long and the height difference between the top and the bottom is 274 m. It's believed to be the shortest metro in the world.
Hi, check out Lynton and Lynmouth railway in north Devon, England . Small but amazing it uses water to operate it’s a must for your channel. Regards JH
In my other home country (I have two) we had this horrible criminal dictator for most of the 1950s, and he used stolen national wealth—basically oil money—to build these impressive-looking but utterly impractical projects, and one was a hilltop hotel and the funicular system which reached it. Since few locals could afford the hotel, and because tourists really wanted to stay in the city proper, the hotel was eventually abandoned … but after democracy was restored, since the hotel was state property, one fellow was hired to be its caretaker.
So throughout the ‘60s we had a massive cable car system pretty much used by one person to move his supplies up the mountain weekly!
Although the hilltop view became very popular with locals, so from around ‘69 through ‘78 the funicular did get lots of use from us riding up the mountain for the vistas—we took my visiting aunt and cousin up there once—but then the system broke down, and the parts from Germany needed to repair it were unavailable, so from ‘78 until quite recently it lay dormant.
Look up “Caracas teleférico” here and you can probably find film of the old system and video of the new!
My favourite was (yes, in past tense, unfortunately) La Ficelle in Lousanne—a funicular metro line in a relatively small town. I had the chance to travel on it twice or so, and it was neat, roomy and charming. Two years later it was closed to give space for a more advanced and less fun system. But all in all, Lousanne metro system worths a video, I think.
Love this but note from a Scottish person, its pronounced Glas-go the "w" is silent.
one of the first fully automated metro/transit system was the «ExpoExpress» train back in 1967 in Montreal during the International exhibition Expo67.
Hint: "oo" in Stoos is pronounced "oh", there is no "u" at all in that name.
I'm excited about the potential Øresundsmetro, that would add an additional link between Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmo, Sweden.
Another funky funicular: The Carmelit in Haifa, Israel. Station platforms have steps every few meters, so you have to climb/descend them in order to move up or down the platform.
New subscriber here and very glad to hear you mention Glasgow (pronounced Glaz-go btw, not Glaaas-gow). Very much looking forward to the stand-alone video you mentioned. A great thing about the Subway here is it’s links to other transport, Govan station recently had a major upgrade of the attached bus station and Partick is co-located in a train station (where you can board a train all the way to Edinburgh) with a bus station outside. St Enoch is a short walk from Central Station (main train station for links to England), while Buchanan St has a linked pathway to the entrance of Queen St Station (main train station for links to North of Scotland), while also being a short walk from Buchanan Bus Station (the hub for intercity coach services). Glasgow subway is covered by the British Transport Police, a unique force which despite the name only covers railways.
I think all, but certainly the majority, of Subway stations have undergone rejuvenation in recent years with lifts added to some stations to improve accessibility. That being said, some stations like Cessnock have steps outside. Plus not all drivers use the in-train tannoy to announce each stop, even when they do the background noise drowns out what is being said. This means those who are visually impaired would struggle to use the system, not just those with physical disabilities.
A real bone of contention is that for Cop26 delegates were issued tickets which could be used across subway, trains and buses – something people have asked for a long time now. It could be put in place for delegates but the public are still waiting. Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) have a “Zonecard” but that’s not the same thing.
So, not a railway, but in Geneva (Switzerland again) we recently had an amazing innovation: an electric bus that's between a trolley-bus and a battery powered regular bus. Basically, instead of having a huge battery that lasts the whole day, it has a much smaller capacity, but can be recharged extremely fast at some of the stops. This means you don't have the ugly and constraining overhead lines of trolley-buses, but you're much more efficient and constantly operating than a full battery vehicle. And the bus can take a detour if needed, without being helplessly stranded (doesn't happen with trolleys, but you see what I mean, it's much more flexible). Added bonus, all the electricity is carbon free, because it's hydroelectricity coming directly from the river flowing in the area 🙂 it's called the TOSA if you want to check it out!
Wow, cool, I didn't know that Glasgow had a metro system. I'll be there soon. I like Seoul's metro system. It's stations are very clean and bright.
I am missing the Isle of Wight Railway which uses old (converted) London Underground stock. Also there used to be a rail line (at least if you can call it a rail line) in Genoa Italy which had an elevator in it. Or maybe you can call that one just an elevator.
Wait what? I like in Australia and I have never heard of the system you talk about!
