@phryk @eribloodlust in British English (and interestinglym many other European languages) "tram" is the most common term for this kind of light rail service.

The word comes from Scots, where it was also used for the truck that coal is taken from the mine to the main railway.

@vfrmedia @phryk @eribloodlust Probably most s-bahn-ish thing in the UK is in Newcastle and they call it Metro. That may work. Though it's maybe too much on the light rail side. Most S-Bahns are in fact basically regular commuter railway.

@pony @vfrmedia @eribloodlust

Might also lead to confusion with the subway in Russia (at least Moscow) being called the Metro. :P

@phryk @vfrmedia @eribloodlust What can you do. Paris has Metro, but it is in fact subway and their S-Bahn is called RER. Prague has Metro and also sort of a commuter train system where the train lines are numbered Sn, where S doesn't stand for anything, it's just inspired by S-Bahn.

@pony @phryk @eribloodlust trams have made a resurgence in recent years and can be found in Nottingham, Manchester and Croydon (South London), some of these networks were re(built) quite recently.

In Euro-English a "Metro" usually travels underground at some point in its route (even if not the entire network), although London's metro is colloquially called "the Tube" as well as the "Underground" in spite of a great deal of track being surface level 😁

@vfrmedia @eribloodlust @phryk Problem is that all the transit systems are very specific, not made by a table, but evolved over time in different ways. I tried to make some distinctions, but it's not easy.

I thought that a tram is something that doesn't have signalling and may share right of way with road traffic. S-Bahn would have signalling and may share tracks with "regular" trains. Subway would have signalling and have completely own infra.

@pony @vfrmedia @phryk sbahn and ubahn are part of the metro train system, being from sf, one calls th BART "rapid transit" which makes sense for sbahn since its got less stops than ubahn. gonna go with metro or radid transit...

@eribloodlust @pony @phryk "metro" is I think the most commonly recognised word in international English for such services (including by those who might not be rail enthusiasts/trainspotters 😁 )

@eribloodlust @vfrmedia @phryk S-Bahn means a lot of things, depending on the city. And U-Bahn. Hah. Vienna has line U6 that is of course U-Bahn, but it is in fact more of a light-rail. There is just no way to make a single nomenclature that will work everywhere.

@pony @eribloodlust @phryk in England it can get very complex/confusing, as Underground (metro/subway) rolling stock in London can and does share infrastructure with suburban services of mainline Network rail, especially where the third rail electric power is used for mainline suburban trains (some alterations are made so the 4 rail rolling stock works with 750V rather than +600 / -150V !)

@vfrmedia @eribloodlust @phryk This is much easier in the former Soviet bloc, where Metro (Subway) is just the same thing everywhere with similar layout and technology :)

@pony @eribloodlust @phryk and London as well. In fact an Underground carriage is the exact same gauge and can be hauled by a "big" train (of course using a normal diesel or electric loco and the rest of the motors disconnected/disengaged), in some regions you can see the "tube" seemingly way out of area as carriages are being hauled to workshops in the Midlands of England so they can be repaired..

@vfrmedia @eribloodlust @phryk Normally, it's all 1435mm gauge, but the loading gauge is wildly different with everything. Prague metro car can be transported on its own on the railway, but it wouldn't fit to any platform and its third rail would make it impossible for normal trains to run there.

@pony @vfrmedia @eribloodlust I'm wondering who actually decides on standardization for this, but get the feeling this would be an infinite rabbit hole…^^

@phryk @vfrmedia @eribloodlust There is an organization called UIC that standardizes loading gauges and plenty of things in the continental Europe. (UK is, of course, very different.) EU is trying with its railway packages...

But then, old streetcars/trams are defined by old local constraints and subways are defined by their tunnels that are usually custom. Even if they are new, digging/boring tunnels to fit a regular UIC GC loading gauge would be too costly.

@pony @eribloodlust @phryk a curiosity of London and Southern UK is third rail power for suburban trains is still very common in many areas (750V DC). So the trains can be configured to use this as well as the unusual split 4 rail system (a hangover from when stray current either made tunnel walls alive to electricity, knocked out telecoms services or other undesirable stuff)

@vfrmedia @pony @eribloodlust

I used to think just IT was a horrible mess of incompatible, shoddily documented components done without any real foresight.

Now I just think everything has been horrible all the time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@phryk @vfrmedia @eribloodlust It mostly all made sense when it was built. It even usually makes sense to this day.

(Then, we didn't even start talking about, say, signalling systems.)

@pony @phryk @eribloodlust to be fair rail infrastructure (both historical and modern) is quite well documented per country, but you have to look for the info (usually written in the main language of the country) and it *is* complex...

@vfrmedia @phryk @eribloodlust Thanks to the ongoing liberalization, you can usually download the network statement of the national infrastructure operators and have a lot of fun with all you see :) Here is the Czech one, for example: http://www.szdc.cz/en/provozovani-drahy/pristup-na-zdc/prohlaseni-2017.html

@pony @phryk @eribloodlust

interesting to read that the radio comms networks use similar frequencies to UK, even if those which are not GSM-R are clearly using different manufacturers and comms protocols..

@vfrmedia @phryk @eribloodlust I don't have too much insight into that, but I imagine that there is another international standardization effort that is not referenced in that, that generally allocates those frequencies to that purposes, even though actual communication methods are different?

@pony @phryk @eribloodlust

indeed there is, the CEPT/ERO in Denmark does just that

http://www.efis.dk/

@vfrmedia @eribloodlust @phryk third rails always felt very silly to me :)

@pony @eribloodlust @phryk everyone else I know from mainland Europe says this, not without good reason.

Nearly as many people are killed/injured by electric shocks from them as from actually being knocked down by trains, especially younger people who are often inclined to take short cuts across railway tracks and ignore warning signs..)

@vfrmedia @eribloodlust @phryk I don't think you can beat our record. People here cross tracks at insane places. And it ends up as one'd expect.

@pony @vfrmedia @phryk metro i like its obrcure if sbahn or ubahn but it shows its within the city, not train which could be intercity.

@phryk tram in english is Straßenbahn in german, if that helps. ususally mixes with autotraffic.

@eribloodlust Isn't "Straßenbahn" what S-Bahn stands for? Always thought it only denoted that the thing is at street level and (mostly) not part of intercity traffic…

@phryk no sbahn stands for stadt-bahn :)