The Perfect Train Car The U.S. Doesn’t Use - Cheddar Explains
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- čas přidán 22. 05. 2024
- As cities return to normalcy, transportation systems are facing a familiar problem: overcrowding. This overcrowding is due to, in part, design. More specifically a design American transit systems ignore. So what should a train car look like?
Further reading:
Greater Washington
ggwash.org/view/65775/metro-8...
NY Post
nypost.com/2020/01/21/new-sub... MTA
Slate
slate.com/business/2016/02/su...
The Transport Politic
www.thetransportpolitic.com/2...
Wired
www.wired.com/2016/01/nycs-fi...
Vox
www.vox.com/2015/4/8/8365805/...
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I love looking down the middle of those open gangway trains and seeing the passengers at the back move as the train goes around corners and up and down slopes. It feels like you are sitting in a giant snake that is slithering through the tunnels.
We have them here in Berlin, and at least once a month the words "Great Yellow Steel Snake" cross my mind as if that was an actual snake species designation like _California Mountain Snake_
Great, there does my motion sickness issues.
i love how innocent this observation is, feeding my inner child
@vice.nor.virtue I once saw a prototype Tram in Darmstadt, it was designed to look like a caterpillar. Really nice.
You need to check the Tram in Amsterdam. Over small bridges and threw narrow streets. The effect is even more. Also coffeeshops will enhance the slithering feeling
I'm amazed this isn't standard in the USA. It's been the only style of metro train I've seen in other countries
It's the American adage, monopolies w/ multi-generational inheritance owners merely cut costs, not innovate.... that's our universities, NASA, and the DoD, primarily.
funny enough, only some trains have it in Japan, most is still a closed door gangway.
There's a lot of resistance to change and leaders/maintenance crews would prefer consistency (for better or for worse). My guess is the argument is that if one car has issues, they just need to swap out that one car, whereas with open gangway trains you would either need to swap out the whole train or take the time to swap that one car and stitch it back together for service.
Chicago just got new subway/L cars, but they're still the same style of individual cars.
In Toronto, Canada, we use this.
the US doesn't have many trains to begin with, most people just drive
Im surprised that not all train systems have not changed to gangway train systems as of yet
Most in Europe have..
What for?
They are expensive and makes maintenance more difficult bc they have to be semi connected.
It is all a matter of costs - buying new rolling stock is massively expensive, and they tend to last a very long time. Unless there is a necessary technological change or a massive fault in the design of the rolling stock, it is often more economically reasonable to keep the old stock rolling for a long time - and, given that periodic maintenance of electric metro rolling stock pretty much adds up to replacing and overhauling almost every single bit, it is not that bad either.
Of course, if and when new stock is added, it only makes sense to buy the current best, and by now this involves open gangway designs perfected by manufacturers to ensure reliability, reasonably affordable maintenance and meaningful enhancement of capacity.
But it doesn't mean the systems that don't use open-gangway consists are somehow flawed and so behind the times they need to update immediately. London's 1973 tube stock is still perfectly fine. In fact, riding on one of those trains you may find it hard to believe they are almost 50 years old, the design brushes up really nicely and the refurbs made them feel and look anything but outdated. The one reason they decided to finally retire them is that they were never designed to be outfitted with air conditioning and this became an increasingly, pardon the pun, hot issue. Otherwise, they might have served for another decade just as well.
Truthfully they are no better
I believe that there is a very simple reason why the US has so few open-gangway cars in it's transit systems. It's because most of our cars are 50+ years old and pre-date the more modern open-gangway design. Now that we are FINALLY starting to update our moving stock, I would expect to see more and more open-gangway cars in our trains and subways.
Only New York and Atlanta are getting them. The upcoming train models in DC and LA don't have them, nor do the recently introduced models in Boston, Chicago.
@@nictheperson6709 For DC, WMATA has revised its designs for the 8000 series, which will now have gangways between two train carriages
I love how you added Toronto’s open gangway subway trains in the thumbnail of the video but don’t mention it at all. We’ve had them since 2011 and Montreal’s metro trains from 2015 so you could have gotten some useful North American data from that too :)
It''s the interior of a Toronto rocket standing in as the interior of a London Underground train. What's new?
@@pauly5418 no way, I thought Toronto typically stands in for New York, and Vancouver for generic northern modern city
I was looking for this comment...Americans love to pretend Canada doesn't exist, even though we're so much more progressive
@@yuchube7325 Might be exactly this, what causes this ignorance.
Isn't that a TfL S8 in the thumbnail?
Even the busses in Europe have this. I grew up in the believe that everything in the US is advanced, rich and super high tech. But no matter which CZcams channel I watch, everytime something new comes up where I think WTF. Car (lights), water supply, insurance, education, crime, justice, voting, birth, public transport, food, infrastructure, it is so sad the united states really has potential.
