You should look at the Brussels metro. For some reason, line 2 never branches off of line 6, similar to how the C train never branches off from the A. Also, both lines are, in a sort of way, an incomplete loop. Look at the map, it’s really awkward.
The Napoli line also is a steep climb up the very high Vomero hill, the loop section was referred to as the 'Hill metro' during some phases. It's basically a metro climbing loop (the stations are still rather deep though).
You can get a good feeling of how much the metro has to climb to reach Vomero hill when you take the Centrale funicular instead. Totally off-topic but taking the Vomero exit/entrance from or to Naples' tangenziale freeway by car (or with some city bus lines) is one totally hilarious rollercoaster ride of having to climb or to go down (or both) like on an alpine mountain road.
about the RER C, there are a train that make a almost perfect loop, he start in the station Versailles-Chantiers and finish to the station Versailles-Château-Rive-Gauche that are at 500m (1/3 mile) each others! (12/02/2024 : this loop doesn't exist anymore, he has be divided intro 3 lines because the loop was to long and cause a lot of "lates".)
Yeah Chongqing Line 2's Liziba station is such a neat station! It's transit-oriented development to the max! People may think living in those apartments is constantly noisy because of the monorail, but the station uses specialized noise reduction equipment to isolate station noise from the surrounding residences! And the reason Line 2 is a monorail is as you brought up, Chongqing is a huge densely populated but mountainous city, with multiple river valleys. So using monorails leverages the ability to negotiate steep grades and tight curves with rapid transit capacity. Out of the lines of Chongqing Rail Transit, Lines 2 and 3 are monorails. Another example of a monorail that goes through a building with a station inside is at Disney's Contemporary Resort in Florida! While Liziba station opened in June 2005, the Contemporary Resort opened with Magic Kingdom on October 1st, 1971! If the monorail station inside the hotel building isn't interesting enough, the monorail station is part of the Grand Canyon Concourse which features a huge Grand Canyon-themed mosaic (that has a five-legged goat; this was done on purpose to reflect human error) by Mary Blair, who also created character designs for It's a Small World and also worked on Alice in Wonderland! The resort is also the location of the infamous Nixon "I am not a crook" speech in November 1973.
Another wacky line layout is the Northern Line on the London Underground. Two-and-a-bit northern branches, two central branches, and two southern branches, but three separate stations where all branches converge (Kennington, Euston, and Camden Town).
The Tube has definitely one of the wackiest lines in the world. I’d also mention: -District has lots of branches, ranging north, west, east, and south. -Central and Picaddily has loop branches and normal straight branches at the same time. -Circle isn’t actually a circle, it’s actually a spiral that stops at Edgeware Road twice.
This series is really fun and informative to watch, my suggestion would be the Yellow Line of the Tyne and Wear Metro in Newcastle, England. It features a huge loop too! 🔥
Not a station but Liziba station reminds me of the Gate Tower Building in Osaka! What makes the Gate Tower Building unique is that the Umeda exit of the Ikeda Route of the Hanshin Expressway system (when exiting the highway from the direction of Ikeda) passes between the fifth through seventh floors of the building! The highway is effectively the tenant of those floors. The building's elevator passes through the floors without stopping, with floor 4 being followed by floor 8. The floors through which the highway passes consist of elevators, stairways and machinery. The highway does not make contact with the building. It passes through as a bridge, held up by supports next to the building. The highway is surrounded by a structure to protect the building from noise and vibration! And if that's not enough, the roof of the building has a helipad! So how did this building end up with an expressway through it? Well a wood and charcoal business held the property rights for the plot of land since the early Meiji period, but the gradual move to other sources of fuel resulted in the deterioration of those company buildings. In 1983, redevelopment of the area was approved, but building permits were refused because the highway was already being planned. The property rights' holders refused to give up and negotiated with the Hanshin Expressway corporation for approximately five years to reach the current solution.
An interesting weird train line, well tbh now tram line, is the Zoetermeerlijn in The Netherlands. It was initially a suburban railway from Den Haag (The Hague) to Zoetermeer. It looks somewhat like a pretzel. When it was served by trains it made an entire loop in both directions (so there were 2 servicse). In 2006 this is rebuilt to a tram line and integrated in the Den Haag tram network. It doesn't make a full loop anymore and is served by line 3 which makes the loop almost fully but the returns. Line 4 only covers part of the loop and serves a new branch of this line.
When it was a railway it used two trains coupled together and at Centrum-West station the two trains where decoupled and one train would run the loop clockwise and the other train would run the loop anti-clockwise, when the the trains came back at Centrum-West station they would be coupled back together and then return to The Hague
I have to correct you on the M3 assumptions in Istanbul, The reason why the northern section of the M3 is curvy is not because of the terrain, but because of newly build destinations in that area. Initially the line ended at the MetroKent station which was a newly build satellite back then. Later the decision was made to build Istanbul's largest hospital complex (Çam and Sakura City Hospital) to the West of it, thus the U shape to connect it to this metro. The line is actually briefly on a viaduct, crossing the valley next to the hospital. This is something you see very often in Istanbul. M9 crosses a steep valley on the way to the Olympic Stadium. The M7 line is crossing two valley's on viaducts, with stations on the bridges themselves (Alibeykoy and Kağıthane), and the most famous M2 station Halic is spanning over the Golden Horn estuary... in short, the topography in Istanbul is not determining metro line gradients, but destinations and bad planning do.
