Comments on: Coming Through!

By: Beau

Beau — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:57:22 +0000

You can’t have the Korean metro station as it appears to be basically a military only network. As far as I can gather it’s hardly open to the public. So it’s back to Moscow/SPB. It’s difficult to find a definitive answer anyway but I think it’s telling that this Pyongyang metro station is supposed to be the deepest metro station in the world and yet they lay no claim to having the longest escalators… surely you cannot have one without t’other?? Victory Park station in Moscow DOES have the longest Escalator in Europe at least according to your link above which is as one would expect. I know you are thinking: “well hold on there a cotton picking minute Beau, maybe they have tiered escalators” I did consider that but I think when you are going that deep it’s much more practical to only have one main escalator.

BTW, the shortest escalators in the world are apparently at a JC Pennys in Washington…

By: pdberger

pdberger — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 16:24:02 +0000

According to Wiki, it's actually 84 meters deep.

By: Beau

Beau — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:58:21 +0000

Victory Park metro station in Moscow is also 100 metres deep….

By: pdberger

pdberger — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:08:09 +0000

I always thought that St Petersburg had the deepest subway in the world. So I did a very quick bit of digging (no pun intended) for you, Beau. This according to Gridskipper:

Moscow has the world's most used subway system, serving over 3 billion passengers annually; the New York subway is the largest in size, covering 415 kilometers of track. Depth is harder to gauge, but the St. Petersburg Metro is generally considered the deepest system-wide, but Puhung Station on the Pyongyang Metro is thought to be the deepest subway station in the world at 100 meters down.

By: Beau

Beau — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 09:49:04 +0000

Moscow has the best system I reckon, trains every 90 seconds and stations like palaces. Moscow also has the deepest station. London has the oldest. What records can NYC lay claim to?

The NYC subway stations have been in some pretty good films I suppose, but then again we have American Werewolfe in London filmed at Tottenham Court Road.

By: Dylan

Dylan — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 18:53:07 +0000

Thanks for the mention, Paul. I’m still torn on which system is best – like you say, the air conditioning and the size of the New York subway carriages are definitely in its favour. And the London trains feel so tiny whenever I have to go on them now. But on the other hand, I like knowing that it’s never going to be more than 2 or 3 minutes until the next train (not something New York can claim, especially outside Manhattan). Sure, there are breakdowns in service on both systems, that can lead to delays. But a 15 minute wait for an R train, say, can be fairly standard. And the London trains are undoubtedly cleaner…you can sit down without so much fear of what you’re sitting on (or worse, in).

One thing that is absolutely the same in both cities though is the ability of all commuters to complain about their system. At length. It’s only when you use another transit system that you start to pine wistfully for your own!