Even their bank machines / bank cards are years behind
And it all comes down to a lack of state investment, a tenet of neoliberalism. If the market doesn’t want it, the USA doesn’t get it.
Which is ironic since there’s so much nostalgia for the 50s and 60s, when federal taxes and spending were both very high compared to today.
Nowadays city budgets barely have enough to fix a few major roads, and they don’t even have enough spare capacity to remodel or rearrange them.
Europe isn't special for that, buses here have those too. But all the advanced high-tech things here stem from the private industry, not from the public sector.
@@sams3015 how so?
@@sams3015 is it the pay wave, tapping feature?
But in Japan, open gangways are not used in newer metro trains due to the emphasis on fire spread prevention (It's legally required to have a door). But bellow hood is standard in here.
New York City was actually the first city to have open-gangway subway trains, the BMT D-Types, which ran from 1925 to 1960. The BMT in fact tested several other articulated trains. However, these were short-lived, and no more such trains were ordered. Until the R211.
I love riding open gangways in Toronto and Mexico. It's really hard to see any drawbacks from it. This would even make congestion more tolerable.
However, the biggest pushback I hear from the New York railfans is that this would make it easier for the homeless to move around, and their smell would spread as well.
Yep, y'all read that right. That's their biggest concern, unfortunately. That is an issue for the city to solve. However, that never should negate the overwhelming positives of being able to move around and just squeezing more people in. In fact, if there is ever trouble on a subway car, people would just leave the car unimpeded. It's even cited as a safety reason by SNCF for ordering their Regio 2N double-deckers with open-gangways, so that people have the freedom to move around.
It's amazing the little nitpicks Americans will bring up in order to not adopt worldwide standards.
In chicago subway trains can have between 2 and 8 cars per train. Are those open gangway trains easily reconfigured? And I really dislike the bench seating facing inward. It limits the amount of seating and leaves you trying not to stare at strangers' crotches when it is crowded.
@@jackieknits61 you definitely lose that flexibility. What I often see is that you combine multiple cars with open gangways. It varies between two and three units forming a full train.
Americans don’t institutionalize the insane the homeless have free reign all over
@@jackieknits61 open gangway and seat configuration have nothing to do together.
In Paris, where we've had open gangways in all new train stock from the 70s onwards, we do not have the facing inward seating.
We actually have perpendicular benches like in classic trains. To get more space standing, it's in a 1x2 configuration. 1 seat wide on one side, two seats wide on the other.
@losklive I just lumped the 2 complaints. And I am apparently not alone in my complaint because the next batch of trains and busses have less of that type of seating. I just really don't think that open gangway trains don't have downsides. Maybe they are worth it in some applications, but not all. And no, making the poor and mentally ill less visible is not a good reason for public transit configuration. Those are truly not related.
Wow, these are standard practice over here in Europe! It surprises me to see these not yet implemented everywhere!
Our very few trains in the Philippines have these as well. I think it's already standard all over the world
in Milan they apper in the late 90s erarly 2000
@@Lorre982 yeah but a few trains in the yellow and red metro still use the old separated carts
In Saint-Petersburg, Russia we don't have them as well, while Moscow does. Our retrograde officials ordered the same traincar Moscow uses, but without air conditioning and gangways.
“America didn’t get the message” honestly explains so much about America.
America don't embrace uniformity above all else and for good reason. Which makes the US the most unique place in the world for not doing so.
@@kvm1992 and also a pretty bad one
@@kvm1992 Unique 😂😂 Have you seen your seen your cities? Most of them look the same
@@snowfox7110 dude U.S. cities are extremely unique to each-other what do you mean? Considering how diverse they all are too
@@randomfoxyfan2176 Most of them except for some in the northeast and west have no character. They look the same feel the same.
Boston has this (to a degree) on the Green Line, it was developed as a necessity due to the sharp curve at Boylston station. It's not all the way through but it's much longer than a standard car.
....and still over-crowded!
@@aridragonbeard745well the future type 10 cars will be longer open gangway light metro trains. It will be interesting to see if the MBTA orders open gangway cars for say the Blue Line when the time comes to renew the fleet. It would be the easiest way to expand passenger loads without the need to lengthen platforms.
The Washington DC Metro cars have right angle seating and no passing between cars. At least the Silver line station at Washington Dulles airport (IAD) and beyond to Ashburn are finally operating (mid Nov. 2023).
In NYC we have extremely stinky or crazy people that make it onto the train so it's good to be able to separate from them.
The Metro Vancouver area's been using open gangway cars since about 2000 on our Skytrain system. They really do help with crowding on one car while another is mostly empty.
All the MAX (tram/subway) lines and street cars in Portland, Oregon have used these for years. They've been standard for at least a decade. I remember riding on one as a kid in Portland over 20 years ago. I always assumed they were the standard everywhere in the US.