I lived in Barcelona for a year and I took constant trips to the airport for travel. It was a NIGHTMARE with all the twists and turns of southern line 9S, specially in the Les Moreres - El Part Estació section. But as heard during several clases on the ETSAB (one of Barcelona’s architecture schools), it was not only the soil but also political issues with the El Prat the Llobregat municipality. Also you missed lines 3 and 4 of the Barcelona metro, which are also very, VERY weird and very inconvenient at times. La Pau terminal in line 4 is roughly 2 kms from Maragall station on a straight line but 12 kilometers apart if you take the line 4 which serves them both 🤔
Yeah, Barcelona metro is a complete mess, but it works perfectly though. L3 is a distinct V shaped line cause it was designed 100 years ago to go from Gràcia (north) to the city center, then line expanded back up to Les Corts. L4 is the weirdest of them all, cause it was for decades a branch of L3 between Passeig de Gràcia and the now closed station of Correus. And happened the same as L3, as the sea approaches you either need to end there the line or just turn and form another weird looking G line. It's even more weirder cause it goes back up north instead of going east along the coast and that's because when it was build there wasn't any buildings near the beaches and the stations were made where people lived. L9 and L10 are not that weird (except the whole tunnels and stations things), it's just a line that crosses the city and connects important landmarks or services of the city. The worse parts are mainly in El Prat and to Aeroport... It's seriously a tourist trap, you have like 45min to the city center plus a single ticket costs twice as much (nearly 6€). (A trip in a 10-trip ticket costs 1,35€, but you cannot use that to go there). Funnily enough, if you use RENFE (train lines) it's cheaper (1,35€), and faster (only 20 min to the center). Furthermore there are plans to extend L3 for example further west and make another big mistake, a bunch of U turns to get near more people but add much more travel time...
That last one is even weirder since there's already tram and commuter lines that cover all the area that with a tenth of the investment (like making T3 straighter, since that also has a smaller u shape, and increased reliability in the commuter services) would suffice. I guess they just want to add miles to the total metro length at all costs. Though if they really wanted that there was a suggestion made around the same time the plan was suggested to use L3 and L6 to make, alongside the R1/R4, a coarse but fast travel net in the area and use the tram as a more local service.
@@pablocanovas2779 I think it would be better if L3 just goes straight to Sant Feliu and maybe L12, to Sant Joan Despí, covering all the areas with the north of BCN fast.
Fun fact: RER C won't be so weird in the future, only because one branch of the strange loop will become a part of a tram (the line T12), the part between Savigny-sur-Orge and Versailles-Chantiers.
Talking of Barcelona, you might also want to check lines 3, 5 and especially 4 with its planned extension. I used to live near the El Coll station and whenever I had to go to Maria Cristina, the quickest way for me was to take L5 to Vall d'Hebron, then L3 to Diagonal, then L5 again to Sants, and then L3 again to Maria Cristina. Maybe Naples line 1 looks like a noodle, but Barcelonas entire network looks like a plate of noodles.
You missed another wacky thing about Barcelona L9/L10 - both ends of the line are completed and operating, while the central part is not. Currently planned for 2027.
I know not a subway route but a bit like the Elizabeth line when it was TFL Rail. It took over train routes in the east and the west and rebranded them as TFL Rail yet hadn’t finished the core section. These weren’t bespoke routes though. They’d been operating for a long time.
The Chongqing monorail is kind of cool and pretty convenient for anyone who lives in that apartment building. But those other subway lines in the other countries have me wondering what those planners were thinking.
Hhahahaha got the reference :) The problem here is that, apart from some particular stations under some hills, the majority of the network in Barcelona is cut and cover or not really deep, so people are not used to get thaaaat deep underground. In addition, instead of a hugely long escalator Soviet-style, they went with the 6-7 middle sized escalators stacked, so psychologically it seems even deeper :(
Well, talking of trains going inside buildings, Berlin's line U1 & U3 pass through an apartment building, before going underground. Oh, and ~1km away, the line U2 also stops inside an apartment complex before going underground.
The reason why Naples Metro line 1 looks so weird can be summed up in two reasons. Different heights of stations and a rich subsoil where you can find kilometres of underground tunnels known as Subterranean Naples. The rail does a loop on itself to overcome a height of around 300 m in just few kilometers, that can be seen at Quattro Giornate station, where subway platform for different direction are at 2 different floor. Moreover, after Colli Aminei line continues by viaduct.
1:30 The RER C is a system of lines ! The RER C is completely separated from other RER lines and does not share its tunnels. C1,3,5,7 in the north of the tunnel-C2,4,6,8 in the south of the tunnel…
For the istanbul metro you are right they xould make it shorter but they couldnt make a hole between the buildings on sites so they need to make it outer line.
Unless someone else already commented it, how about the Jōetsu Line in eastern Japan, specifically the section between Minakami and Echigo-Yuzawa? It is a double-track line that features two single-track loops as well as a section where southbound trains go above ground while northbound trains go through quite a deep 13 km long tunnel. Also there's a station in that section (Doai Station) where the two platforms are connected only by a 486 step long staircase that you'd have to climb when getting off a northbound train.
