BART has always seemed like a midway step between a metro line and a commuter line. I think the stations are farther apart and the trains are faster than a normal metro, but I still think that it is considered a metro, unlike Caltrain and the Altamont line, which are true commuter lines.
Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Zurich, Copenhagen and Osaka also qualify for this category. I would have included Leipzig but the S-Bahn tunnel was under construction the one time I was there. A commuter system doesn't have to be underground to function as inner city rapid transit. Tokyo's Yamanote, Keihin-Tohoku, Chuo and Chuo-Sobu lines are part of the national rail system and almost entirely outdoors. However, they have the same train types, frequency and closeness of stations as any subway/metro lines.
As Neil Crawford mentioned - Merseyrail in Liverpool and the Great Northern Line from Moorgate in the city of London to commuter towns in Hertfordshire. My home town of Glasgow also has a commuter rail line that goes underground in the city centre - the Argyle Line opened in 1978 - from stations in Lanarkshire through low level stations in centre of the city to stations in Dunbartonshire. There is also the north Clyde line that runs underground through stations in central Glasgow that meets up with the Argyle line at Patrick - the north Clyde line’s longest route goes from Helensburgh, Balloch and Milngavie to the west of Glasgow via Glasgow Queen Street Low Level to Edinburgh Waverley, Airdrie or Springburn
I have ridden the system in Valparaiso/Vina del Mar in two separate trips to Chile. First I'm 1995 when the whole system was a vintage electric service run with ancient German built rolling stock. The line was subsequently modernised and placed underground. The Berlin S Bahn is a fantastic system that is more widespread than most metro systems. My city of Toronto Canada is currently upgrading and electrifying our extensive diesel commuter network. Some lines will e upgraded to RER type standards. If is a less expensive way to repurpose existing infrastructure into higher capacity metro style service. Great video.
The fact you included Sydney over Melbourne blows my mind a little, the Melbourne city loop tunnel is bigger plus it is expanding with the new Metro Tunnel. Easily the biggest underground commuter rail in Australia
I'm guessing you are just counting the City Circle (six stations), but the Eastern Suburbs line adds another five and the Airport line another four. If you add Metro, it has four underground in the suburbs, with another four well advanced in construction in the city area. You might like this clip though - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Cg7exp3gIA0.html
I believe the question of distinguishing metro vs commuter rail is one that diminishes with time. As systems expand beyond original subway lines into suburbia, smarter connections, and unified fare collection, the distinctions become even more blurred as systems look and feel alike.
there's a cool part of town in Paris that's the other side of the city from where i live. could take a 30 minute metro ride there, or i could take the RER for 10 minutes to get there.
Merseyrail, Liverpool. It is a 3rd rail 750vDC commuter railway that also runs underground under the River Mersey and the city centre. It is on two levels. The shallow sub surface Northern Line that goes as far north as Southport, and the deep Wirral Line that goes under the Mersey and goes as far as Chester. Liverpool Central and Moorfields serve both the Northern Line and Wirral Line, so have platforms on two levels. Merseyrail should be introducing the Stadler built class 777s soon. They are on test on the network at the moment, they have to run fault free for a specific mileage before Merseyrail will accept them. The mileage varies, the first few units having to perform 1,500 miles without fault, then the mileage decreases for later units, as the initial bugs should be sorted from the early runs of the initial units. There is also the Great Northern line from Finsbury Park to Moorgate in London. The route above ground is 25kv overhead, while the underground section is 3rd rail DC at 750v. The trains (Siemens built class 717 6-car units) are dual voltage, having to drop their pantograph before entering the underground section. The line in the past was once run as part of London Underground's Northern Line. Moorgate being known for the Moorgate tube disaster where a Northern Line train slammed into the end of the tunnel at speed on February 28th 1975.
In Poland, we have five metro-like suburban line systems: SKM Tricity (especially line S1) runs on shared track from Wejherowo to Rumia, later continues on separated line (PKP line number: 250) all ways to Gdańsk Śródmieście, which runs parallel to faster lines number 9 and 202 and 8 of 23 stations are common stations on the separated sections. Trains are also frequent too! And they even modernised EN57s and EN71s, which form a majority of their rolling stock! In Łódź, the so-called "Łódź Metro" (because of that it is a S-Bahn-like tunnel) was opened in 2016 after 5 years of build. It currently consists of two stations: Łódź Niciarniana and Łódź Fabryczna (one of main stations in Łódź, second largest one is Łódź Kaliska). the second phase of "metro" is in build and it will add additional three stations: Łódź Śródmieście, Łódź Polesie and Łódź Włókniarzy. It will be completed in 2023 (or later). In Kraków, we have line S1, which runs from Krakow Airport to Wieliczka. It is nicknamed "Krakow Metro", because of distance between stations and length (the only metro-like section was built between junction close to Kraków Mydlniki station and John Paul II International Airport. They are still building next infill stations, especially Kraków Grzegórzki. In Warsaw, outside of real metro, we have two underground railway stations: Warszawa Śródmieście (suburban and regional station, it's known for spanish solution) and Warsaw Central Station (high-speed, long-distance and international station). Also, we have a light rail system, known as WKD and (althrough of low-floor vehicles), it runs like metro connecting Warsaw with it's south-western suburbs like Pruszków, Piastów, Podkowa Leśna and Grodzisk Mazowiecki, but, they have only one metro-like station, Warszawa Śródmieście WKD. In Tychy, there's a section, in which, four stations are close each other (the terminus one is at ice hockey arena). All of each stations in the Tychy branch are served in a form of line S4/S41 (S4 terminates in Katowice, S41 continues to Sosnowiec).
