4 ms·

From memory, the NYC subway has a lot more space in tunnels, making this much easier to do. The London underground has very tight tunnels and you'd probably be

From memory, the NYC subway has a lot more space in tunnels, making this much easier to do. The London underground has very tight tunnels and you'd probably be turned into mince if you tried this there (that is, if the commuters didn't get to you first). Fun fact - the tunnels are so tight in the Underground that there's not much room for much airflow around the trains and the clay surrounding the tunnels has absorbed so much heat that it can't take in any more, which is why it gets so stifling in summer. People used to go down to the Central Line to cool off in summer! https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2017/06/10/cooling-the-tube-engineering-heat-out-of-the-underground/ https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2017/06/10/cooling-the-tube...

masklinn 7y ago
> The London underground has very tight tunnels That's an understatement. IIRC in some of the tube stock you have/had to duck to enter the carriage if you're more than 5'5.
- londons_explore 7y ago
  Probably 25% of men now can't stand upright anywhere in the train. It's like playing sardines in a wardrobe!
  - masklinn 7y ago
    That matches my recollection of being just barely able to stand straight in the middle of the car, I can't imagine the neck/back/knees of 6'5 londoners. For starters I assume they wear a helmet with a face shield so they don't eat the lintel every time they step into the carriage.
    - yaleman 7y ago
      6'9" guy checking in, thankfully just a tourist to the town for a week - it was always leg day when I was on the tube.
  - attilakun 7y ago
    I'm 6'2'' and can stand upright in the middle of the carriage on Central line. The doors however have this annoying curvature so I do have to hunch when I'm standing close to them - which is quite often if you get on at a busy station.
    - Ntrails 7y ago
      Yup, the roof curves but in the middle it's perfectly fine to stand straight at 6'4" and with some leeway. The time you get stuck by the door, well it's going to be a sad 20 minutes
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - deadbunny 7y ago
      Preach brother, 6"4' here and if I can't get a seat (so always) or am able to stand in the middle of the carriage I'm doing my best hunchback impression. That said I rarely use the tube these days as it's quicker to get an Uber/Taxi (by a good 15 mins) between Waterloo and my office.
- zeristor 7y ago
  The Glasgow tube is even smaller, or should that be wee.
- zeristor 7y ago
  All the more horrific when people can’t get on a train, but get their clothes caught in the doors, get dragged along the platform and then slammed into the wall at the tunnel entrance. That would leave about a thousand people traumatised. I hope they can retrofit platform doors into the stations soon.
tempguy9999 7y ago
Interesting fact that maybe I'm the last person to discover, but... I'd long wondered why underground trains came in 2 obviously different sizes, ie. the central line AKA the sardines express vs the district line, the carriages thereof being properly capacious. Was talking to a TFL'er who said it annoyed him that all tube trains were collectively referred to by the public as 'underground trains' when there were actually sub-surface trains (the big ones) and proper underground trains (like the central and northern). I really hadn't known. Edit: he could also tell the line a (proper) underground train was on by the metallic shriek it made. I asked him what caused that and he thought it was the wheel flanges rubbing on the sides of the rails during tighter turns.
- masklinn 7y ago
  > I'd long wondered why underground trains came in 2 obviously different sizes, ie. the central line AKA the sardines express vs the district line, the carriages thereof being properly capacious. Because the original lines were opened in the mid (sub-surface) to late (deep) 19th century. The sub-surface lines were built cut-and-cover and thus easy to make roomy with the technology of the times, digging from up and covering was well within easy means, however the deep lines were built using pre-TBM tunnelling shields, limiting their diameter due to effort and sheer technology. The deepest station in the underground was opened in 1907, remains one of the deepest stations in the world, and pretty much all the deeper ones opened after WWII. Later deep lines (Victoria and Jubilee) I'm guessing were kept at the same diameter for convenience (of sharing structure, infrastructure and rolling stock), and possibly existing sections being "moved" from one line to an other. > Was talking to a TFL'er who said it annoyed him that all tube trains were collectively referred to by the public as 'underground trains' when there were actually sub-surface trains (the big ones) and proper underground trains (like the central and northern). I really hadn't known. Technically they're all underground trains, as in trains which are part of the London Underground. The sardine express ones are "deep-level" or "deep-tube" (they used to be the actual tube lines but the term has expanded to basically be the same thing as the Underground).