This isn't true at all. MAX cars are articulated which gives them the bendy sections. But you can NOT pass between the 2 cars on the MAX without going out the normal side doors of one car and into the other which open gangways allow. The video sort of blurs the distinction between open gangway and articulation but in transit circles open gangway means you can wander then length of the entire train without going through doors. Something no MAX train supports.
I'm not super excited about open gangway. It means smells, noise and other unpleasant sometimes realities of transit won't stay contained to one car.
@@chrisransdell8110 I think the point was talking about the section not the design.
@@chrisransdell8110 eh... it means if u get trapped in a car w a smell u cant escape until the next station. also means u have to try and skim the windows to see which seats are open instead of just running on
The video made that distinction for light rail articulated units. That's a different standard from entirely walkthrough trains. On Berlin's S Bahn, for a long time trains would be coupled sets of three-car units each with open gangways. Maintenance workflow definitely has to be up the task of rotating larger units at once, in order to implement open gangway trains
This might sound dumb but I never knew that you do not have „connected“ trains with the open gangway. I do not know ANY Germany city public transport train / metro / subway that is not connected through an open gangway section 😅 It is just so normal for me that I never thought of it but I guess the system just proofed to be the best!
I remember in early 2000s Berlin, the s Bahn trains couldn't be *entirely* walked through, just a few cars at a time
We do. People at Cheddar are often teenage idiot writers.
@@hobog what you remember is still the norm in a lot of places in Germany
*Cough* The Munich U-Bahn and Hamburg S-Bahn would like to have a word lol
Frankfurt metro? Only some lines are "connected".
We have them not just on the Underground here in the UK but also on the Overground & National Rail
In Barcelona only some subway models from the early 80s are not fully connected and yet they are only separed in the middle, creating 2 sets of 3 connected carriages not connected with each other
Here in London, we are manufacturing new stock of tube trains that have these walk through carriages for the deep level lines. It is already standard on the subsurface and hopefully the technology is good enough for use and reduces the extreme crowding at rush hour.
The biggest issue is people congregating around the doors.
You can see that evolution here in São Paulo, Brazil.
Up until 2010, all metropolitan trains didn't have open gangways, after the "Line 4 Yellow" opened, with open gangways, all new trains have them, but it's also in a snail pace, because from the early 2000s to around 2015, probably all the lines got new cars or rebuilt old ones, and they didn't get the open gangways, so it'll be at least 20 more years till they need to be replaced.
But that will happen, every new train and rebuilt old ones now are coming with open gangways, so it's just a matter of time.
And for functionality, I think this fact that all new metropolitan trains are coming with open gangways speaks for itself, but it's so nice to walk a bit and find a spot that's a little emptier than that one you got in.
Montréal’s and Toronto’s newest stock is open gangway.
Open gangway train cars are the norm in Australia. Where I am in Queensland, the trains are either older 3-car sets (usually 2 combined to make a 6 car set) where you can move between any of the 3 cars or the newer NGR trains that are a full 6 car set you can move up and down the full length of.
Those older style ones are the new ones here in NZ! Still way more useful having the interconnected trains
Even the loco hauled coaches in Melbourne's regional network have open gangways. Basically only the very oldest trains on the network don't have it.
In Japan and some other countries, there's semi-open gangway train where the train cars are connected with each other with "accordion connection" but still have doors on each end of car that can be manually opened and closed. I'm thinking if they could convert existing US subway cars to this type of gangway, so that passengers can freely move between cars with minimal modification on the existing cars.
That's what most regional/intercity trains in the UK are like. it's useful to be able to walk down the length of the train but it's not usable standing space unless you want the doors closing on you every 30 seconds.
Japanese trains used to have open gangway, such as in Tokyu 8500 Series wide gangway and the Tokyo Metro 6000 & 7000 Series mushroom gangway. However in 1993, the Daegu Subway Incident changed it. Newer trains in Japan now use semi open gangway to prevent fire spreading.
@@asantaraliner I'm not aware that these trains are modified after the Daegu Subway fire, but I've heard its more due to noise issues, as the gangway design are unlike usual modern subway cars so it might get very noisy inside the subway car. Though it makes sense that open gangways are more prone to fire spreading, considering NYC subway got several arson attack recently and damaged subway cars and stations.
@@charleslambert3368 Yes I agree that this does not add standing space, but its more flexible and adds safety for the passengers. Take example in NYC where subway crime rates are high, you don't want to get stuck in the same car with some random sketchy person in the middle of the night, with gangways you can just move to the next car instead of waiting the train to arrive at the next station.
@@charleslambert3368 Same here in Spain!!! :)
The title's kinda funny considering the U.S. barely uses passenger trains anyway.
Of note several open gangway trains have been used in the past on US subway systems. The Brooklyn Manhattan Transit D types are a prime example.