When speaking of trains on an incline, i missed seeing the metro in Haifa, Israel which is quite short but has really steeply inclined stations
Here as they are titled in Wikipedia:
10. New Shuttle (Saitama Prefecture, Japan)
9. Uetliberg railway line (Zürich, Switzerland)
8. Stoosbahn (Stoos, Switzerland)
7. Chongqing Rail Transit (China)
6. Wuppertal Schwebebahn (Germany)
5. Skitube Alpine Railway (Australia)
4. Sapporo Municipal Subway (Japan)
3. U-Bahn Serfaus (Austria)
2. Glasgow Subway (Scotland)
1. Lyon Metro Line C (France)
How about Keihan Keishin line from Shiga Japan. It's a combo of street car, metro, and there's even a 61% mountain section making it the most steepest subway in Japan.
have you heared about the Metro Alpin? If i'm not wrong it's the highest funicular in the world. It is fully underground and serves one of if not the highest revolving restaurants in the world.
I am going to be honest i really thought for a moment you where confusing australia with austria hahahha
Lyon for the win!!!
Literally I live in the uk in Cambridge a few miles from London and,the strangest metro in my country is the London Underground and Newcastle metro in england
The U-Bahn System in Stuttgart, Germany ist very crazy. A lot of Hills and one very special line… ⚙️⚙️⚙️
You could present the Makkah metro for the Hajj. This is very weird for operate this Line which have in station 2 rows of PSD to manage the flow of people.
I think the famous Katoomba scenic railway should get a mention, as well as looking at a strange, obscure metro system that runs somewhere in Russia or elsewhere. AND WHERE THE HELL IS CAPITOL HILL SUBWAY?!?!
Athens line 3 to airport
Check out the Mt. Washington Cog Railway. It is even steam powered.
I live close to the Stoosbahn. If you possibly come here to ride it, you also have to come to Vitznau for the Rigi rack train and also to Grindelwald for the trsin to jungfraujoch. Also the pilatusbahn is interessting for you.
#2 looks like a caterpillar.
Y cousins live in lyon so i vieit them wll the time. Ligne C really is an odd one
Will we ever get that Glasgow video?
If we ever do please cover the Metro, Suburban Rail plus Future plans
If you think the Glasgow Subway is unusual today, you should have seen the original design. The track was to be double in stations, but interlaced in the tunnels between stations. The trains were to be pulled by to cables, which were to be threaded around the entire circle and pulled along continuously by a stationary steam engine. The trains were to use grippers to hold on to the cable. To leave a station the driver released the brake and tightened the gripper. Approaching a station the driver released the gripper and applied the brake.
The interlaced track idea was dropped and the whole Subway was eventually built with double track. However the cable haulage survived until the 1940s (I think) and when the line was first electrified, the electricity was used only to power the electric lights in the carriages. The cable survived for some years.
Cable hauled trains could not negotiate points so there were no points on the entire network until it was modernised and the track completely relaid in about 1970. To move trains to and from the depot, trains were lifted with a large crane. Each train consisted of two carriages, and the service frequency was such that there was only time to lift or drop one carriage between services. Half the train was put onto the track, the half train was sent right around the entire subway, and the other carriage was added when the half train came around again.
That's why the Glasgow Subway drivers are to this day known as Gripmen, and the track gauge is 4 ft 0 in because two interlaced 4 ft 0 in gauge tracks fitted into a London Underground tube tunnel.
#3 should be top IMO. That is just wacky. I love how narrow it is. It feels interesting. And come on! HOVERCRAFT technology rail transit? that's wild.
There is a new combined 110 km manorail system being built in Cairo.
U-Bahn Surfaus: An unusually large horizontal hover-elevator. Yeah, I think that takes the cake as far as weird goes.
While Oslo doesen’t have anything really unusal, train-wise, so to speak, we do have the Metro line to Frognerseteren. Which is a normal-gauge «full scale» Decauville-line. Meaning a rail line that follows the landscape and does not have any cuttings or tunnells. And of course, there’s track sharing betweemn metro and trams between Bekkestua and Jar. It’s not new (we used to share tracks before too, but Metro trains were shorter, ran on line of sight & color signals & used overhead). The thing is that the Metro trains now run at higher speeds, using third rail and ATP. Thus the two tram stops (Jar and Bekkestua) has their own platforms on separate pieces (loops) of track, the intermediate station, Ringstabekk, is not served by the trams, and the trams have to have ATP for the stretch between Lilleaker and Øraker (and all the way to Bekkestua). And the ATP is turned on automatically at Lilleaker going to Bekkestua, and turned off by the driver at Lilleaker going into the city. RMTransit briefly touches on this in his hypercompressed video about the transit system in Oslo.
Howeber, by next summer, this will be history, as the Metro converts to CBTC. And the new CAF trams will not be equipped with that. So coming summer 2024, tram line 13 will terminate at Øraker.
So those of you living in Europe, and are willing to spend an exorbitant amount of € or £ on food & stay (even though the NOK is weak at the moment), now is your time to document and enjoy the mixed tram/metro running in Oslo.
The Hamburg metro used tunel boring machines in the 1950‘s