On Sat, 3 Apr 2004 08:49:00 +0000 (UTC), Christian Hansen
wrote:

Express trains of the type that New York has are very rare on subways and
metros worldwide. In fact, I believe that they are unique to New York.

Well not really - the Met Line is express in north west London and the
Piccadilly Line is express in west London.

I would agree that the scale of express operation is far greater in New
York but NYC is lucky that it followed the earliest underground pioneers
and therefore some forethought was applied to the construction of the
system. There are obvious parallels with things like the Paris RER and
German S Bahn systems which provide skip stop service in the suburbs as
well as fast links across the central area of their respective cities -
not subways per se but often in tunnel and performing the same function.

In New York, they do economies of scale: there are more commuters there than
in London, I believe.

Err depends how you define the term commuter and whether you are simply
comparing LUL against the NYC subway or whether you would include our
Overground railway lines which provide mass transit service in South
London where the Tube network is sparse. I realise you have a number of
main line commuter networks in New York as well but I'd guess they are
not as busy in totality as London's main line commuter network.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!