We've had open gangway trains in Australia for years now, as the old fleets get decommissioned, they're being replaced with open gangway cars. We do still have closed gangway cars in service, but they're becoming few and far between. Our seating arrangements are predominantly 90° off the wall design, with bench seat across the wall for the priority seating.
NYC has them in the early 1900s . You can go to the subway museum in Brooklyn and see the 3 car version on display.
But why.... does the US not use as many gangway cars? The main question remains unanswered unfortunately... It is a complaint that I have with most of your videos. They start really interesting and explain a lot, but the main question that is posed often remains unanswered.
Without them, you can rotate fewer cars at a time from maintenance. I guess the open gangway can be uncoupled only for maintenance, not for regular storage
simply because of how car-centric it is and the mindset of public transit being for the poor so no cool trains :(
@@hobog it is not really a huge issue actually.
You could have small trains which you can connect together to form a single train. You still gain a lot of space.
That's basically Cheddar's _modus operandi_ : click farming by posting poorly-researched "Why does America do (bad/stupid/obsolete thing) that the rest of the world doesn't" videos.
The Open Gangway R211t trainset is already built and will be soon be tested. Search up "R211T subway train delivery" the gangways are already installed and some already filmed the fully finished interior and exterior.
I think they are testing it already
Mate we have these trains everywhere in Europe 🤣 Frankfurt already retired 1st and 2nd generation subway trains. All trains like this.
Also the regional trains s Bahn and regio. Pls make a video about our trains. Would love to hear your thoughts.
Barcelona subway is amazing by the way.
And compare lissabon streetcars with San Francisco streetcars.
They had them in NYC in 1927 with the D-Type Triplex, and it didn't work out for the same reasons the R211T is not going to work out.
@@ArgosySpecOps that was what reason?
It's like saying "The perfect measurement system that we don't use". And then having a video all about metric system.
I thought "we" means most people, not just a few cities in the America.
And they even show some crowded stock footage from Japan when talking about overcrowding, I thought there's actually a better way to do that.
Might I suggest @RMTransit he is a great channel that focuses on metro and rail systems across the world.
@@ArgosySpecOps why didn’t they work? What’s the NYC factor that other cities don’t run into?
Singapore's MRT trains does this. Some passengers even stand in the gangway area even though it's less stable because there are grab poles in it to keep them stabilised.
MARTA in Atlanta is replacing the entirety of its current rail fleet with open gangway cars built by Stadler over the next few years! The first CQ400 car is scheduled to be delivered next year, with units continuing to be delivered into 2028. I loved the open gangway cars on the TTC, so I'm excited for them!
So glad you mentioned this! The first cars actually passed through Atlanta yesterday on their way to final assembly
@@parkercook288 I saw that! I was sad I couldn't make it to the event MARTA hosted to celebrate, but hopefully there will be more as milestones are reached in their assembly.
I remember that back in the 1980s you could already go between cars in at least some New York City Subway trains, although instead of a permanently open connection guarded by an accordion, you had to open a door at the end of each car. The design wasn't the safest or most inviting thing, but sometimes you HAD to use it because a train would come into a station that had platforms that were too short, and they would announce over the intercom that you had to be in the front-most X number of cars if you wanted to get off.
That was just South Ferry, and the terminal has since been rebuilt to eliminate the need to use that platform.
You can still do that on the newer trains, though now there's only one station in the entire system where the platform is shorter than the train (145 St on the 3). You can't do that on the older, longer cars on the lettered lines.
Yes, you're referring to the clasic SMEE trains, which include the famous Red Birds. You could freely walk from car to car, sliding the end door open. The last Red Bird in regular service was retired in 2003.
@@ACLTony So newer trains that aren't open gangway have the doors locked?
@@Lucius_Chiaraviglio Yes, unfortunately. In NYC, the train operator/conductor' cab takes up the whole width of the car end,so the doors are locked. In Chicago, if passengers cross from one car to another (and this is crazy) they are fined, and can even be arrested by police. Open gangway is long overdue in the USA.
It's too bad they never answered the question, "Why doesn't the US use open gangway train cars?" An extra 2 minutes of explanation would have gone a long way.
The answer is simple: public transportation in the US has been starved of funding for 40 years, since Ronald Reagan’s presidency. This is on top of the post-WW2 priority of investment in highways and airports.
We’re not just 50 years behind in our public transportation, we’re 80 years behind. It will take an insurmountable amount of effort to get Congress to pass the necessary funding to buy new trains, repair existing public transit systems, build new lines and stations both in cities with a rail transit system and those without, and pay for dedicated transit police forces to keep the systems safe and clean. The price tag would likely be in the hundreds of billions, and virtually no one in Congress wants to pay that much money for a program that will provide almost no benefit to rural Americans.
I always thought that standing on those coach connecting rubber thingies was dangerous. Turns out it's a feature! We've had them on all trains of Delhi Metro since 2002, the coaches manufactured by Hyundai's Rotem in collaboration with Mitsubishi, tho I think Mitsubishi just handled the electric part. Bombardier's MOVIA trainset also has this feature.
