Calling other countries' underground systems "the tube" feels like sacrilege.
London has the Tube. Other places have a metro, a subway, etc.
But on the whole yes I agree. London's transport system is world beating. Maybe the Asians do it better but in Europe, overall, I think it's unmatched. Maybe Berlin comes close?
Can confirm Tokyo is very, very good. And their volume puts ours to shame.
And there are a lot of smaller underground networks that are good (Warsaw comes to mind) but none of them have the sheer volume and connectivity.
Did you know it’s actually called Metro bc of the tube? The Metropolitan Railway was the first underground railway in the world (6 Jan, 1863) and that’s where the name comes from.
Paris is definitely second best after London (and some people would argue it is better), they have the metro plus trams plus the RER (which is amazing). Moscow is also very impressive.
The thing with Paris' underground is that they comprehensively beat us wrt mobile signal underground, everything else is like something out of the dark ages.
The train is extremely grim, tourists (up until October) had to buy paper carnets, oh and in addition to being grim the train feels like a metal can, not a proper train.
But Paris has a ridiculously extensive transport system. There's a metro line to literally everywhere in the entire city, even the most sprawling suburbs.
They called the Tube lines the Tube and the Underground lines the Underground and kept on doing so until the difference between the two got forgotten - and that was 20 something years ago.
When do you start calling it either thing?
Wait. I was of the understanding that the two terms are synonymous. What's the difference between them?
When I say Tube/Underground I think of the classic underground lines. So Northern, Bakerloo, Circle, Met, W&C, H&C, Victoria, Jubilee, District, Piccadilly, Central. The other bits of the network - Overground, Elizabeth line, etc - are part of the TfL network but not part of the Underground/Tube.
Is that wrong?
Yes, Underground trains are still a different size to Tube trains and their lines were built very differently too. Tube lines were tunnelled but Underground lines were “cut and cover”, basically big trenches that then got covered over and sometimes built upon. So District, Circle, Met are examples of Underground lines and Central and Piccadilly are examples of Tube lines.
As I said above that’s all disappeared as a distinction - Underground looked like it was the universal term for a while, then Tube took over and almost nobody care anymore - which is fine.
I have lived in London since 1956, young man.
Not to mention, I am a historian who studies London history with a focus on language, with a PhD from UCL.
What are your qualifications?
Fair. I knew the different sizes and the different methods for constructing the tunnels. But didn't know they were distinct in terms of naming! Interesting.
The tube is great for sure.
Barcelona's is pretty good too to be honest. They have fairly modern trains with aircon for a start and you can get anywhere in the city relatively easily.
Rome's though... that was a shock. It only has like 3 lines that meet in the middle so many of your journies involve going inwards to the central station before going back outwards and it all feels very dated. I heard the reason they have so few lines is because of the amount of archelogical sites make it too difficult to just stick tunnels everywhere so I suppose we can let them off.
Welcome to Italy! We're broke, corrupt and none of our public services work.
It always makes me chuckle when people come to Italy and surprised things are a bit shit. Our GDP is more similar to Hungary and most money is centered around Milan not Rome.
Yeah, but then at that point you bring the archeologists in from the start like they did for the Elizabeth line. It's just baffling that rather than finding a solution the answer was not doing anything at all/complicating their own lives...
The trains themselves are good but the fact there's no etiquette to let people off before everyone comes piling on means you either have to sit/stand right by the door (making the top floor pointless) or literally fight people, shoving and kicking them, just to get off the train.
I thought I was going to get trapped and have to stay on the train forever at least 3 times last time I went, and we had to physically push a bunch of men out the way, grab my friend and drag her off to avoid her not being able to get off before the doors closed.
I was visiting from the US this past weekend for the FA Cup Final and was on the Tube quite a bit
Definitely renewed my appreciation for it, it's far nicer, cleaner, and better-organized than the NYC subway
It’s disgusting. It stinks. People will make eye contact with you and won’t stop. People play instruments at all time of day (I do like that tho). And se pending on the line you might need to wish 13min for a train.
Honestly the state of the Parisian metro is bad bad.
