"Steve Dulieu" wrote in message
...

"Dr Ivan D. Reid" wrote in message
...

Certainly double-decker trains in Switzerland. From the entry
doors you descend several steps to the lower deck or climb stairs to the
upper. Many of the S-Bahn trains around Zurich are so equipped.

I've certainly been on several RB/RE double decker trains in and around
München in Germany...


And then you've got the double-decker trains that go under bits of Paris.
RTAP or RER or whatever. Why does most of the Paris metro smell like a
sewer? London's tubes don't whiff like that. I know Paris is marginally
closer to the equator (and marginally further away from the Arctic), but is
a climate difference to blame? Maybe a diet of snails, horsemeat and frogs'
legs leads to more frequent methane emissions.

On Sun, 11 Jul 2004 at 05:01:58, Alistair McIndoe
wrote:

And then you've got the double-decker trains that go under bits of Paris.
RTAP or RER or whatever. Why does most of the Paris metro smell like a
sewer? London's tubes don't whiff like that. I know Paris is marginally
closer to the equator (and marginally further away from the Arctic), but is
a climate difference to blame? Maybe a diet of snails, horsemeat and frogs'
legs leads to more frequent methane emissions.


It's certainly a distinctive smell! When I lived there, back in the
1970s, the central car on each train was first-class - I'm not sure when
that was abolished, but it was quite a shock to the system to find it
had been when we returned in the 1990s! Anyway, our joke always was
that you got a better class of garlic-breath in first class.....
--
Annabel Smyth
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/index.html
Website updated 6 June 2004

Annabel Smyth wrote:
On Sun, 11 Jul 2004 at 05:01:58, Alistair McIndoe
wrote:

And then you've got the double-decker trains that go under bits of
Paris. RTAP or RER or whatever. Why does most of the Paris metro
smell like a sewer? London's tubes don't whiff like that. I know
Paris is marginally closer to the equator (and marginally further
away from the Arctic), but is a climate difference to blame?
Maybe a diet of snails, horsemeat and frogs' legs leads to more
frequent methane emissions.


It's certainly a distinctive smell!

The distinctive smell that I've experienced on the Paris Métro is from
the rubber-tyred trains, the smell of which can drift through to other
lines at interchange stations.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

In message , Annabel Smyth
writes
On Sun, 11 Jul 2004 at 05:01:58, Alistair McIndoe
wrote:

And then you've got the double-decker trains that go under bits of Paris.
RTAP or RER or whatever. Why does most of the Paris metro smell like a
sewer? London's tubes don't whiff like that. I know Paris is marginally
closer to the equator (and marginally further away from the Arctic), but is
a climate difference to blame? Maybe a diet of snails, horsemeat and frogs'
legs leads to more frequent methane emissions.


It's certainly a distinctive smell!
Well they do (or did at any rate) perfume the tunnels. I always felt
that the perfume was probably an even worse smell than whatever it was
they were trying to camouflage.

When I lived there, back in the
1970s, the central car on each train was first-class - I'm not sure when
that was abolished,
It was still the case on my first visit (in 1984) but had vanished by
the time I returned in 1990.
--
Ian Jelf, MITG, Birmingham, UK
Registered "Blue Badge" Tourist Guide for
London & the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

On Sun, 11 Jul 2004 05:01:58 GMT,
Alistair McIndoe
wrote in :
"Steve Dulieu" wrote in message
...

"Dr Ivan D. Reid" wrote in message
...

Certainly double-decker trains in Switzerland. From the entry
doors you descend several steps to the lower deck or climb stairs to the
upper. Many of the S-Bahn trains around Zurich are so equipped.

I've certainly been on several RB/RE double decker trains in and around
München in Germany...

And then you've got the double-decker trains that go under bits of Paris.
RTAP or RER or whatever. Why does most of the Paris metro smell like a
sewer?

Ah, I've moved to Paris have I? There's an expensive smell of
Eau de Must-Get-a-Plumber-In starting near my pipework. :-(

--
Ivan Reid, Electronic & Computer Engineering, ___ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Room 40-1-B12, CERN
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".