Our trains in Auckland, New Zealand you can walk between the cars. Even many of our older trains it could be done but it had doors and you couldn't walk through after the train was in motion.
The Madrid subway uses open gangways on lines 2, 3, 4, 5 (partially), 6 (circular)(almost one, with the exception of one or two per direction), 7, 8 (the Airport line), 9 (partially), 10 (the cross-city), the 11, the 12 and the Ramal (branch line, originally from line 2).
Here in Singapore we have had open gangway metro trains since the very beginning in 1987. Having open gangways not only make it easier for passengers to move between train cars, they can also add extra standing space, useful for peak-hour commuting - it’s not unusual for people here to stand within the gangways when the trains are crowded.
Having open gangways can help with safety too; metro trains here have an emergency escape ramp at either end of the train, and with open gangways passengers from any point along the train consist can evacuate from the train using the ramp on either end.
I find it weird that the US is so behind on this; virtually every Asian and European railway system has trains with open gangways, some for ages.
Not japan though, most of their metro and commuter trains doesn't have open gangway.
It’s America that’s why
@@bltzcstrnx The rapid transit systems in Japan have open gangway cars!
Because the infrastructures in the USA are very obsolete.!
@@powerfulstrong5673 not all of them, even some of the recent one such as E233 still have standard gangway.
The gangway inside the thumbnail is the Toronto Rocket, from our TTC! Very comfortable train
The problem with open gangways in that you lose the modular nature of train cars. Trains made up of traditional cars are easy to uncouple and reconfigure. They are self contained. Not so with open gangway cars; they need a head end cab unit at either end. Coupling becomes a much more complicated operation since the cars aren't inherently weather tight, every time cars are joined, they need to reseal the diaphragm. That is complex maintenance that needs a dedicated facility to carry out.
Passenger train consists are usually permanent these days. No need to decouple anything. Or you have shorter trains with fewer cars, which can be connected/disconnected consist to consist, not car to car
That would only be relevant if shuffling train carriages around was common. In practice it's not. Trains stay in the same configuration for months on end, and re-coupling is a rare event
In Germany nearly every train bought in the last 20 years has those. And some (like long distance trains) have them since a even longer time.
My dad told me one time when he rode the long island railroad in the winter, he had to ride in the gangway since that was the only space available. It was exposed so it was a very unpleasant, very cold ride, but that was the only option.
The latest trend in European subway (metro) systems is a combination of open gangway convoys and SHORTER but MORE FREQUENT ones - up to a frequency of a train every two minutes or even 1 and 1/2 min. In this way, if a train is crowded, there’s not much of a reason to try to squeeze in and board THAT one, as in two minutes’ time you’ll get another chance. This is mainly by means of automated convoys, with no driver. See for instance metro lines 4 and 5 in Milan
Americans discovering something that is a normal standard thing everywhere else for decades, as always.
America is unique and I rather want to stay that way than be uniform like everywhere else. The sad truth is, it's not America that has everything backwards but the rest of the world.
It's worse than that. NY had this up to the sixties when they decided to go ancient again
Go figure.
I feel these are safer from crime due to the cars being more public.
Apart from the crime of terroist bombings or mass shootings; in such cases, your lack of compartmentalisation has made the death toll and injuries much higher.
I rather a homeless or crazy guy be in a separate car or have the option to walk to another car away from them but I see the argument for open gangway cars with regard to increasing capacity
ah, the"public transit is for the poor" mindset of america...
@@mattkennedy6115 there's two sides to that argument.
Londoners feel safer for being able to walk away from a nuisance passenger. Women especially say this when asked in surveys about the open trains.
If you get on a train and find a loony there you are stuck with them at least till the next stop.
Would love it if the Metro (DC/MD/VA) got some of these... Most (if not all) cars are the mixed seating (most forward/back with a few sideways along the walls) and rush hour makes sardine cans look spacious. According to several sources, the next purchase batch of cars will be from Hitachi (but built here in the US)... and they considered the open gangway design but "for reasons" decided against it. :-(
Montreal's Azur trains finally have open gangways. You can feel the difference when you're on the Orange Line that has them and the Blue Line that uses the classic ones from the 70's.
I once was reading comments on the new NYC subway cars on another channel that have open gangways. Someone made the point that this would make subways shooters much more dangerous. I gently suggested that this was less a design problem than a very American one...
Dont know if you knew it but I come from Munich and the train you are showing in 2:15 is not open gangway. Its one of the older ones in Munich. Great Video btw
Trolleys often have this feature. Curious to know if the regular train versions have any limits (like turn radius) and would require track reconstruction to use. I know some of the subway tunnels have very sharp curves where the train wheels squeal like crazy and speed is reduced to like 5MPH.