About Naples metro line 1, I'm sorry to contradict the three reasons given you by Jeff Matthews, but the first of them is completely incorrect (the 1920 stations are the ones of the line 2), while the second two are secondary at best. The only real reason for the weird layout of Naples metro Line 1 is purely technical, that line is a mountain railway. In fact, line 1 is truly an engineering masterpiece, it's the only subway in the world built with mountain railway techniques and gradients. It overcomes almost 300 meters of height difference in just a few kilometres, going from 20 meters under sea level to about 260 meters above sea level at the Policlinico station. To achieve this, it uses very steepy average slopes of 5-6%, curved slopes and a long helical loop (spiral tunnel) to gain height, passing on itself at two different heights between the Salvator Rosa station and the Medaglie d'Oro station.
@@MG-ff8eu of course, there are other steepy metro lines around the world, but what makes Naples line 1 unique is all the mountain railroad techniques used for the first time in a metro, like the mentioned helical loop to gain altitude up the hills.
@@Neldot The Lausanne line was originally a rack railway (now it runs on tyres), and the Lyon line still is. Naples is likely the first using a spiral tunnel to gain height (I don't know other metro lines with spiral tunnels).
hah nice of you to Include the RER C hah, I take it often and I show the insane map to all my visiting friends to make them die inside a funny thing about it is that it has two terminals in Versailles but on two different branches, except the branch that loops back into the others twice makes it an incomplete loop. there's this story of a couple of tourists who were in Versailles - Chantiers station, knew that Versailles - Rive Gauche was the closest station to the chateau, saw there were trains going there… and rode one of them *all the way around the suburbs* for 90 minutes. it's a 10-minue walk between the two, hah that branch that loops back to Versailles is gradually gonna be turned into a tramway line soon, with the first phase due to open next year, so it will simply the line step by step
The planned northern extension of the just opened K Line in Los Angeles has three alternative routing options. The option that seems to be the most likely is the slowest due to an extreme S-like shape. Basically, they want to provide service to West Hollywood on a north/south route that really should be built to the east of there. They really should just build a second line but due to not having enough money for two lines plus technical political issues, the route goes west to West Hollywood then almost immediately heads back east, for a very winding route.
The London Overground is pretty messy when you look at a map of it. Over 100 stations and various lines that travel out from the city centre, 2 lines that go around the city and a weird bit between Romford and Upminster, but it's technically one line (for the time being).
Get a mic and you’ll get a ton more viewers; otherwise this is well researched and put together with lots of maps Not sure if switchbacks are your cup of tea but I suggest you look at the Hakone Tozan line in Odawara, Japan
I'm yet again going to mention the Yellow line of the Tyne and Wear Metro in the uk. It has a curvy section out towards south shields then heads across the river into the city centre, around a massive loop and crosses back over itself at Monument station in the city centre before terminating one stop further along at St James. just take a look at a map, its certainly a little odd
a system suggestion to analyze in the next video: Rio de Janeiro. The system has 3 lines: 1, 2 and 4 (yes, line 4 was built before line 3, which by the way doesn't exist yet) but in the city center lines 1 and 2 become one, dividing the tracks and giving the impression that they are a line with two branches, but line 2 only goes to a certain point while line 1 goes straight ahead, line 4 is considered an independent line, but in practice it is just an extension of line 1, practically the metro craziest in Brazil.
You could do the Hurstbridge line down here in melbourne, it does a weird U shape towards Eltham as if the track between watsonia and diamond creek was straight, there were no settlements to stop at.
My suggestion: have a look at Brussels' metro map. At first glance it seems a pretty straightforward plan, but look closely at the loop of lines 2 and 6 and you'll see that line 2 is actually not a contiguous circle :)
The main metro tunnel in Sofia, Bulgaria also has a huge loop around the northern part of the city. The service used to be called M2 but was since aesthetically split into two lines: M2 and M4 with through running. One difference to Singapore and Napoli is that you can actually change at the (self-)intersection. I don't know if light rail counts, but the tram line 5 of Mannheim and Heidelberg is interesting: It is a circular line that goes through Mannheim, exits the city, and then travels east in a separate right of way to the city of Heidelberg where it joins that city's tram network, goes through the city, and leaves on another right of way north through another town and loops back south east into Mannheim. Oh, and the part through Mannheim contains a loop, making this the only figure-8-shaped line I know of.
The loop was built in order to save costs on a separate metro depot for the M2. By joining the two lines together both of them can use the same depot. Plus, the initial M2 plan was made almost 50 years ago so they changed the line to cover busier neighborhoods.