Cool video Tim! Here in Holland we also have underground train stations for commuter rails. City: Rotterdam (Staton: Rotterdam Blaak) - City: Rijswijk (Station Rijswijk) - City: Delft (Station Delft) and i think few more in other cities
in the Uk thameslink is a commuter network for london although a tunnel with 2 stations underground the core is set to have 24 trains per hour going through it and it will have connection to the Crossrail(Elizabeth line) at one of the 2 undergorund stations when crossrail opens btw crossrail is a east west commuter rail line
There is also Thameslink, which runs north-south through central London, and is part of the national rail system. It serves a variety of destinations north and south of London, some at least 80 km distant. There is a very frequent service in the central core, as all trains go through it.
There is a clear trend in Europe to put heavy rail services underground in the city centre area. In particular, this has been done where the main station in a city is a 'dead end' terminus. Munich, Frankfurt (Main), Leipzig, Zurich, Oslo, Antwerp and Malmo (population just 350,000) all illustrate this point. Staying in Sweden, Gothenburg is building an underground cross-city line for heavy rail suburban trains. (Like Zurich and Antwerp, Gothenburg does not have a Metro but does have an excellent tram and bus system.). The new deep underground 'Stockholm City ' station for 'commuter trains' is large and impressive. It is BELOW the stations for the three Metro lines. The nearby Stockholm Centraal station is now (thankfully) much less crowded.
There's also an "El" on SEPTA Regional Rail over 9th Street! A plenty of open-cut stations that give the feel of 2-tracked version of the NYC Brighton Line.
I'd include Copenhagen and Malmö. Their systems are also linked via the Øresund Line. Also in Belgrade there is BG:VOZ which could be considered a commuter rail, even more so the previous Beovoz.
I really like Munich's. The stammstrecke in the city has all the lines converging and you get frequencies near every 2 minutes. It's really useful for east-west trips downtown.
in Vienna, you also have S45 line, which runs from Hutteldorf to Handelskai, like every 10mins or so, large sections being below ground or in tunnels, and is pretty much substitute for metro for those outer areas of Vienna... it either runs old 4020/6020 units or Talent2 modern units and uses old Stadtbahn tracks too (the stations are real nice)... so until Vienna manages to build/finish its new U5 line, Hernals and surrounding areas have this :)
These trains, under my personal classifications, ARE short distance commuter rail/metros, they are common, and interesting too... Elizabeth Line in London BART too
1:13 same trains are also in service in Frankfurt am Main and Rhine-Main-Area(where I live)! But the engines makes pretty much different sounds than in Munich!
I can tell you about my town, Turin (Italy). There is a "Passante", like Milan, with five lines (in future will be seven or eight) they act like commuter lines. Actually there are few station (2 underground) but in few years (probably in 2023) will open a branch with two other underground stations.
Most of Japanese metro systems are interconnected with suburban commuter rail networks. In most western countries, metros and commuter rails are different things but in Japan, they are not.
for my top out of my local neighborhood I will take Yokohama Metro system, which actually donates its trains to multiple commuter railways one of which then turns into a number of metro lines in neighboring Tokyo before coming out the other side as commuter trains heading north into the mountains, the length of the total journey can be as long as 4½ hours in length), another one in Tokyo would be the Rinkai-Saikyo line, a system of Mid high speed express-trains that turn into an underground metro system under the bay... Kyoto Metro, I simply like for its multi-system network with routes strictly coded by its train type, design generally, whilst this system is extremely common in Japan, not having lived in the Germanic part of Europe with their S-Bahn(or equivalent Swedish, Danish and Norwegian) systems, I have not really come across any comparably extensively overlapping networks anywhere else in the world... I mean, you could count Bart... though I'd say it's an all commuter transit network related closely to a subway... or Milan, but there, as in Paris the system is just underground for only an insignificantly short period of its route... of the really odd ones, my favorite are the two "underground stations" of the Harecastle & Trent canal, just for the oddity of having the Trent and Mersey river-bus stop at an underground pier... also, though I do not think it actually goes underground anywhere, if you count elevated railway lines, there is a system of high-speed rail units that will join central subway stations in Hangzhou to its multiple satellite cities and suburbs... they travel at what is normal metro-speed above streets with multiple elevated stations in the CBD (Central Business districts), but on the outer areas of each of three branches, can reach speeds of 250km/h.