Often trams/trolley have tighter turns.
But if you absolutely want an exemple for Metro/Subway look at Paris.
From the MF77 ordered by Paris in the 70s to today new trains they all are open gangways (except for some RER but for wrong reasons).
And Paris metro system is notoriously tight in it's curves.
They also conducted a test from late 90's to early 2000's about stationary problems: do open gangways parts suffer from staying in a curve for long periods of time without moving.
It is important because loops at terminal stations are often used to store trains in Paris.
Well results have show that nothing really changed when being still in a curve for long periods of time.
No cracks, nothing.
Parisian metro trains have had them since the introduction of the MF88 stock.
Goodness knows line 13 (with its MF77 stock) would benefit from modern, open-gangway cars.
Mind you, Line 13 could also benefit from 8 car trains and 90 second headways like Line 14 has.
In India every metro and all suburban trains has open gangways and seriously it helps a lot in reducing congestion from my experience.
Not suburban trains. Only metros
@@rakshithv1117yeah you can say that as all suburbans do not have gangways as in Kolkata but in ac local and in some Mumbai Suburban gangways are there
We do have these in the US to some extent. I recently took an amtrak from Portland to Seattle and the train was open-gangway. Amtrak was largely left out of this video.
As London kids, we used to board at the end doors. If it was too crowded we opened the linking door and jumped the gap to the next carriage while the train was running. Pure adrenaline rush...
I realize to you Americans we’re just a strange French appendage a little above the US of A on a map, but fun fact, Toronto has had open gangway cars for over a decade. No need to fly across the pond or go to China, hop in the car and drive two hours past Buffalo, can’t miss it. Look for the 1700’ phallus on the shore of Lake Ontario.
The R211T's are Currently Testing on the NYC Subway, these cars do have open gangways. Also MARTA has ordered new cars that include the open gangway features, so they will be used, just a little later than the rest of the world.
The London underground ones are also awesome for wheelchair users and meaning we can get in any car not just the one designated for us. (now we just need to not have to wheelie over long gaps to the platform on some stations and get more access across the network. There are still far too many inaccessible stations. )
Try wheeling through a crowded train.thats why there are dedicated signage on platform of where the accessable cars would stop.
South Africa has moved to an open gangway train recently replacing there 1958 5M2
Can you still modify train length by coupling and decoupling when the cars are connected in this fashion?
I've actually ridden an open-gangway train in my travels, in the subway system in Toronto.
There has been open gangways in trains since the 80s in every city I've lived in. Didn't know that trains didn't have them until I went to the us last summer
We have open gangways in Paris, on some lines. It's cool, but it's not enough. It's a nice increase but the real deal is level 4 automation, that allows much more frequency and reliability. The US is late only because there's no funding in public transit, y'all run old trains and are not willing to replace them while the rest of the world is updating everything.
Open gangway subway cars were actually first introduced by the BMT in the 1920’s, an old NYC Subway Operator
Yeah, Santiagos metro has it since the 90s, we still use closed designs, but those trains are getting replaced it
Im from the Philippines and that's how our train cars designed since early 80's. Even our 130 yr old train line cars have been using that type of train car for a long time now. Though that was the standard everywhere.
we use those for the london overground and the sole reason there not used for more underground routes is because replacing fleets of trains is hard
What is the "london overground"? I've never heard of that. I've heard of the underground, and I know there was a plan at one time for linking up fragments of the 19th Century Commuter network as a sort of orbital railway. I presume it is that, but I thought that was going to be called "Orbi-Rail"? Underground/Overground? Neat!
2:51 is the Elizabeth line which is currently running
3:41 Paris currently doesn't use longitudinal seating and doesn't plan to. They just ordered new trains on line 14 which still have a mix of transverse and longitudinal seating. Boston is one of the few cities besides New York to have longitudinal seating.
That is *quite* incorrect. Paris Metro has been using rolling stock with open gangways since 1993. Every class after and including the MF88 has had open gangways, and they certainly plan to continue doing so with the MF19 class ordered just before the pandemic hit.
Try standing in the accordion section between the carriages, it's really quite fun to see your legs moving in different directions without you controlling them.
In poland we had these carriages for a long time already in our underground metro... at least in warsaw
Incredible how far the US public transportation system has to go. This is standard in Singapore.
SF Muni which has its local trains for commute inside San Francisco, has these for atleast a decade.
Love the open gangway in the Hong Kong SAR MTR. (But try not to stand there as it is one of the weak spots in case an accident happens)
I've never seen a train that didn't have an open gangway. I live in California, so I don't know about other places, but still. This is just standard to me.
Short sighted New York-centric channel
What train are you riding that is open gangway in CA? Not BART or CalTrain or LA metro. Open gangway means you can walk between cars without any obstructions. Basically like all 10 cars of a BART train connected into one long articulated room which they are NOT at present.