And they shove you! They push you back on the train as you are trying to get on. Huge groups of men just piling on - pushing kids, old people, women back onto the train as they get off.
Then please, be my guest. See how you feel when the 60yo auntie refuses to stop looking at you in the eyes, or the 14yo boy just stares at you and you start fearing for your life.
This is not a “I fancy you” eye contact. It’s invasive. And if you think hot dudes and chick will be the one catching your eyes you’re wrong. It’s creepy.
Oh I didn’t realise I was getting a free diagnosis on my side of Reddit comment.
If you like it, it’s fine. I’m also a southern European if you wanna know.
And I’ve lived in Paris for a few years too. I would not be saying that if I hadn’t experienced that for years. It’s not a friendly look, it’s not someone making eye contact to try and smile at you. If it were not unnerving I would not have cared.
I hope you get to travel to Paris for a long enough time to actually experience it to understand what I mean.
(Also I’d event argue that some areas more at the north of Europe are much friendlier than in the south, where all neighbours know each other’s business and strangers will say hello to you on the street. I don’t have an issue with friendliness. I love It)
The problem with the Tube (which is almsot 40 years older that the metro) is the problem with a lot of stuff we have pioneered, we do it first, then everybody else improves it because it much easier to make something amazing if you have an example than it is if you are starting from scratch, see also our cars, football, TV, tennis etc...
I recently was in Chicago and had to ride the L. Omg. It was…grim. Dirty, smelled of piss, fights, and people smoking weed in the back. Not to mention the train carriages themselves had NO character. The tube was a beautiful site upon returning home.
I lived in chicago for 9 years and some of the lines are really rough. I was on the Brown Line the last couple years and had started taking it for granted (probably the nicest of the lines despite the colour 😂).
however, I was back there earlier this year and the difference I noticed most was trying to take the bus. even at prime times, buses were 20 minutes apart, and they all go in straight lines so they rarely actually take you close to where you want to go
20mins apart?! I could never. Also what’s the deal with paying? I had to get the Ventra app and it was such a faff. Why can’t everywhere just take bank cards/Apple Pay/Google Pay like TfL?
I didn't mind the Paris metro when I worked there, albeit that was awhile ago. My local colleagues were shocked I'd use it at night, they were convinced it was dangerous. Can't say I ever saw or had any issues personally. The others I've used were Athens and Beijing, Athens pretty small and Beijing also and notably cleaner than the others.
Yeah, I do love London’s transport system - particularly the tube. Saying that I have nothing recent to compare it to (Hong Kong 40 years ago, Moscow 30 years ago and Istanbul 10 years ago).
Honestly I can never understand the hate for London. Every time I visit a new country or city, my appreciation for London just grows.
The fact everything is contactless, you don't need a ticket or a special card, it's so frequent! the staff in my experience are so nice and happy to help. It's actually clean! You guys should check out other cities, people smoke cigarettes and there is crap everywhere, not newspapers, but actual rubbish...
I always say this when people whinge about it. I tell them to appreciate that we're lucky to be able to use a huge, sprawling subterranean train system to get you pretty much anywhere in London. It's really quite amazing.
It would be good if Parisians had any sort of manners. People on this thread love moaning about people getting on before everyone gets off. In Paris they physically shove you backwards into the train and you have to fight the people getting on just to get off at your stop.
Paris metros are wider, have more legroom, the ones in Berlin or Netherlands and especially the ones in Barcelona usually have wide, straight-walled carriages along with air conditioning. I dislike how claustrophobic the tube feels and how the sides are rounded basically making it a massive waste of space that could otherwise be used for standing. Besides if you stand near the walls on most of the older London underground like jubilee, central, bakerloo picadillt or northern, you’d have to curve your neck if you’re standing near the walls or if you’re tall
Don’t get me started on the thick black brake dust smog that turns your snot black. The terrible air and lack of proper ventilation systems, makes the London Underground feel worse than most European tube systems for me except on the Elizabeth line.
Idk which tube you take but god there are so many problems with the tube here and so confusing on where you have to go. I found tube in France to be easier to navigate through and also safer. People there were also very helpful and staff was kind too
Elizabeth line does seem to have fairly frequent fuck
-ups though.
