Talk:Urban heavy rail

I'm not at all sure about the appropriateness of using 'heavy rail' for metros. It seems to be a very American usage - in Britain it's generally used to refer to National Rail, as opposed to local rail transit, and the usage here isn't common in Canada either. It gets even more difficult when you try to define what makes a system 'light' or 'heavy'.

'Metro' seems the best term to me (and no, as a Torontonian I'm not trying to enforce regional usage here :) ), since it describes the service provided rather than the vehicles used or location of the tracks, and is used in many countries (including Canada and the U.S. - see Montréal Métro and Washington Metro), and accepted as a generic term even by some systems that don't use it (Transport for London refers to the London Underground internally as a metro).

When you try to divide things out by the 'light'/'heavy' nomenclature, it starts to become difficult; for example, the Docklands Light Railway even has the word 'light' in its name, and yet it provides a full metro service and provides heavier service than the Tyne and Wear Metro. In Toronto, some people seem to feel it necessary to refer to the Scarborough line as 'light rail', even though from a user's point of view the only difference between it and the other three lines is that it spends more time above-ground (and the naming of the other lines as 'subway' is similarly problematic, given how much of their overall tracks are above-ground). 'Metro' has none of these difficulties. David Arthur 17:32, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

There are two issues here - the division and the naming of this article.

First, the division. I feel there's a pretty clear line between light and heavy rail, though some systems cross over. And yes, the Docklands Light Railway seems to be pure heavy rail. The history of both types is usually very different, and because of the usual difference in platform height, changing from one to the other is relatively rare.

Now the name. Metro seems somewhat inexact to me, and can include elements of both systems. It seems that a non-generic term should be used to make it clear that this article is about a certain type of system, and avoid cunfusion when the local system called Metro includes elements of light rail. I welcome any other suggestions for names.

Finally, there's some more discussion on Talk:Streetcar - you may want to weigh in there. --SPUI (talk) 18:00, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Oh, as for regional rail being called heavy rail, that's why I named this urban heavy rail, and put a disambig at heavy rail. --SPUI (talk) 18:10, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I can't really agree about there being a clear dividing line, as everyone seems to use their own definitions of what makes a system 'light' or 'heavy'. Some people seem quite adamant that the DLR be considered light rail because of the size and capabilities of the vehicles used, and make the same arguments about the Scarborough RT and the Vancouver SkyTrain.

As for the platform-height distinction, low-floor trams are relatively new, and it's hard to clearly link it to the 'lightness' of a system. The Manchester Metrolink uses high-floor trams, but no one would argue that it's therefore a metro system, heavy rail, or whatever; conversely, some main-line trains in France and Germany have low floors, but that doesn't make them light rail.

Main-line trains should be treated differently, being regional rail. For platform heights, I don't see low-floorness having anything to do with it - low-floor vehicles are usually if not always trams/streetcars/light rail, which makes sense because the platforms are low. Similarly older trams use low platforms but high floors.

Manchester uses high floors with level (ie. high) boarding platforms just like a modern metro, but I would still classify their vehicles as trams (as do the people who live there). Some mainline railway stations here in Canada serve high-floor trains, but have no platforms to speak of. I don't think platform height can be used as an indicator, at least not without being very geographically-specific. David Arthur 22:46, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

Some people use the phrase 'light rail' to make trams and streetcars sound like something new; others have their own definitions based on the capacity, the size of the vehicles, or any number of other things. A few years ago the TTC was working on a project to build a separate right-of-way for streetcars down Spadina Avenue; they had to re-name it as a 'light rail' system to make it sound modern enough for politicians to get behind, and then change it back to a 'streetcar' to get the residents of the area to accept it.

The differentiation I would personally make is that a metro runs entirely in its own right-of-way (in most cases largely elevated or underground), with maybe the occasional level crossing on the low end as in Tyne & Wear, while streetcars and trams usually spend at least some of their route on city streets, even if it's only in pedestrianised areas or in dedicated lanes. The vast majority of the systems that call themselves 'light rail' fit into one of these categories.

That seems to be another decent dividing line. It shouldn't be the only one though, as the D branch of Boston's Green Line is completely grade separated, but uses the same streetcars that run on streets on the other branches. Basically, the way I see it, if it fits all the criteria of one, it's that, but if it fits some of one and some of the other it's a tossup. I'd lump interurbans like the Norristown High Speed Line into light rail, but parts of the NYC Subway are very similar. There it's the platform heights that would differentiate them.

Wait a sec, the Norristown line has high platforms. It seems almost identical to parts of the New York City Subway, particularly the Franklin Shuttle. I guess that should be considered heavy or at the most a hybrid. --SPUI (talk) 20:06, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

As far as the Boston line goes, I admit I'm not familiar with the layout of that system, but if it's a branch of a streetcar line which includes shared sections, I would classify the whole line that way. David Arthur 22:46, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

My feeling is that it's better to categorise services based on how they're used from a passenger's point of view; if you're actually using a system, you care more about its frequency and speed than about how tight a corner it can turn and how high its platforms are. 'Heavy rail' seems inappropriate to me because it's used more as a specialist term than one in common parlance, and outside the U.S. it doesn't usually refer to the subject matter of this article. If I were to refer to 'London heavy rail', that would refer to the suburban trains run by Thameslink, South West Trains, South East Trains, and the like, not the London Underground. David Arthur 19:31, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

You see to agree for the most part with the division between heavy and light, just not with the terms I chose. Do you have any alternatives to suggest? --SPUI (talk) 20:01, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

'Metro' seems the best term for trains running in a segregated route to me, since it avoids the confusion over above-ground 'subways', and is used quite widely; certainly it's less common in many parts of North America, but it's usually fairly well-understood even by people who don't use it themselves. It's what I use personally as a generic term for lines on a segregated route with frequent service; past about a train every ten minutes, they start to be more like simply local railways.

As for the shared-route service, I generally use 'tram' and 'tramway' (for the vehicle and the system, respectively) when I'm not talking about Toronto, but both 'streetcar' and 'tram', used as appropriate to the system in question, seem appropriate to me. With systems like Edmonton's or the DLR that actually use 'light rail' as part of their names, I certainly have no objection to it, but it's too nebulous a term to bother trying to agree on a definition of it when there are so many different criteria (on another article someone questioned my description of the DLR as providing relatively 'heavy' service, saying that the tight corners in its trackage made it 'light'). David Arthur 22:46, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

There's been a lot of discussion on Talk:Streetcar about the streetcar/tram/light rail side; you might want to discuss there. As for this article, rapid transit has been suggested; do you have any comments on that? --SPUI (talk) 22:51, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

'Rapid transit' seems reasonable to me (it matches the TTC's official internal usage perfectly :) ); it's not used in general speech for too many systems, but with redirects from metro/subway and an explanation of the term in the text of the article it should do nicely enough. David Arthur 00:56, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)