Grew up on the RER C, at the end of one of the branches actually! I like to refer to it as the "spaghetti line" because... look at it It might seem nightmarish and it kinda is if you're not familiar, but it's not too bad because for any branch there's usually one every 25-30 minutes (maybe an hour in the middle of the day except around noon), so if you're in the middle of Paris count one every 7 minutes? Tho why you wouldnt take the metro in that case is beyond me... It is the tourist line because it goes through Paris's center (stopping near the Eiffel tower for example) along the Seine and goes to Versailles as well! Line 1 i also pretty known for being a line full of tourists iirc
For the Paris RER C, you should know that the RER lines are not really lines in the sense that the RERs are like small train networks with common trunks, and each RER are include several missions in these for example from Versailles Chantier there is the RER C but the mission is "VICK" which represents the trains which make Versailles Chantier to Versailles Château rive gauche or there is the SARA mission which are the trains which make Saint Martin d'Étampes to Saint Quentin en Yvelines I hope people understand
Versailles-Chantiers station is roughly 1km away from Versailles Rive Gauche. These are the 2 ends of the ‘VICK’ mission and the displays may be misleading to tourists taking them on a 1h45 trip when it could easily take less than 20 mn by foot
You will like the Bucharest metro system. From what seems like a loop, to u shapes served only by 1/3 trains to incomplete loops, its wacky (also chech the surface map not the stylised metrorex map)
For line C (RER C) one of the loops will disappear transformed into LRT.... (at 1:36 the 4th circle from the top on the video)....Its extension to the left will be separated from the rest of the line (when to change its name.....nothing for the moment).
What do you mean “good luck trying to use cut and cover” when every single other line was cut and cover? Also the southern end of the L9 twists to accommodate two future stations.
That's exactly the great issue. If the other lines already used cut and cover, now you can't use it, as you'll have to cross under the other lines. In addition, L9/10 goes on some of the most mountanious parts of the city at some points, and cut and cover is not an option there. The other benefit of deep boring is you being able to get basically anywhere without worrying about buildings, which was also a point considered in this project :)
Paris' Rer c may look confusing, but as a frequent tourist myself, somehow I never get lost. I think mostly, because you use very specific routes or sections only. And mostly because you want to skip the slow metro. At least, that's my experience.
JUST TO BE CLEAR FOR ANYONE WHO DOESN’T KNOW, HE MEANS THAT THESE LINES LOOK WEIRD UNTIL YOU DIG DEEPER! HE IS TRYING TO PROVE A POINT! I’m just saying this because he got some criticism on the last vid saying that there was nothing wrong with u shaped lines and judging the video!
In Singapore, Bukit panjang lrt line One station goes inside the mall It is called: Ten Mille Junction station And is closed down in 2019, change the name of the mall to Junction 10 Ten mille junction ← old name Junction 10← new name Singaporean, we didn't know when the Bukit panjang 14 aka junction 10 will open And we have abandoned Lrt station It's named : teck lee station, is at punggol Lrt line Is built already but never opened the station.
I don't find twists and turn so weird tbh. Roads can be like that as well. As are rivers. So it's actually somewhat natural. I wonder if that's just a very American view on it. Because so many US cities are modern compared to European cities and also build for cars mostly, things are more straight... maybe it's very cultural to think of twists and turn as weird?
The twists on L9/10 in Barcelona, at the north, is due to mountainous terrain and high slopes. But on the south... all those twists are due to political promises to the town of El Prat, a neighbouring small city whose politicians wanted their own "minimetro". So there you have it, the line makes a stupid U that takes you in a trip throught El Prat and adds like 15 minutes to your trip to the airport >:(
Bro why do you care so much about everything being a straight line? Why is it weird to have u-shaped sections in subway lines? That's not how European cities are laid out (often very heterogeneous), and most of the time the u's are giving access to important things. Even that Istanbul line from the last video, the two U's connected a giant shopping centre, a park and a giant bus station. You know, the things people actually want to go to? Plus, it's not always useful to just go from a to b in a straight line. Not only are there the elevation issues, foundations for ancient buildings, and so on, but mobility and access is an important factor. Huge roads for example are really hard (and unpleasant) to cross as a pedestrian, so it makes sense to have stations on both sides.
Did you watch the video? The series is based on cosmetic weirdness, not operational weirdness, meaning if a line goes all over the place, I am going to cover it. And finally, I do give reasons why it looks weird. Again, watch the video. It is not that hard to sit through a 10 minute video.
Hello new video, RIP old video lol. This video should be more pleasant to listen to, as there shouldn't be anymore bass boots in weird areas.
it'll be better if you could actually pronounce Istanbul or Chongqing correctly...
You should look at the Brussels metro. For some reason, line 2 never branches off of line 6, similar to how the C train never branches off from the A.
Also, both lines are, in a sort of way, an incomplete loop. Look at the map, it’s really awkward.
yess napoli
The Napoli line also is a steep climb up the very high Vomero hill, the loop section was referred to as the 'Hill metro' during some phases. It's basically a metro climbing loop (the stations are still rather deep though).
You can get a good feeling of how much the metro has to climb to reach Vomero hill when you take the Centrale funicular instead.
Totally off-topic but taking the Vomero exit/entrance from or to Naples' tangenziale freeway by car (or with some city bus lines) is one totally hilarious rollercoaster ride of having to climb or to go down (or both) like on an alpine mountain road.
about the RER C, there are a train that make a almost perfect loop, he start in the station Versailles-Chantiers and finish to the station Versailles-Château-Rive-Gauche that are at 500m (1/3 mile) each others!
(12/02/2024 : this loop doesn't exist anymore, he has be divided intro 3 lines because the loop was to long and cause a lot of "lates".)
Yeah Chongqing Line 2's Liziba station is such a neat station! It's transit-oriented development to the max! People may think living in those apartments is constantly noisy because of the monorail, but the station uses specialized noise reduction equipment to isolate station noise from the surrounding residences! And the reason Line 2 is a monorail is as you brought up, Chongqing is a huge densely populated but mountainous city, with multiple river valleys. So using monorails leverages the ability to negotiate steep grades and tight curves with rapid transit capacity. Out of the lines of Chongqing Rail Transit, Lines 2 and 3 are monorails.