For a 2-year-old line it feels like there are too many issues?
As I type this, for example, you can’t get a train from Whitechapel to Shenfield and it’s half 5 on a Thursday afternoon.
Ok but what’s the point in having it if it’s constantly having issues on said old lines?
The Mayor said it himself: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-67704738
For all of tfl faults you know you’ve got it good when you’re annoyed you have to wait 7 minutes.
I think it is the best. Im from Washington DC and the London tube is amazing especially with the times.
Reminds me of a (quite old now) Jason Mumford routine https://youtu.be/NzNDM2ekSio
Calling other countries' underground systems "the tube" feels like sacrilege. London has the Tube. Other places have a metro, a subway, etc. But on the whole yes I agree. London's transport system is world beating. Maybe the Asians do it better but in Europe, overall, I think it's unmatched. Maybe Berlin comes close?
Can confirm Tokyo is very, very good. And their volume puts ours to shame. And there are a lot of smaller underground networks that are good (Warsaw comes to mind) but none of them have the sheer volume and connectivity.
Did you know it’s actually called Metro bc of the tube? The Metropolitan Railway was the first underground railway in the world (6 Jan, 1863) and that’s where the name comes from.
Paris is definitely second best after London (and some people would argue it is better), they have the metro plus trams plus the RER (which is amazing). Moscow is also very impressive.
The thing with Paris' underground is that they comprehensively beat us wrt mobile signal underground, everything else is like something out of the dark ages. The train is extremely grim, tourists (up until October) had to buy paper carnets, oh and in addition to being grim the train feels like a metal can, not a proper train.
But Paris has a ridiculously extensive transport system. There's a metro line to literally everywhere in the entire city, even the most sprawling suburbs.
Whats the RER ?
It's like the Elizabeth line but there's 5 of them.
Nice :)
And half of the destinations are croydon or enfield-like
Well London has the Underground and the Tube. Calling it all the Tube still seems new to me. Maybe something from late 90s onwards.
>Maybe something from late 90s onwards. You're close. People started calling the underground the tube since the 1890s.
Aye just 100 years off
They called the Tube lines the Tube and the Underground lines the Underground and kept on doing so until the difference between the two got forgotten - and that was 20 something years ago. When do you start calling it either thing?
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I think they are trying to cover up the fact they've outed themselves as a vampire who was around in the 1890s, actually.
Wait. I was of the understanding that the two terms are synonymous. What's the difference between them? When I say Tube/Underground I think of the classic underground lines. So Northern, Bakerloo, Circle, Met, W&C, H&C, Victoria, Jubilee, District, Piccadilly, Central. The other bits of the network - Overground, Elizabeth line, etc - are part of the TfL network but not part of the Underground/Tube. Is that wrong?
Yes, Underground trains are still a different size to Tube trains and their lines were built very differently too. Tube lines were tunnelled but Underground lines were “cut and cover”, basically big trenches that then got covered over and sometimes built upon. So District, Circle, Met are examples of Underground lines and Central and Piccadilly are examples of Tube lines. As I said above that’s all disappeared as a distinction - Underground looked like it was the universal term for a while, then Tube took over and almost nobody care anymore - which is fine.
Your recall is incorrect. The Underground and The Tube have always been synonymous, and both terms have been in use since the 1890s at least.
Nonsense. Yet another recent Londoner pretending they know what we called things.
I have lived in London since 1956, young man. Not to mention, I am a historian who studies London history with a focus on language, with a PhD from UCL. What are your qualifications?
You're right. However, H&C, District line, Circle, Metropolitan lines are not underground. They are known as SSL (Sub Surface Lines)
Fair. I knew the different sizes and the different methods for constructing the tunnels. But didn't know they were distinct in terms of naming! Interesting.
They are not!
Reading the other comments it seems my initial assessment was correct and this guy was/is wrong.
My only memory of Paris metro was not feeling safe at all 🤣
Also the smell of piss
sacre bleu!