@@chrisransdell8110 lightrail, Bart, Amtrak, Caltrain, and ACE are the only trains I've ever been on and they've all been open gangway. I live in the bay area, so I can't speak for trains outside of that area.
@@wylanvallotton4462 They are not open gangway. Open gangway means you could walk from the first car on BART to the 10th car WITH ABOSOLUTELY NO DOORS.
The video unwisely shows a little accordion section from an articulated bus and sort of implies that is open gangway but it's only similar in that that accordion area on a bus of train car allows 1 long train CAR or bus to bend at that point and that is the same idea as could be used between train cars to turn a long train into 1 what would feel like 1 very very long car. but that isn't present on BART or any light rail in the US that I know of.
@@chrisransdell8110 the new BART trains look to have… close-able open gangways??
I’m assuming they’re only open in certain sections of the network, but in these pictures of the doors open that’s clearly built like an open gangway, not like traditional gangway doors with a big gap behind the door.
I don’t know why they bother with the doors at all!
What is the effect on a customers neck when the train does an emergency stop if your looking across a gangway car? Maybe less safe.
MARTA in Atlanta in procuring 300+ articulated metro cars for its network. They should arrive in late 2023 or 2024
Correction/clarification at 2:52 - those aren’t the planned Piccadilly line trains. Those are the trains on the brand-new and much larger Elizabeth line.
Actually, the first open-gangway trainset has just began testing around the NYC Subway system on the same day as this video was uploaded.
I live in Tokyo and almost all train cars here are of the traditional variety. My guess is that open gangway cars limit the ability of the train to round sharp corners so that might be why they're rare here and in the US.
I think open gangways are also great for seeing something at the other end of a train. For instance, if there is an emergency in car 8, and you're in car 2, then you will be able to contact 911 (USA), or at least, if you're an emergency worker, you can get to the scene much faster.
That being said, open gangway trains aren't "perfect." The reason is that while they do allow for more capacity, they will still become congested, and even more congested than US metro cars (despite the congestion density being lower). I do think that they are a work in progress, and can really be made to actually make congestion convenient.
I heard somewhere in the comment section that open gangways make it harder for emergency workers since they can't enter in the middle of the train
@@devvydoesstuff Doubt that's true. But it is for regular trains with separated coaches.
Honolulu's new automated rail/metro, despite the projects insane cost overruns and significant delays, features open gangways in addition to platform screen doors and is fully automated.
Its a nice idea, however unfortunately it can't work in every scenario. Perfect example is Chicago. The CTA has some sharp 90 degree curves and until a few years ago a wicked S curve ( in the LOOP) and with there short train car design, open gangways won't work as they would be torn apart on those curves. Also CTA likes to mix and match there fleet on the fly, as there trains are married pairs while also shortening trains during midday and quickly lengthening them for rush hours, which you can't do with open gangway trains.
NYC needed these types of trains Yesterday! The fact that the London Underground has proven that open gangway cars are effective in reducing crossing, but yet I still have to deal with the crowded MTA subway is besides me
Crowding not crossing, and it’s only like that because it’s used by 8.5 million New Yorkers on average
@@nezarionbraxton8790 No excuse considering London runs off the oldest network design in the world and all its upgrades have equally taken place around constant use by the public. The MTA are just a joke.
@@dWFnZWVr First off we’re not talking about London here, as a matter of fact to be completely clear I don’t give two shits about London, im from New York I care about NYC and secondly you say the MTA are a joke but yet millions of people depend on the MTA to get to where they need to be every single day of the year [Myself Included] so while it may be joke to You, it ain’t a joke to the rest of us, especially those of us who can’t or don’t want to spend the extra money buying Cars and shit like that, funny how I wrote that reply almost a year ago and you’re just now coming back with a response nine months after the fact like really SMH.
It doesn’t matter whether they’re open-gangway cars or closed-ended they’re still gonna be crowded ESPECIALLY during morning and evening Rush Hours I mean come on 🙄🙄
@@nezarionbraxton8790 Me saying the MTA is a joke is merely to sympathise with regular New Yorkers who rely on public transportation. My point is that they can do much more to improve their services, but they don’t.
New York City is currently in the process of placing new open gangway train cars into service. Hopefully they’ll be good for crowd control because I really hate my daily commute in NYC...
I've been in one of these trains and they feel alot less claustrophobic than the older ones. And feel more cleaner since it was bright white.
I used to see busses with the bendy middles all the time as a kid in the Uk but now I dont see them at all anywhere. What happened to those busses?
Still got them on some routes in Manchester, England.
There are gangways you can use in U.S. subway system, though using them not in an emergency, as a passenger will bring legal consequences. This situation could be remedied somewhat by a change in law rather than change in design.
That said, changing the design would help make gangway crossing wheelchair-accessible, which may be an important consideration.