Another example of a monorail that goes through a building with a station inside is at Disney's Contemporary Resort in Florida! While Liziba station opened in June 2005, the Contemporary Resort opened with Magic Kingdom on October 1st, 1971! If the monorail station inside the hotel building isn't interesting enough, the monorail station is part of the Grand Canyon Concourse which features a huge Grand Canyon-themed mosaic (that has a five-legged goat; this was done on purpose to reflect human error) by Mary Blair, who also created character designs for It's a Small World and also worked on Alice in Wonderland! The resort is also the location of the infamous Nixon "I am not a crook" speech in November 1973.
Another wacky line layout is the Northern Line on the London Underground. Two-and-a-bit northern branches, two central branches, and two southern branches, but three separate stations where all branches converge (Kennington, Euston, and Camden Town).
The Tube has definitely one of the wackiest lines in the world. I’d also mention:
-District has lots of branches, ranging north, west, east, and south.
-Central and Picaddily has loop branches and normal straight branches at the same time.
-Circle isn’t actually a circle, it’s actually a spiral that stops at Edgeware Road twice.
This series is really fun and informative to watch, my suggestion would be the Yellow Line of the Tyne and Wear Metro in Newcastle, England. It features a huge loop too! 🔥
Not a station but Liziba station reminds me of the Gate Tower Building in Osaka! What makes the Gate Tower Building unique is that the Umeda exit of the Ikeda Route of the Hanshin Expressway system (when exiting the highway from the direction of Ikeda) passes between the fifth through seventh floors of the building! The highway is effectively the tenant of those floors. The building's elevator passes through the floors without stopping, with floor 4 being followed by floor 8. The floors through which the highway passes consist of elevators, stairways and machinery. The highway does not make contact with the building. It passes through as a bridge, held up by supports next to the building.
The highway is surrounded by a structure to protect the building from noise and vibration! And if that's not enough, the roof of the building has a helipad! So how did this building end up with an expressway through it? Well a wood and charcoal business held the property rights for the plot of land since the early Meiji period, but the gradual move to other sources of fuel resulted in the deterioration of those company buildings. In 1983, redevelopment of the area was approved, but building permits were refused because the highway was already being planned. The property rights' holders refused to give up and negotiated with the Hanshin Expressway corporation for approximately five years to reach the current solution.
9:07 Wait a minute, that's not a tunnel boring machine, it's the LHC xD
Barcelona Line 4 is also a wacky line, when fully extended to the new high speed train terminal, the line will result in a weird "G" Shape
An interesting weird train line, well tbh now tram line, is the Zoetermeerlijn in The Netherlands. It was initially a suburban railway from Den Haag (The Hague) to Zoetermeer. It looks somewhat like a pretzel. When it was served by trains it made an entire loop in both directions (so there were 2 servicse). In 2006 this is rebuilt to a tram line and integrated in the Den Haag tram network. It doesn't make a full loop anymore and is served by line 3 which makes the loop almost fully but the returns. Line 4 only covers part of the loop and serves a new branch of this line.
When it was a railway it used two trains coupled together and at Centrum-West station the two trains where decoupled and one train would run the loop clockwise and the other train would run the loop anti-clockwise, when the the trains came back at Centrum-West station they would be coupled back together and then return to The Hague
I have to correct you on the M3 assumptions in Istanbul, The reason why the northern section of the M3 is curvy is not because of the terrain, but because of newly build destinations in that area. Initially the line ended at the MetroKent station which was a newly build satellite back then. Later the decision was made to build Istanbul's largest hospital complex (Çam and Sakura City Hospital) to the West of it, thus the U shape to connect it to this metro. The line is actually briefly on a viaduct, crossing the valley next to the hospital. This is something you see very often in Istanbul. M9 crosses a steep valley on the way to the Olympic Stadium. The M7 line is crossing two valley's on viaducts, with stations on the bridges themselves (Alibeykoy and Kağıthane), and the most famous M2 station Halic is spanning over the Golden Horn estuary... in short, the topography in Istanbul is not determining metro line gradients, but destinations and bad planning do.
I lived in Barcelona for a year and I took constant trips to the airport for travel. It was a NIGHTMARE with all the twists and turns of southern line 9S, specially in the Les Moreres - El Part Estació section. But as heard during several clases on the ETSAB (one of Barcelona’s architecture schools), it was not only the soil but also political issues with the El Prat the Llobregat municipality. Also you missed lines 3 and 4 of the Barcelona metro, which are also very, VERY weird and very inconvenient at times. La Pau terminal in line 4 is roughly 2 kms from Maragall station on a straight line but 12 kilometers apart if you take the line 4 which serves them both 🤔
Yeah, Barcelona metro is a complete mess, but it works perfectly though.
L3 is a distinct V shaped line cause it was designed 100 years ago to go from Gràcia (north) to the city center, then line expanded back up to Les Corts.
