General Travel Information

Travelling underground is the way to go

By Albert J. Fernando

Let me tell you about my experiences travelling in the underground.

No, I was not a fugitive revolutionary.

What I am talking about is moving from one place below the city surface as a passenger on an underground railway.

This subterranean transport has become so important, that no big city can afford to be without it. Take a big city like New York or London. Bumper to bumper traffic moving at rush hour at snail’s pace is an everyday occurrence.

Just imagine the chaotic situation these cities would face if they did not have underground rapid mass transit systems.

Now what do you call this valuable subterranean transport? In London, it is the “Underground,” commonly referred as “the Tube.” Paris has its “Metro,” and the same name is used in Montreal, Rome and Washington, D.C., among others. New Yorkers and Torontontians call theirs the “’Subway.”’ Other systems are known by acronyms – San Francisco’s BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) for example.

Let me also add that in these systems many of the trains travel some or even most of the journey on the surface, just like our own LRT (Light Rapid Transport) here in Edmonton or Vancouver’s Skytrain.

During my visits to many countries – 22 in all – I have had the privilege of using the underground railway in London, Rome, Paris, New York, Washington and Tokyo.

The world’s first underground

History was created in 1863 when London opened the world’s first subterranean railway. Today, the London Underground carries three million passengers a day. It runs 511 trains and has some 13,000 people on staff. The Tube has its own newsletter, various competitions, projects and campaigns.

In a recent competition entitled Cooling the Tube a prize of 100,000 pounds sterling was offered to the person who could come up with an innovative and workable solution to keep the Underground cool.

Yet another project involved turning an Underground station into an art gallery. Works – not copies but originals – by several prominent artists have been displayed for sometime at Gloucester Road Tube Station.

Paris Metro

The Paris Metro, as the underground railway is known in France, began in 1900.

It was known first as “Chemin de Fer Metropolitain,” which was abbreviated to “Metropolitain,” and then to “Metro.”

The Paris Metro has 16 lines and 380 stations.

Rubber tires have been fitted to the wheels of trains on most of the Paris Metro lines, which make their acceleration 50 per cent more ef? cient than that of most underground trains.

Since the French love art, some of the Metro stations are designed in such a way that the closest major cultural attraction can be determined by looking at the station itself.

For example, the Louvre station resembles the museum because walls are adorned with copies of the paintings and replica sculptures in glass cases. Perhaps the first-time tourist might wonder whether the train had pulled into the museum itself!

Rome Metro

Unlike the complex systems of other major European cities, the Rome Metro only has two lines: A Line and B Line. The lines crisscross each other like the letter X.

There was a public campaign in mid-1990s to add another line to accommodate the millions of visitors expected for the Holy Year 2000, but the efforts fizzled out.

Of course, there was a funding problem, but more signi? cant was the fact that adding another line would disturb the archaeological remains of ancient Rome.

New York Subway

“On behalf of the people, I hereby declare the Subway open,” said Mayor McClellan when he inaugurated New York City’s Subway on October 27, 1904.

Then the train departed for its first trip, with 1,500 excited and merry special guests aboard. The celebrations continued a long time into the night.

The following day the New York Times reported the celebrations thus: “That night a vast crowd stormed the terminal enclosures and taxed the best efforts of New York Police, who had been on duty all day to shepherd them; it was carnival night in New York. Every noise-making instrument known to election night was in operation.”

New York Subway found its way into a song, in a 1944 Broadway musical called On the Town The lines go like this:

“New York, New York, a helluva town.
The Bronx is up, but the Battery’s down.
The people ride in a hole in the groun’.”

One of my favourite New York Subway stories concerns a congressman from Chicago who rode in this new mode of public transport. Being envious of the Subway and after hearing that one “rides like the wind” on it, he commented to another passenger: “You ride like the wind, but it smells like a cellar.”

Another passenger, an irate New Yorker, replied: “Yes, we ride like the wind, and there may be an underground smell sensitive to your nostrils. But what a relief from crossing half of Illinois breathing the odors of the Chicago River!.”