Metro Re: buses or trams

[Giovanni Drogo <drogo@rn.bastiani.it>]

On Mon, 7 Dec 1998, Charles Norrie wrote:
> In article <366C431E.23E1@ichips.intel.com>, Greg Gritton

> >Does "metro" have a more specific meaning in some region of the world?

some considerations on the matter follows.

> >on Paris's "metro".   I believe Paris was the original city to call 
> >its heavy rail system the "Metro".

I guess that's correct 
 
> That's as maybe. But the 'proper' name originally used was Metropolitan
> (accented to choice). It is difficult to see how they were not
> influenced by the Metropolitan and the Metropolitan District Railway in

And I often wondered about that ... however in the case of London it was
the name of a LINE, while in the case of Paris it was the name of a
NETWORK.

> >Isn't "metro" just a convenient word for a what is commonly
> >called a "subway" (i.e. heavy rail) that isn't necessarily underground.

That "commonly" should be common outside of Europe. I've never seen an
European metro, or "tube", or underground, or U-bahn been called a "subway".
A "subWAY" (or it's equivalent in any European language) will be either a
pedestrian crossing under a road, or a road passing under another road.
Nothing to do with RAIL.


I believe the full term for Paris metro was "chemin de fer metropolitain",
which is "metropolitan railway", where the term "metropolitan" comes from the
greek "metropolis" ('mother city'), which commonly makes reference to a city
with more than 1 million inhabitants.

It specifically refers to a railway (I guess it won't matter much whether
stock is heavy or light, gauge is normal or narrow, and so on ... in Paris
they even have stock with rubber wheels) which runs INSIDE AN URBAN AREA (as
opposed to normal rail which connects different cities ... in fact the
original purpose of London underground was to connect rail terminals). 

The word "metropolitan" gives more emphasis to this characteristics than to
the fact it runs underground (as in the British expression "Underground" or
in the German "U-Bahn - Untergrundbahn" which are equivalent to it). In fact
at least in Paris there were elevated parts since very early, and in many
places even an U-Bahn has stretches in open air.

Another characteristics would be that a "metropolitan" is managed by a local
or municipal transport agency, and not by the state (or by private companies),
as it is the case for long distance railways.

This seems e.g. the major distinction between an U-bahn and an S-bahn in
Germany (which however are lucky enough to have unified fares with the
Verkehrverbund mechanism).

A final language note about italian. The full expression "ferrovia
metropolitana" (euqivalent to the french or english above, "metropolitan
railway") is rarely used. It is quite common instead the substantivated
adjective form "la metropolitana" (feminine, since "ferrovia" is such).

It is curious that in Rome this is abbreviated "la metro" (accent on first e)
while in Milan we use the masculine form "il metro'" (accent on last o). More
curiously, people from the suburbs use the roman form even in Milan.

Also concerning "heavy" and "light" rail, we do not make such distinction in
such terms. One thing is "railway" (ferrovia) meaning the lines connecting
cities or towns, independently of the rolling stock and gauge (also railways
keep the left); another thing is "metropolitana" (which keeps the right). This
is usually quite on the heavy side. I guess that what you call "light rail" is
what here will be called "metropolitana leggera" ("light metropolitan") ...
something we often talk of, but which has never been implemented, intermediate
between "metro" and "tram".


A further consideration is that a "metropolitan" service is usually organized
in distinct lines (typically each one has a number or name, and a colour code)
eventually with branches, but with dedicated tracks or stations (or at least
dedicated platforms in interchange stations).

A normal railway (included suburban services) instead has all trains using the
same line and stations in indifferentiate manner irrespective of the
destinations. 

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