L4 is the weirdest of them all, cause it was for decades a branch of L3 between Passeig de Gràcia and the now closed station of Correus. And happened the same as L3, as the sea approaches you either need to end there the line or just turn and form another weird looking G line. It's even more weirder cause it goes back up north instead of going east along the coast and that's because when it was build there wasn't any buildings near the beaches and the stations were made where people lived.
L9 and L10 are not that weird (except the whole tunnels and stations things), it's just a line that crosses the city and connects important landmarks or services of the city. The worse parts are mainly in El Prat and to Aeroport... It's seriously a tourist trap, you have like 45min to the city center plus a single ticket costs twice as much (nearly 6€). (A trip in a 10-trip ticket costs 1,35€, but you cannot use that to go there). Funnily enough, if you use RENFE (train lines) it's cheaper (1,35€), and faster (only 20 min to the center).
Furthermore there are plans to extend L3 for example further west and make another big mistake, a bunch of U turns to get near more people but add much more travel time...
That last one is even weirder since there's already tram and commuter lines that cover all the area that with a tenth of the investment (like making T3 straighter, since that also has a smaller u shape, and increased reliability in the commuter services) would suffice. I guess they just want to add miles to the total metro length at all costs.
Though if they really wanted that there was a suggestion made around the same time the plan was suggested to use L3 and L6 to make, alongside the R1/R4, a coarse but fast travel net in the area and use the tram as a more local service.
@@pablocanovas2779 I think it would be better if L3 just goes straight to Sant Feliu and maybe L12, to Sant Joan Despí, covering all the areas with the north of BCN fast.
That's what i mean by grid, though the term triangle would have been better. For coverage sake the L3 should go closer to the mountain than the tram
Fun fact: RER C won't be so weird in the future, only because one branch of the strange loop will become a part of a tram (the line T12), the part between Savigny-sur-Orge and Versailles-Chantiers.
Thank you for talking about the RER C, as I lived in Choisy-le-Roi and knew how to go around the line, so... I hope it remains unchanged!
Talking of Barcelona, you might also want to check lines 3, 5 and especially 4 with its planned extension.
I used to live near the El Coll station and whenever I had to go to Maria Cristina, the quickest way for me was to take L5 to Vall d'Hebron, then L3 to Diagonal, then L5 again to Sants, and then L3 again to Maria Cristina.
Maybe Naples line 1 looks like a noodle, but Barcelonas entire network looks like a plate of noodles.
Hahahahaha you did the mythical Diagonal-Sants shortcut I see xd
You missed another wacky thing about Barcelona L9/L10 - both ends of the line are completed and operating, while the central part is not. Currently planned for 2027.
I know not a subway route but a bit like the Elizabeth line when it was TFL Rail. It took over train routes in the east and the west and rebranded them as TFL Rail yet hadn’t finished the core section. These weren’t bespoke routes though. They’d been operating for a long time.
The Chongqing monorail is kind of cool and pretty convenient for anyone who lives in that apartment building. But those other subway lines in the other countries have me wondering what those planners were thinking.
Please make another episode ❤
10:00 5 or 6 flights of stairs? pff, thats nothing. in London the Stairs in every Station equal a 15 Storey Building :D
Hhahahaha got the reference :)
The problem here is that, apart from some particular stations under some hills, the majority of the network in Barcelona is cut and cover or not really deep, so people are not used to get thaaaat deep underground. In addition, instead of a hugely long escalator Soviet-style, they went with the 6-7 middle sized escalators stacked, so psychologically it seems even deeper :(
Well, talking of trains going inside buildings, Berlin's line U1 & U3 pass through an apartment building, before going underground. Oh, and ~1km away, the line U2 also stops inside an apartment complex before going underground.
The reason why Naples Metro line 1 looks so weird can be summed up in two reasons.
Different heights of stations and a rich subsoil where you can find kilometres of underground tunnels known as Subterranean Naples.
The rail does a loop on itself to overcome a height of around 300 m in just few kilometers, that can be seen at Quattro Giornate station, where subway platform for different direction are at 2 different floor.
Moreover, after Colli Aminei line continues by viaduct.
Not sure if this was a joke but... at 9:11, that's the LHC, isnt.. it?
The C5 in Madrid is also very strange. Its a weird U shape like the M train in NYC but to a more extreme effect
Barcelona's metro system is a complete mess but funnily it works it's magic
1:30 The RER C is a system of lines ! The RER C is completely separated from other RER lines and does not share its tunnels.
C1,3,5,7 in the north of the tunnel-C2,4,6,8 in the south of the tunnel…
For the istanbul metro you are right they xould make it shorter but they couldnt make a hole between the buildings on sites so they need to make it outer line.
Unless someone else already commented it, how about the Jōetsu Line in eastern Japan, specifically the section between Minakami and Echigo-Yuzawa? It is a double-track line that features two single-track loops as well as a section where southbound trains go above ground while northbound trains go through quite a deep 13 km long tunnel. Also there's a station in that section (Doai Station) where the two platforms are connected only by a 486 step long staircase that you'd have to climb when getting off a northbound train.
