Talk:Passenger rail terminology

In the UK "Light Railway" has a specific legal meaning in that it the constraints on its construction are reduced, though limitations are applied such as a speed limit. Permission is granted to build one by a Light Railway Order from Parliament. see 1896 Light Railways Act

Even so, the term "Light Rapid Transit" (usually abbreviated to LRT) has been borrowed into British English to refer, at least in professional usage, to "new generation" tramway systems (still called "trams" in ordinary speech). -- Picapica 11:42, 21 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

Many Germanic languages use the term U-Bahn

Oh no, they don't. Only one does: German...! (Is the fact relevant, anyway, in an article on passenger rail terminology in English?) -- Picapica 11:42, 21 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

I do not like the chapter called "Rail terminology with regard to speed". It looks like someone dreaming about 500-1000 km/h rail travel has written it. I googled on some terms. "Very high-speed rail" seems generelly used about trains that go faster than 300 km/h. "Ultra high-speed rail" seems to be a little undefined, but much faster than today's trains. Maglev are spoken about in connction with this. I will rewrite. --BIL (talk) 06:59, 12 May 2009 (UTC)Reply

Just to point out that the new High Speed 2 (HS2) network in the UK is currently slated to run at 360kph, but is not being called "Very" high speed. (It would be VHS1?) Future proofing of the design for the line is being undertaken to 400kph, again with no reference I can find to this being "Very" high speed. 2A02:582:18E6:DF00:2960:E0BD:C4:B378 (talk) 16:33, 8 March 2016 (UTC)Reply

The majority of the Buffalo Metro Rail's only line operates underground, with a small section of it operating above ground in a dedicated mall. This seems contrary to what the article claims. --72.88.104.207 (talk) 15:23, 14 December 2009 (UTC)Reply

In Seattle the buses which use the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel do so in what is known as 'hush' mode, where the diesel engines are in a reduced power mode, but are still switched on. Spsmiler (talk) 16:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)Reply

Is it just me or this is just a mashup of several railway-related topics with no well defined cohesion or hierarchical correlation? --uKER (talk) 05:07, 20 September 2010 (UTC)Reply

No, it's not just you. This whole article is, in my opinion, a vastly over-ambitious and poorly realized attempt to stuff every conceivable passenger-rail-related topic into one monster grab-bag of a piece. Furthermore, for an English-language Wikipedia article, it gives too much attention to explaining what things are called in Germany, Sweden, etc. ...when the linguistic divide in relation to railroad/railway terminology as between just North American and British English is already, and notoriously, huge enough.

This would be far better as an index of passenger-rail-related terminology pointing to proper stand-alone "Main articles". (This has been done to some extent already – as with High-speed rail – but then the mistake has been made of over-egging the pudding once more by writing here reams of stuff that belong in that main article!) -- Picapica (talk) 16:45, 27 July 2014 (UTC)Reply

"A heavy rail system is an electric railway with the capacity to handle a heavy volume of traffic."

Why restrict it to electric railway? In the UK there are significant railways which are diesel-powered and are usually referred to as heavy rail? --unsigned comment by 93.97.194.138 (talk) 2012-09-13 03:19:51 (UTC)

I believe the UK systems to which you are referring would be considered "commuter rail" or "intercity rail" in the article. --IJBall (talk) 00:27, 1 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

This really needs to be fixed. In North America "heavy rail" is synonymous with "metro" - it refers to the capacity of the system. The terms "subway" and "el" also almost always mean metro/heavy rail. The rare exceptions noted in Boston and Philadelphia aren't worth noting because the term subway is used far less often than "the T" and the green line in Philadelphia is almost always referred to as "the green line" or "the trolley". ~~jres — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.165.37.81 (talk) 07:12, 18 July 2013 (UTC)Reply
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If there's no objection, I'd like to move the 'Heavy rail' section above the 'Light rail' section in the article, putting it directly after the 'Rapid transit' section (where it rightfully belongs, IMO). I think I know why the 'Heavy rail' section was originally placed where it was, but really there is very little tie-in between 'Heavy rail' and 'Commuter rail' - they are really quite different... --IJBall (talk) 00:27, 1 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

I've tried to bring the heavy rail section closer to UK reality, although I think trying to explain the UK's railways in US (/North American?) terminology is always going to be tricky (and no doubt vice versa), especially if the US uses heavy rail to mean the opposite to the UK. Wheeltapper (talk) 21:43, 22 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

"...picking up and discharging passengers at any street corner"

Somewhat of an exaggeration! Even if this was ever once true (in the US?), modern tramway systems (in Europe certainly) serve marked stopping-places only. -- Picapica (talk) 12:59, 11 February 2018 (UTC)Reply