gantshill
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Post by gantshill on Feb 3, 2017 18:59:26 GMT
This is another of my occasional posts about trips to other underground systems (the other half thinks they are holidays).
We spent a few days in Madrid. My welcome to public transport was a replacement bus service as the whole of line 8, which serves the airport, was closed for improvements. Observations - there are two widths of train, the older lines being narrower. Current collection is by pantograph, some lines have fixed overhead rails, others have wires.
The older stations look very like the early Paris Metro stations, and each platform is labelled Anden 1 or Anden 2 - and at interchange stations, as far as I could tell, every line had an Anden 1 and Anden 2. I noticed that for each metro line, Anden 1 seemed to be the platform going towards the first-named terminus, and Anden 2 for the second-named one.
The interchange stations felt to me to have very long and twisty routes between lines, although there were plenty of escalators. At one station (I've forgotten which) our interchange journey took us up four different escalators! Alas, I have tried and failed to find a track map, sadly Cartometro hasn't tackled Madrid.
Perhaps the most curious thing is that the metro is left-hand drive, and even though roads swapped to right hand drive many years ago, the metro have never followed suit, even the newer lines travel on the left.
Finally, if you go, make sure to visit Chamberi, a closed station on line 1, which has been reopened as a free to enter museum. A short film gives the history of the metro, and you have access to the southbound platform, where you can see the trains go by. The platform has a 2-metre high glass barrier to protect both visitors and train.
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Post by countryman on Feb 3, 2017 21:24:15 GMT
Just because the cars travel on the right, the railways don't necessarily. For instance in France SNCF and (IIRC) RER on the left, RATP on the right.
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gantshill
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Post by gantshill on Feb 4, 2017 0:08:38 GMT
I know that rail and road don't always use the same side. I was just found it intriguing that the Madrid metro never changed over. Budapest line 1 did change from left hand to right hand running when it was reconstructed. Perhaps the costs of changing signalling and lots of passenger signage was seen as unnecessary in Madrid.
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Chris M
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Post by Chris M on Feb 4, 2017 1:09:03 GMT
IIRC the reason Paris Métro drives on the other side was originally to make it harder for it to be taken over by/integrated with SNCF. London Underground would have ended up looking rather different if the District had swapped sides during it's rivalry with the Met.
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Post by norbitonflyer on Feb 4, 2017 7:50:00 GMT
I just found it intriguing that the Madrid metro never changed over. Perhaps the costs of changing signalling and lots of passenger signage was seen as unnecessary in Madrid. Quite so. Why bother? It's a self-contained system, so there is nothing to be gained from changing sides. And Spanish main line trains seem to drive on the left. Trains in Alsace still drive on the right, despite having been part of France for the past 99 years. |
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Post by brigham on Feb 4, 2017 8:52:27 GMT
I thought Spain adopted right-hand road traffic as a result of Bonaparte's shenanigans. Surely that was long before the Madrid metro?
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Post by trt on Feb 5, 2017 18:05:50 GMT
IIRC the reason Paris Métro drives on the other side was originally to make it harder for it to be taken over by/integrated with SNCF. London Underground would have ended up looking rather different if the District had swapped sides during it's rivalry with the Met. It's so drivers can pass each other and would be unable to draw their swords thus avoiding conflict by design. |
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Post by John Tuthill on Feb 5, 2017 20:33:01 GMT
IIRC the reason Paris Métro drives on the other side was originally to make it harder for it to be taken over by/integrated with SNCF. London Underground would have ended up looking rather different if the District had swapped sides during it's rivalry with the Met. [/font].[/quote] One of the apocryphal(?) reasons that Americans drive on the left is that you mount a horse from the left? And yes I do know that Europe drive on the 'wrong' side as well, but I don't know why  |
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Post by Chris M on Feb 5, 2017 23:39:39 GMT
France, the former French empire and other places conquered by Napoleon drive on the right because Napoleon instituted the switch. Many other places switched to be the same as their neighbours (e.g. Sweden). Most countries in Africa drive on the same side of the road as the country that colonised them.
I've seen an explanation for the US based on where mule train riders drove from - most were right handed so they had the (very long) whip in their right hand, meaning they naturally sat on the left of their wagon. If they passed each other to the right the whips would not get tangled up. I don't know how true it is, but it's more plausible than some other explanations I've seen.
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Post by norbitonflyer on Feb 6, 2017 6:45:33 GMT
I've seen an explanation for the US based on where mule train riders drove from - most were right handed so they had the (very long) whip in their right hand, meaning they naturally sat on the left of their wagon. If they passed each other to the right the whips would not get tangled up. Conversely, the explanation I have seen most often for right-hand drive is that your passenger sits to your left to give space for your whip-hand. You then naturally pass right hand side to right hand side (i.e drive on the left) in order to judge the distance between the oncoming vehicles. Other explanations I have seen - driving on the left arose from the practice of mounting a horse by throwing your right (dominant) leg over the horse - this means you mount the horse from a mounting block on its left side. Also, you wear a sword on your left, and it would get in the way if trying to mount from the right. Moreover, anyone holding the horse for you will use their right hand, and therefore be standing on the horse's left. It is therefore natural to set off on the same side of the road. - on the continent the practice was to drive a team of horses not from the wagon itself, but riding the left-hand-side rearmost horse, this giving a right-handed rider the most control over the team. - America drives on the left because most early cars imported there came from France and Germany (the Red Flag Act having limited the early UK industry) - early Fords had right hand drive despite America driving on the right. The idea was that it allowed a chauffeur to readdily open the door for the rear seat passenger on the kerb side. - early Lancias had right hand drive despite Italy driving on the right - the idea being that on narrow Alpine roads it was more important to know where the edge of the road was than how close you are to oncoming vehicles (which would be rare) No idea which, if any, of these theories are true. Spain and Italy had no national standard until the 1920s - in particular many Italian cities held out for driving on the left after the rest pof the country had changed because their tram systems followed railway practice. Portugal switched from driving on the left to driving on the right in the 1920s, and the Netherlands did so under Napoleon, but many of their colonies remained driving on the left. The former Austro-Hungarian Empire was never conquered by Napoleon, and only switched under Hitler. |
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Post by brigham on Feb 6, 2017 9:28:11 GMT
It's important not to confuse the rule-of-the-road with the driving position in these discussions.
Drivers normally sat on the right. Where traffic RAN on the right, drivers gradually drifted towards sitting on the left.
Henry Ford placed the driving position of his new model, the 'T', on the left, so that you boarded from the 'sidewalk'. In those days, cars had no opening on the driver's side, and you walked across. Left-hand steering allowed you to do so without stepping into the muddy road.
Oxen were used in vast trains in Nova Scotia, for the hauling of lumber. These beasts were incapable of re-learning the rule of the road, and so when the Frenchies switched traffic to right-hand running, they became a liability.
1923 is known locally as the 'Year of Cheap Beef'.
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Post by trt on Feb 6, 2017 10:47:17 GMT
I was only joking! I found it amusing to consider the imagery of a couple of District line drivers jousting from the cabs.
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