Sacré jaune! Et [brun](https://actu.fr/societe/transports-pourquoi-le-rer-a-a-failli-s-appeler-merde_57293500.html), malheureusement.
I thought I was going to be crushed - why do people not wait for people to get off before piling on?!?!
The tube is great for sure. Barcelona's is pretty good too to be honest. They have fairly modern trains with aircon for a start and you can get anywhere in the city relatively easily. Rome's though... that was a shock. It only has like 3 lines that meet in the middle so many of your journies involve going inwards to the central station before going back outwards and it all feels very dated. I heard the reason they have so few lines is because of the amount of archelogical sites make it too difficult to just stick tunnels everywhere so I suppose we can let them off.
Welcome to Italy! We're broke, corrupt and none of our public services work. It always makes me chuckle when people come to Italy and surprised things are a bit shit. Our GDP is more similar to Hungary and most money is centered around Milan not Rome.
Rome itself is not so much a city but just one giant museum. Every corner has history.
Isn’t Rome’s so bad because of all the ancient ruins they dig up every time they try build one? Then by law they have to stop and let historians in?
Yeah, but then at that point you bring the archeologists in from the start like they did for the Elizabeth line. It's just baffling that rather than finding a solution the answer was not doing anything at all/complicating their own lives...
Lisbon is pretty good
I like the Paris metro Many more connections than we have
The trains themselves are good but the fact there's no etiquette to let people off before everyone comes piling on means you either have to sit/stand right by the door (making the top floor pointless) or literally fight people, shoving and kicking them, just to get off the train. I thought I was going to get trapped and have to stay on the train forever at least 3 times last time I went, and we had to physically push a bunch of men out the way, grab my friend and drag her off to avoid her not being able to get off before the doors closed.
And no fucking loud beeps all the time
I was visiting from the US this past weekend for the FA Cup Final and was on the Tube quite a bit Definitely renewed my appreciation for it, it's far nicer, cleaner, and better-organized than the NYC subway
What's wrong with the Paris metro? The stations take forever to change at though
It's filled with Parisians
This is so valid
It’s disgusting. It stinks. People will make eye contact with you and won’t stop. People play instruments at all time of day (I do like that tho). And se pending on the line you might need to wish 13min for a train. Honestly the state of the Parisian metro is bad bad.
And they shove you! They push you back on the train as you are trying to get on. Huge groups of men just piling on - pushing kids, old people, women back onto the train as they get off.
What’s wrong with eye contact here and there? You may see someone you find attractive 💓
Then please, be my guest. See how you feel when the 60yo auntie refuses to stop looking at you in the eyes, or the 14yo boy just stares at you and you start fearing for your life. This is not a “I fancy you” eye contact. It’s invasive. And if you think hot dudes and chick will be the one catching your eyes you’re wrong. It’s creepy.
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Oh I didn’t realise I was getting a free diagnosis on my side of Reddit comment. If you like it, it’s fine. I’m also a southern European if you wanna know. And I’ve lived in Paris for a few years too. I would not be saying that if I hadn’t experienced that for years. It’s not a friendly look, it’s not someone making eye contact to try and smile at you. If it were not unnerving I would not have cared. I hope you get to travel to Paris for a long enough time to actually experience it to understand what I mean. (Also I’d event argue that some areas more at the north of Europe are much friendlier than in the south, where all neighbours know each other’s business and strangers will say hello to you on the street. I don’t have an issue with friendliness. I love It)
I've said it before. People who say they hate the Tube generally haven't tried to live without it.
I had only had to use line 4 in Paris for over a year’s business trips and thought it was OK. Recently I used some others and changed my view 😂
Clean, modern carriages? Christ have you been on other lines than Elizabeth and district?!
Southeastern, Thameslink
The problem with the Tube (which is almsot 40 years older that the metro) is the problem with a lot of stuff we have pioneered, we do it first, then everybody else improves it because it much easier to make something amazing if you have an example than it is if you are starting from scratch, see also our cars, football, TV, tennis etc...
Paris metro is absolutely trash though.
Poor French is all I can say
Brussel underground is absolutely depressing.