I love how this video gave words like "open gangway" to describe things I observed and recognized to be unique concepts, but could never describe in a single word.
The existing connections are not safe as there is a gap between the cars and it is open to the elements -- hence why it is illegal.
@@jacktattersall9457 This is another important consideration. Passengers falling off the train in a gap would be a problem
@@augusthoglund6053 In practice, the open gangway is like an extension of the train cars themselves. It it wasn't for the accordion walls and twisting plate on the floor, you couldn't really tell it is a separate car.
Having recently visited Chicago, I have to say that this really wouldn't do much to fix the crowding issues.
At rush hour, in a city center stop, there was one train every 20 minutes.
That's insane.
For comparison, in London, my experience has been one train every 5 minutes, sometimes every 2 minutes.
The trains in Chicago arrived at my station already squashed full of people.
And we had to try squeeze on with hundreds of other people.
It took 3 trains until we managed to get on.
Problem with Chicago is the standardization of the tracks. Keep in mind, Chicago L has elevated sections that are too tight for ANY train to make those turn besides the railcars CTA have specifically designed for them.
Heck, the Skokie; Brown & Pink Lines literally run in back alleys and cross intersections as if it's normal... as a third rail/heavy rail system.
So, no. Open gangways can't work on the CTA other than maybe the Red and/or Blue Lines
Wait. 3 trains? 20 minutes each?!?!
@@samuelitooooo yup.
We were waiting for about 40-60 mins for a train we could actually get on
I have noticed that some of the Cheddar vides are not always super clear on WHY something is better or should be used, maybe I am tired afterwork but from what part of the videio do they say "open gangway seating arrangements work well because....."
Because Cheddar is all about "Why does America do this (insert bad/stupid/outmoded/backwards thing) that the rest of the world does not?" Perfect clickbait. Actually _answering_ the question requires actual research. Why do that when you can just farm clicks with hot-button videos?
Boston, MA has been using these on the green line for over 20 years.
Here is one thing about open-gangways, at least in NYC. In a city with a high rise in crime, especially within the subway, open-gangways really aren't the best, it gives more opportunity for crime to occur, as a criminal can easily move car to car, and it also makes it harder to isolate a car if something happens within that railcar. (Bleeding, Defecating, Vomiting, etc.) so while open-gangways may work in other cities, in New York, at least for now, it doesn't seem like a good option. The risk is too great.
2:51 Those aren't the new trains for the Piccadilly line, those are the trains for the new Elizabeth line, which are already in operation
2:01 Have I seen a bus like that? Yes, I've seen that bus and probably been on that very bus. That's a bus on line 4 here in Stockholm. iirc that line carries about 60k passengers per day.
In Santo Domingo we have open gangways, the first time I went to NYC and rode the metro I was surprise anybody would be using anything other than open gangways, it´s just so much better
He didn’t answer his own question but I will. The reason why open gang way trains are not used is because the cars cannot be changed. You gotta change the whole train. It’s cheaper to replace a car then a whole train.
great comment, but you know people are going to justify their love of open gangway trains, instead of hearing the facts (like your comment for example).
How often does that happen in practice though?
In London trains remain in the same configuration for months or even years at a time. I'd be surprised if the same isn't true anywhere else.
@@trueriver1950 sensitive....
Even when it's quiet, open gangways are better for public safety too, because the whole train is effectively one car where all passengers can see end to end, reducing the possibility of vulnerable passengers being alone in a car with someone undesirable.
Not really. Especially here in NYC no will help you we have been taught to keep quiet as we don't want to be the next victim. There was a recent mass shooting in nyc subway, now imagine instead of being restricted to one car, you could shoot all the way down to the end of the train. In a way gangways can be more safe, but in other ways it makes it more dangerous.
Reason: high maintenance. The accordion section includes floor space is more complicated to made and install. Also you can't easily disengage the cars to rearrange them, making every train a fixed set that's pretty much inflexible to demand.
NYC definitely demands such trains, at least on some services. US' other metros demand them too at peak times. Three or four car units that get coupled is a popular compromise
But why would you remove cars depending on demand ? Tests have been done in Paris in 70s and 80s. It doesn't change costs.
The accordion can be used for long without any issues.
Any metro system that use it will never go back.
It's the norm almost everywhere and all new metro trains ordered in most of Europe and Asia are indeed open gangways.
Even if you can have slightly higher operating costs, you can stuff so many more people inside (and remember that people pay) it's worth it.
I'm quite used to these trains in London which seem to work well in alleviating uneven crowding on the trains. The only downside I can think of is that if you have a screaming child on the train, you can hear it the whole length of it!
Have them in Toronto. Kinda like the older ones more the open ones have weird views on turns
We have trains with those open gangways here in Montreal since 2016.
As of 2023, the NYC Subway now has 20 prototype open gangway trains, and the Washington Metro's next series of metro cars will also have gangways installed.