About Naples metro line 1, I'm sorry to contradict the three reasons given you by Jeff Matthews, but the first of them is completely incorrect (the 1920 stations are the ones of the line 2), while the second two are secondary at best. The only real reason for the weird layout of Naples metro Line 1 is purely technical, that line is a mountain railway. In fact, line 1 is truly an engineering masterpiece, it's the only subway in the world built with mountain railway techniques and gradients. It overcomes almost 300 meters of height difference in just a few kilometres, going from 20 meters under sea level to about 260 meters above sea level at the Policlinico station. To achieve this, it uses very steepy average slopes of 5-6%, curved slopes and a long helical loop (spiral tunnel) to gain height, passing on itself at two different heights between the Salvator Rosa station and the Medaglie d'Oro station.
All true, although also Lausanne and Lyon have two steep lines going up a hill.
@@MG-ff8eu of course, there are other steepy metro lines around the world, but what makes Naples line 1 unique is all the mountain railroad techniques used for the first time in a metro, like the mentioned helical loop to gain altitude up the hills.
@@Neldot The Lausanne line was originally a rack railway (now it runs on tyres), and the Lyon line still is. Naples is likely the first using a spiral tunnel to gain height (I don't know other metro lines with spiral tunnels).
@@MG-ff8eu Exactly. You are right.
hah nice of you to Include the RER C hah, I take it often and I show the insane map to all my visiting friends to make them die inside
a funny thing about it is that it has two terminals in Versailles but on two different branches, except the branch that loops back into the others twice makes it an incomplete loop. there's this story of a couple of tourists who were in Versailles - Chantiers station, knew that Versailles - Rive Gauche was the closest station to the chateau, saw there were trains going there… and rode one of them *all the way around the suburbs* for 90 minutes. it's a 10-minue walk between the two, hah
that branch that loops back to Versailles is gradually gonna be turned into a tramway line soon, with the first phase due to open next year, so it will simply the line step by step
Why aren’t we talking about the Tube’s Northern Line? great video btw
The planned northern extension of the just opened K Line in Los Angeles has three alternative routing options. The option that seems to be the most likely is the slowest due to an extreme S-like shape. Basically, they want to provide service to West Hollywood on a north/south route that really should be built to the east of there. They really should just build a second line but due to not having enough money for two lines plus technical political issues, the route goes west to West Hollywood then almost immediately heads back east, for a very winding route.
The London Overground is pretty messy when you look at a map of it. Over 100 stations and various lines that travel out from the city centre, 2 lines that go around the city and a weird bit between Romford and Upminster, but it's technically one line (for the time being).
Get a mic and you’ll get a ton more viewers; otherwise this is well researched and put together with lots of maps
Not sure if switchbacks are your cup of tea but I suggest you look at the Hakone Tozan line in Odawara, Japan
For weird u shaped line I also nominate S7 of Munich, which also features a switchback
I'm yet again going to mention the Yellow line of the Tyne and Wear Metro in the uk. It has a curvy section out towards south shields then heads across the river into the city centre, around a massive loop and crosses back over itself at Monument station in the city centre before terminating one stop further along at St James. just take a look at a map, its certainly a little odd
It is strange when you want to go to St James Park on matchday, so Monument becomes very busy before the game
5:27 engineer was playing zuma before designing the line
a system suggestion to analyze in the next video: Rio de Janeiro. The system has 3 lines: 1, 2 and 4 (yes, line 4 was built before line 3, which by the way doesn't exist yet) but in the city center lines 1 and 2 become one, dividing the tracks and giving the impression that they are a line with two branches, but line 2 only goes to a certain point while line 1 goes straight ahead, line 4 is considered an independent line, but in practice it is just an extension of line 1, practically the metro craziest in Brazil.
Can I suggest Sydney’s L1 tram line for the next video. Super windy route through hilly harbour side suburbs on an old freight alignment
It might be interesting to cover Bucharest's Line 1, which is snail-shaped with a very weird shape in the west!
You could do the Hurstbridge line down here in melbourne, it does a weird U shape towards Eltham as if the track between watsonia and diamond creek was straight, there were no settlements to stop at.
My suggestion: have a look at Brussels' metro map. At first glance it seems a pretty straightforward plan, but look closely at the loop of lines 2 and 6 and you'll see that line 2 is actually not a contiguous circle :)
Could you please make Part 3 or any other video that includes South Korean subway?
The main metro tunnel in Sofia, Bulgaria also has a huge loop around the northern part of the city. The service used to be called M2 but was since aesthetically split into two lines: M2 and M4 with through running. One difference to Singapore and Napoli is that you can actually change at the (self-)intersection.
I don't know if light rail counts, but the tram line 5 of Mannheim and Heidelberg is interesting: It is a circular line that goes through Mannheim, exits the city, and then travels east in a separate right of way to the city of Heidelberg where it joins that city's tram network, goes through the city, and leaves on another right of way north through another town and loops back south east into Mannheim. Oh, and the part through Mannheim contains a loop, making this the only figure-8-shaped line I know of.
The loop was built in order to save costs on a separate metro depot for the M2. By joining the two lines together both of them can use the same depot. Plus, the initial M2 plan was made almost 50 years ago so they changed the line to cover busier neighborhoods.
Grew up on the RER C, at the end of one of the branches actually! I like to refer to it as the "spaghetti line" because... look at it
It might seem nightmarish and it kinda is if you're not familiar, but it's not too bad because for any branch there's usually one every 25-30 minutes (maybe an hour in the middle of the day except around noon), so if you're in the middle of Paris count one every 7 minutes? Tho why you wouldnt take the metro in that case is beyond me...