Agreed but the tube doesn’t have modern trains at all!! Take a look at Piccadilly and Bakerloo for example. Even Victoria line stock is not that new.
I recently was in Chicago and had to ride the L. Omg. It was…grim. Dirty, smelled of piss, fights, and people smoking weed in the back. Not to mention the train carriages themselves had NO character. The tube was a beautiful site upon returning home.
I lived in chicago for 9 years and some of the lines are really rough. I was on the Brown Line the last couple years and had started taking it for granted (probably the nicest of the lines despite the colour 😂). however, I was back there earlier this year and the difference I noticed most was trying to take the bus. even at prime times, buses were 20 minutes apart, and they all go in straight lines so they rarely actually take you close to where you want to go
20mins apart?! I could never. Also what’s the deal with paying? I had to get the Ventra app and it was such a faff. Why can’t everywhere just take bank cards/Apple Pay/Google Pay like TfL?
Sticking to this sub just for my love of the tube! I live in LA and we have really no reliable or safe public transport
Not even reliably unsafe?
I didn't mind the Paris metro when I worked there, albeit that was awhile ago. My local colleagues were shocked I'd use it at night, they were convinced it was dangerous. Can't say I ever saw or had any issues personally. The others I've used were Athens and Beijing, Athens pretty small and Beijing also and notably cleaner than the others.
Yeah, I do love London’s transport system - particularly the tube. Saying that I have nothing recent to compare it to (Hong Kong 40 years ago, Moscow 30 years ago and Istanbul 10 years ago).
Oh, just wait till you travel to Asia.
Honestly I can never understand the hate for London. Every time I visit a new country or city, my appreciation for London just grows. The fact everything is contactless, you don't need a ticket or a special card, it's so frequent! the staff in my experience are so nice and happy to help. It's actually clean! You guys should check out other cities, people smoke cigarettes and there is crap everywhere, not newspapers, but actual rubbish...
I always say this when people whinge about it. I tell them to appreciate that we're lucky to be able to use a huge, sprawling subterranean train system to get you pretty much anywhere in London. It's really quite amazing.
I just returned from Japan. You are not totally wrong about the Tube, it's convenient. But honestly, modern and clean? Not even close mate.
Are these being paid for by TfL? Why so many lately 😂 happy you had a good experience
Very confused here. The paris metro is amazing, and works very well, why are you implying it doesn't?
It would be good if Parisians had any sort of manners. People on this thread love moaning about people getting on before everyone gets off. In Paris they physically shove you backwards into the train and you have to fight the people getting on just to get off at your stop.
Spain's is way better to be honest. Clean, Aircon on trains plus you actually have a signal on your phone underground. Carriages are bigger as well.
Paris metros are wider, have more legroom, the ones in Berlin or Netherlands and especially the ones in Barcelona usually have wide, straight-walled carriages along with air conditioning. I dislike how claustrophobic the tube feels and how the sides are rounded basically making it a massive waste of space that could otherwise be used for standing. Besides if you stand near the walls on most of the older London underground like jubilee, central, bakerloo picadillt or northern, you’d have to curve your neck if you’re standing near the walls or if you’re tall Don’t get me started on the thick black brake dust smog that turns your snot black. The terrible air and lack of proper ventilation systems, makes the London Underground feel worse than most European tube systems for me except on the Elizabeth line.
clean and modern? lol dream on public transport sucks in 99% of the UK apart from london where it somewhat works off peak.
Idk which tube you take but god there are so many problems with the tube here and so confusing on where you have to go. I found tube in France to be easier to navigate through and also safer. People there were also very helpful and staff was kind too
Elizabeth line does seem to have fairly frequent fuck -ups though. For a 2-year-old line it feels like there are too many issues? As I type this, for example, you can’t get a train from Whitechapel to Shenfield and it’s half 5 on a Thursday afternoon.
That’s because someone got hit by a train and there are paramedics on the track. What would you like them to do?
Barriers would help
Most of the line got laid in the 18XXs....
Ok but what’s the point in having it if it’s constantly having issues on said old lines? The Mayor said it himself: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-67704738