Tag Archives: metros

Caissons and underground vestibules on the Kyiv Metro

I’ve written about Arsenalna (Ukrainian: Арсенальна) station on the Kyiv Metro in Ukraine before – at 105.5 metres below ground, it takes two flights of escalators to reach the surface, passing through an underground vestibule at the halfway point. But […]

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Underground archaeology at the metro station

During my visit to Vienna, I found something interesting when passing through the U-Bahn station of Stephansplatz – a window into an underground crypt. The Vergilius Chapel (German: Virgilkapelle) dated back to the early 13th century, with the Magdalene Chapel […]

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Technical platform «Troitse-Lykovo» and tunnel station «Д»

The Moscow Metro has 250 stations across the network, as well two bizarre ones not included in that total – technical platform «Troitse-Lykovo» and tunnel station «Д». Just a carriage long and with bare concrete walls, they are a strange […]

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Enlarging the tunnels of the City and South London Railway

The narrow ‘tube’ tunnels of the London Underground are known for being claustrophobic, but there was one part of the network was being even more constrained – the City and South London Railway. This is the story of how the […]

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What happens if you combine a turntable with a train lift?

Turntables are a common sight on railways, allowing rolling stock to be turned around. But the Kiev Metro had a unique piece of engineering at their first train depot – the «Метролифт» (metrolift) that combined turntable with train lift. The […]

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Four platform stations of the Moscow Metro

I’ve previously written about the standard interchange station design found on Soviet designed metro systems, and the non-standard platform configurations on the Moscow Metro – this time we look at the four track stations that offer cross-platform interchange. Кита́й-го́род (Kitay-gorod) […]

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Moscow Metro trains on display

Plenty of cities have railway museums filled with old trains on display, but on the 80th anniversary of the Moscow Metro they did something different – they brought the museum pieces to the people. Photo by Artem Svetlov from Moscow, […]

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Hidden tracks of the Kiev Metro

The Kiev Metro is a relatively simple system – three independent metro lines running across the city, with passengers changing between them at one of three interchange stations. However trains do have a way of making their way between the […]

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Moscow Metro curved, side and triple track stations

Each of the 232 stations on the Moscow Metro might have a unique look, but there is one design feature the majority share – two tracks flanking a central island platform. But how about the exceptions? Adopting a standard Russian-language […]

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Bizzare narrow platforms on the Bucharest Metro

The Bucharest Metro is a rail network with an interesting history, with the bizarrely narrow platforms at Piața Romană station being one example. Photo by Dimitris Kamaras from Athens, Greece, via Wikimedia Commons The bulk of the platform being less […]

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