Warsaw, it has two rail tunnels, one for TLK and higher categories (with Warsaw Central Station) and one for commuter and regional trains (with Warsaw Downtown Station, that one with spanish solution)
Another metro-like train tunnel is in Łódź (now, Łódź "Metro" has 3 stations: Łódź Widzew, Łódź Niciarniana (both on-ground, former one is also used by all fast passenger trains) and Łódź Fabryczna (underground one, terminus station for trains terminating in Łódź, for trains passing this city, their next station is Łódź Dąbrowa (regional ones) or Łódź Chojny)
In Łódź, fast trains, after stopping at Łódź Chojny, they stop at Łódź Retkinia (westbound) or Łódź Kaliska (northbound), the suburban train companies are SKM Warszawa and ŁKA (Łódzka Kolej Aglomeracyjna, meaning "Lodz Agglomeration Railway (or Railroad)).
The S-Bahn Wien trains can actually run in the S-Bahn München Tunnel if fitted with LZB and cab needs the G & Ü indicators. Because all German and Austrian trains are equipped Punktförmige zugbeeinflussung when operating outside of high-speed lines and S-Bahn lines if equipped with ETCS & LZB. One more thing the Austrian trains if you were inside the cab you're going to hear Chris Lohner Sifa warnings or Failure for PZB & Sifa acknowledge Zwangsbremsung. Hamburg S-Bahn has DB BR490 & 474.3 that can use 15kv 16.7hz used by S-Bahn München Leipzig & Wien. Hamburg Wien & München S-bahn have 55 70 85 PZB indicators.
This British viewer largely agrees with your European choices. The Berlin and Hamburg S-Bahns are particularly like Metros as the stations are close together, the frequencies very high, and the trains run on 3rd rail DC. I did wonder about the London Thameslink line, which is rather like a Paris RER. I did rather expect to see the Copenhagen S-Tog. It does have a central tunnel. Capacity and frequency are both very high. Another possible candidate is Zurich. Zurich people sometimes say, 'Our city is not a world city because we do no have s metro'. That ignores the fact that it has a superb S-Bahn system with long tunnels in the central area. However the (Double-deck) trains go way out into the country, carrying hikers and (even) skiers!
In the UK I'd say that Liverpools 'Merseyrail' network acts quite like a metro system As do the North Clyde & Argyle lines of Glasgows suburban network. (Cathcart circle also is metro like but doesn't actually go underground). Thameslink and (when it opens) Crossrail in London should also get a mention.
Philadelphia was a natural, because of the center city tunnel that connected the former Pennsylvania and Reading Railroad commuter lines. But even outside the tunnel, the commuter trains make more stops elsewhere in the city than you would expect from commuter trains.
Well you really have no idea what you're talking about obviously... Taking line C to go to work tomorrow, 60km ride, run by Transilien and the only difference is that the train will continue it's journey through Paris. It IS a commuter service.
RER aren’t a commuter service, Thats why u can’t say they act like metros on big city, THEY ARE HALF metro. Transilien on the other hand 99% of the time they link Paris with his suburb only 1 station per city, that’s a fucking Commuter
Sydney doesn't belong: It doesn't act like a metro at all. Needlessly sluggish; needlessly infrequent. My favourite is Paris RER: a model for Australia. Ten-car double-deck trains (longer carriages than ours) on 2 min headways. I have stood on the busiest platform timing. As one train cleared the platform, the front of the next was half way down the platform (longer than ours). Sydney had signalling like that at Circular Quay in the 1950s, but removed it: deemed 'unnecessary'. Your selection takes in an interesting ten, but hardly a top ten.
SEPTA REALLY needs to remodel Suburban station. That green and white paint scheme is so ugly and unfriendly looking, especially with how Jefferson station looks. I'm surprised they didn't remodel Suburban station when they built the center city connection.
I imagine the only reason the Yamanote Line isn't here is because it doesn't go underground. Many, Tokyo subway lines interline with the commuter rail network, like Fukuoka.
Berlin is a complete fail in the way you show it. You provide footage of the 1939 'Berlin North-South S-Bahn tunnel', but the Berlin S-Bahn is along with Berlin U-Bahn a rather perfect Metro system with all of it's characteristics and a complete separated right of way. I think you meant 2006 'Berlin North-South mainline tunnel' also called the 'Tiergarten tunnel' which runs mostly parallel and connects Südkreuz and Hauptbahnhof. Pls find links to both on Wikipedia
