Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site decwrl.DEC.COM
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-parrot!goutal
From: goutal@dec-parrot.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.railroad
Subject: subways / European rail
Message-ID: <238@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Date: Fri, 3-Jan-86 00:20:30 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.238
Posted: Fri Jan  3 00:20:30 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 4-Jan-86 05:33:07 EST
Sender: daemon@decwrl.DEC.COM
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 56

In one of the recent comments on subways,
one reader commented that he didn't feel endangered on subways,
and also described the graffiti as often "appalling".

It's been 5 or 10 years since I've been on the (Boston) subways.
My recollection is that some of the newer or more-recently-renovated
stops are quite nice, well-lit, not-very-threatening, at least 
superficially.  Even the best of them, though, were really squalid
when looked at with a more jaundiced eye.
Dunno if I ever felt endangered therein -- I'm kinda naive, I guess.

Was over in Munich, Germany recently (November).
Made a point to take the subway (as well as rental-car) around town,
and to take a train for a day-trip to Salzburg.
At some point, I hope to relate my observations about the latter.

The subways in Munich, at least in the parts of town where I happened to 
go, were spotless.  No Graffiti Anywhere!  No mud, no slime, no decades
of garbage just waiting to ooze out from under the surface shine and
getcha!  Yes, I cannot tell a lie, I saw a few soda (!) bottles and cans
on the roadbed in one of the larger stations;  they appeared to have 
been there no more than a day, and by the looks of everything else 
weren't likely to stay there much longer.

To be sure, some of the way I saw it must have been the glamour of being
in a foreign country.  At the same time, I must say that I was edgier 
than usual since about the only word I could say reliably was "danke".
I'd say they cancelled each other out.

No turnstiles!  (Is Boston the only US city that has those?)
You buy a ticket at a vending machine outside.
Downstairs is the usual concourse with stores and stalls,
though extremely little of the fried-dough-and-a-shine-mister, carny
atmosphere of, say, Park St Under.  From there,
you pass through an archway to get to the platforms,
or to the stairs to the platforms, depending.
As you pass through the archway, there are little machines 
into which you're supposed to poke your ticket;
after some number of such punches or stamps, it's used up.
Note that I say *supposed* to -- lotsa people didn't.
Guessing from other cues I picked up in daily affairs,
I'd say they must have had season tickets or something,
and didn't need to have them stamped.
There was some kind of an office with a window to one side,
with what looked to be standard-issue German cops inside,
and they didn't seem bothered by this practice.

Perhaps it was just my preconceptions,
but I had the feeling that cooperation and 'the honour system'
prevailed in the subway system as well as in everything else there.
It's like, nobody's threatening people with "don't abuse it or we'll
take it away from you", but it seems to be common knowledge, like 1+1=2
and 1-1=0, that if you destroy something, it won't be there anymore,
and then you won't be able to use it.  Odd.

-- Kenn Goutal