The Perfect Train Car The U.S. Doesn’t Use - Cheddar Explains

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?

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[tarekihaddaden]

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.

[alansaxena]

Im surprised that not all train systems have not changed to gangway train systems as of yet

[rolandkloka]

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 YouTube 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.

[etm]

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 :)

[dperreno]

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.

[jonaw.]

Wow, these are standard practice over here in Europe! It surprises me to see these not yet implemented everywhere!

[GojiMet]

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.

[TUbe-bvfy]

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.

[isaacng]

“America didn’t get the message” honestly explains so much about America.

[ZenIsBestWolf]

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.

[Prof_Prokrastination]

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!

[naufian]

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.

[garrettknapp-frey]

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.

[stevenroshni]

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.

[Seriously_Unserious]

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.

[MihzvolWuriar]

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.

[pizzaipinya]

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

[christopherwilson]

The title's kinda funny considering the U.S. barely uses passenger trains anyway.

[jfwfreo]

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.

[phpfreakie]

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.