It is the tourist line because it goes through Paris's center (stopping near the Eiffel tower for example) along the Seine and goes to Versailles as well! Line 1 i also pretty known for being a line full of tourists iirc
You can do São paulo line 2. Not a big fan the section between consolação and clínicas.
There is Paris Metro line 10, which has different stations for westbound and eastbound traffic.
For the Paris RER C, you should know that the RER lines are not really lines in the sense that the RERs are like small train networks with common trunks, and each RER are include several missions in these for example from Versailles Chantier there is the RER C but the mission is "VICK" which represents the trains which make Versailles Chantier to Versailles Château rive gauche or there is the SARA mission which are the trains which make Saint Martin d'Étampes to Saint Quentin en Yvelines
I hope people understand
Versailles-Chantiers station is roughly 1km away from Versailles Rive Gauche. These are the 2 ends of the ‘VICK’ mission and the displays may be misleading to tourists taking them on a 1h45 trip when it could easily take less than 20 mn by foot
@@Boss_Tanaka It's up to tourists to find out about the missions of the RER VICK is a circular line in appearance
You will like the Bucharest metro system. From what seems like a loop, to u shapes served only by 1/3 trains to incomplete loops, its wacky (also chech the surface map not the stylised metrorex map)
The barcelona's line 9 south twists are because they wanted it to comunicate with the existing rail lines and then go to the airport.
For line C (RER C) one of the loops will disappear transformed into LRT.... (at 1:36 the 4th circle from the top on the video)....Its extension to the left will be separated from the rest of the line (when to change its name.....nothing for the moment).
What do you mean “good luck trying to use cut and cover” when every single other line was cut and cover? Also the southern end of the L9 twists to accommodate two future stations.
That's exactly the great issue. If the other lines already used cut and cover, now you can't use it, as you'll have to cross under the other lines.
In addition, L9/10 goes on some of the most mountanious parts of the city at some points, and cut and cover is not an option there.
The other benefit of deep boring is you being able to get basically anywhere without worrying about buildings, which was also a point considered in this project :)
Paris' Rer c may look confusing, but as a frequent tourist myself, somehow I never get lost. I think mostly, because you use very specific routes or sections only. And mostly because you want to skip the slow metro. At least, that's my experience.
Even tho its more of a guideway, the Yurikamome in Tokyo has a weird looking route on a map.
We've got weird lines in Moscow. One is Yellow, other is Light Blue
I thought I remembered this
JUST TO BE CLEAR FOR ANYONE WHO DOESN’T KNOW, HE MEANS THAT THESE LINES LOOK WEIRD UNTIL YOU DIG DEEPER! HE IS TRYING TO PROVE A POINT! I’m just saying this because he got some criticism on the last vid saying that there was nothing wrong with u shaped lines and judging the video!
London Northern Line looks like it should be split into two lines.
In Singapore, Bukit panjang lrt line
One station goes inside the mall
It is called: Ten Mille Junction station
And is closed down in 2019, change the name of the mall
to Junction 10
Ten mille junction ← old name
Junction 10← new name
Singaporean, we didn't know when the Bukit panjang 14 aka junction 10 will open
And we have abandoned Lrt station
It's named : teck lee station, is at punggol Lrt line
Is built already but never opened the station.
If you thought the RER C was bad wait until you see the London Overground ☠️
I don't find twists and turn so weird tbh. Roads can be like that as well. As are rivers. So it's actually somewhat natural.
I wonder if that's just a very American view on it. Because so many US cities are modern compared to European cities and also build for cars mostly, things are more straight... maybe it's very cultural to think of twists and turn as weird?
The twists on L9/10 in Barcelona, at the north, is due to mountainous terrain and high slopes.
But on the south... all those twists are due to political promises to the town of El Prat, a neighbouring small city whose politicians wanted their own "minimetro". So there you have it, the line makes a stupid U that takes you in a trip throught El Prat and adds like 15 minutes to your trip to the airport >:(
Please do Seoul line 2
both montreal line2 where i live and toronto's line 1 are almost closed circles.
Plus WMATA’s Red Line
In India's only monorail project in Mumbai, the route it takes is so pathetic, no one even uses it. You can show that too.
At least my mini metro lines are worse
It isn't really a line. But a really weird metro system exists in Omsk, Russia. It's only one station of metro there
You should cover the Alishan Forest Railway in Taiwan, you’ll never guess how many loops there are.
Bro why do you care so much about everything being a straight line? Why is it weird to have u-shaped sections in subway lines? That's not how European cities are laid out (often very heterogeneous), and most of the time the u's are giving access to important things.
Even that Istanbul line from the last video, the two U's connected a giant shopping centre, a park and a giant bus station. You know, the things people actually want to go to? Plus, it's not always useful to just go from a to b in a straight line. Not only are there the elevation issues, foundations for ancient buildings, and so on, but mobility and access is an important factor. Huge roads for example are really hard (and unpleasant) to cross as a pedestrian, so it makes sense to have stations on both sides.
Did you watch the video? The series is based on cosmetic weirdness, not operational weirdness, meaning if a line goes all over the place, I am going to cover it. And finally, I do give reasons why it looks weird.
Again, watch the video. It is not that hard to sit through a 10 minute video.
If you see Malaysia line
Hehehe NO