masklinn 7y ago

> The London underground has very tight tunnels That's an understatement. IIRC in some of the tube stock you have/had to duck to enter the carriage if you're more than 5'5.

londons_explore 7y ago
Probably 25% of men now can't stand upright anywhere in the train. It's like playing sardines in a wardrobe!
- masklinn 7y ago
  That matches my recollection of being just barely able to stand straight in the middle of the car, I can't imagine the neck/back/knees of 6'5 londoners. For starters I assume they wear a helmet with a face shield so they don't eat the lintel every time they step into the carriage.
  - yaleman 7y ago
    6'9" guy checking in, thankfully just a tourist to the town for a week - it was always leg day when I was on the tube.
- attilakun 7y ago
  I'm 6'2'' and can stand upright in the middle of the carriage on Central line. The doors however have this annoying curvature so I do have to hunch when I'm standing close to them - which is quite often if you get on at a busy station.
  - Ntrails 7y ago
    Yup, the roof curves but in the middle it's perfectly fine to stand straight at 6'4" and with some leeway. The time you get stuck by the door, well it's going to be a sad 20 minutes
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - deadbunny 7y ago
    Preach brother, 6"4' here and if I can't get a seat (so always) or am able to stand in the middle of the carriage I'm doing my best hunchback impression. That said I rarely use the tube these days as it's quicker to get an Uber/Taxi (by a good 15 mins) between Waterloo and my office.
zeristor 7y ago
The Glasgow tube is even smaller, or should that be wee.
zeristor 7y ago
All the more horrific when people can’t get on a train, but get their clothes caught in the doors, get dragged along the platform and then slammed into the wall at the tunnel entrance. That would leave about a thousand people traumatised. I hope they can retrofit platform doors into the stations soon.

tempguy9999 7y ago

Interesting fact that maybe I'm the last person to discover, but... I'd long wondered why underground trains came in 2 obviously different sizes, ie. the central line AKA the sardines express vs the district line, the carriages thereof being properly capacious. Was talking to a TFL'er who said it annoyed him that all tube trains were collectively referred to by the public as 'underground trains' when there were actually sub-surface trains (the big ones) and proper underground trains (like the central and northern). I really hadn't known. Edit: he could also tell the line a (proper) underground train was on by the metallic shriek it made. I asked him what caused that and he thought it was the wheel flanges rubbing on the sides of the rails during tighter turns.

masklinn 7y ago
> I'd long wondered why underground trains came in 2 obviously different sizes, ie. the central line AKA the sardines express vs the district line, the carriages thereof being properly capacious. Because the original lines were opened in the mid (sub-surface) to late (deep) 19th century. The sub-surface lines were built cut-and-cover and thus easy to make roomy with the technology of the times, digging from up and covering was well within easy means, however the deep lines were built using pre-TBM tunnelling shields, limiting their diameter due to effort and sheer technology. The deepest station in the underground was opened in 1907, remains one of the deepest stations in the world, and pretty much all the deeper ones opened after WWII. Later deep lines (Victoria and Jubilee) I'm guessing were kept at the same diameter for convenience (of sharing structure, infrastructure and rolling stock), and possibly existing sections being "moved" from one line to an other. > Was talking to a TFL'er who said it annoyed him that all tube trains were collectively referred to by the public as 'underground trains' when there were actually sub-surface trains (the big ones) and proper underground trains (like the central and northern). I really hadn't known. Technically they're all underground trains, as in trains which are part of the London Underground. The sardine express ones are "deep-level" or "deep-tube" (they used to be the actual tube lines but the term has expanded to basically be the same thing as the Underground).