#but if you're a splatoon nerd like me you can probably see where i DID use my brain

[t00nyah]

ummm i may have done a silly crossover or smth......................

[1863-project]

I love some of the details that you added about the NYC subways in your submas primer post! Just curious, do you know any other cool or interesting facts about other subway systems in other US cities like Chicago, LA, etc?

Ooh, yes! I'd be delighted to share some stuff! There's a collection of different cities' MetroCards in my wallet for a reason, after all!

For people who haven’t seen it, this is my Submas primer, in which I also talked about the NYC Subway quite a bit because I practically live down there. I’m always happy to explain train stuff to people who like these two but aren’t as acquainted with trains, so here we go again!

The oldest proper subway tunnel in the United States is actually in Boston! This tunnel, built for what is now the MBTA, is now part of the Green Line. It was originally known as the Tremont Street Subway, and it's still in use today - so if you take the Green Line, you can pass on through! (Yes, there's an abandoned portion, have fun.) It was built in 1897, three years before construction started on what would evolve into the living organism that's our subway system here in NYC, but we already had our elevated lines here before that.

(The oldest in the world, though, is the London Underground, with its first portion, the Metropolitan Railway, opening on January 10, 1863! Yes, it ran on steam. No, this was not a good idea to do in an underground tunnel. There's a reason most subway systems operate on electricity. Don't worry, the Tube uses electricity now. I've been on it, I promise it's good.)

Before I move on to other things, there’s a pretty famous song about the MBTA - it was a protest song about fares rising. In the song, a guy named Charlie got on the train, and because the exit fares rose he couldn’t get back off, so his wife had to throw him a sandwich every day when his train came through so he didn’t starve. This song is so entrenched in Boston culture that their MetroCards are actually called CharlieCards.

I try to take rapid transit whenever I travel because I like seeing different cities' subway systems, and as a result I've been on quite a few around the United States. Most recently, I was in the Chicago area for an autism and libraries conference I was speaking at, so I finally got to ride the L a few years ago! I'd wanted to see it for a long time because it was so different from what I was used to - being mostly underground - so I'd been curious for a while. Turns out...there's portions that ARE underground! I did get to ride above ground, though, and it was almost surreal to be as close to people's apartment buildings as I was. The area of Chicago you're most likely to be in as a tourist, the Loop, even supposedly gets its name from the public transit routes passing through it.

If you're in Chicago and like trains in general, though, I highly recommend visiting Union Station, which is the busiest rail terminal in the United States not in New York City (Penn Station, Grand Central, and Jamaica Station all see more people). It's beautiful and absolutely what a train station should look like. If you're a big nerd like me and love the 20th Century Limited, you should also go see LaSalle Street Station, which is where it would terminate in Chicago! It went through many incarnations and appearances, but most famously, in the late 1930s, the 20th Century Limited was pulled by streamlined Hudson locomotives that looked like this:

You can't say that doesn't look cool.

Back to subways, though. I've got a few more for you I can talk about here.

If you've played Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion and you've been to Washington D.C., you probably noticed that the Central Station in Octo Expansion's Deepsea Metro looks an awful lot like a D.C. Metro station. I don't know if that was intentional or not, but I did my undergrad within driving distance of D.C. and was out there for the free museums quite a bit so it struck me immediately. The stations are frequently vaulted and spacious in D.C.

(Metro Center Station in D.C.)

The cars look more like the NYC subway's recently retired Brightliners, though, but with the more modern window signs our newer cars have.

Anyway. I digress. I really, really like Splatoon. By the way, there's definitely a subset of people who like Submas and also like C.Q. Cumber, who is objectively the best character in Octo Expansion, fight me. You can always tell if someone likes both Submas and C.Q. Cumber based on how they designed the uniform if they’ve done a ‘humanoid’ version of him. I love it.

There’s a few more notable subway things I can talk about in the United States, so let’s get back to that.

I’ve never been to Los Angeles, but they have a rapid transit system there - two subway lines and four light rail lines. Most people think of LA as a car city, especially given its reputation for smog and traffic, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t put trains there too! I’m not as familiar with their rapid transit system, but I do know that during the MLB postseason several years ago the Dodgers were playing the Mets and LA Metro Rail picked a Twitter fight with the MTA over it. (We won that one. 7 Train for life.)

If you want to see one of the most modern public transit systems in the US, go north from LA and check out Bay Area Rapid Transit. BART is one of the most up-to-date rapid transit systems we’ve got right now, and it even has its own superhero. Yes, BART-Man is real. He’s a wrestler and a public transit advocate. It’s the best. When he emerged all my Bay Area friends started tagging me because they knew I’d want to see this. They were right.

Finally, I saved this one for last because it’s the coolest one in my opinion - let’s talk about abandoned subways.

Rochester, New York has an abandoned subway system. Completely abandoned. It’s just...there. It ran from 1927 until 1956, and although parts of it are filled in or were used for expressways, there’s abandoned tunnels and whatnot just down there. Although I have family living up near Rochester, I’ve never gotten a chance to check this out and go hunting for it. Hopefully someday that will change...but not yet.

Oh, but that’s not all - Cincinnati, Ohio has one, too! In fact, Cincinnati’s is the largest abandoned subway system in the United States! Unlike Rochester, the Cincinnati Subway was never completed, so it never even opened in the first place...yet the tunnels remain down there, unused. Eerie to think about, isn’t it? If you’re anywhere near Cincinnati and you get to check this out, please let me know - I’ve always been curious!

I won’t bore you all by continuing to go on from here, but this is just a brief summary of some of what I know about subways in the United States besides my own! Hope this is what you had in mind, anon!