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I agree in that many US cities are using light rail to be their “metro” although like Dallas they tend to have lots of non-metro qualities. Like low platforms, long distances between stations, no fare gates or barriers, and infrequent trains.
Longer distances between stations is one of the more "metro-like" qualities. Light rail stops are much more closely spaced.
Some European metro systems (Amsterdam, e.g.) and Los Angeles' subway also have barrier-free stations and use the "POP" (proof-of-payment) system for collecting and validating fares. (You buy a ticket from a machine on the platform then stamp it in a validator. Random inspectors check to see if riders have valid tickets. Get caught without one and your $2 trip just became a $250 ride.)
Longer distances between stations is one of the more "metro-like" qualities. Light rail stops are much more closely spaced.
Some European metro systems (Amsterdam, e.g.) and Los Angeles' subway also have barrier-free stations and use the "POP" (proof-of-payment) system for collecting and validating fares. (You buy a ticket from a machine on the platform then stamp it in a validator. Random inspectors check to see if riders have valid tickets. Get caught without one and your $2 trip just became a $250 ride.)
Typical rapid transit stops on metro systems like NYC, Paris, London, Boston, Montreal, Chicago, etc are about 1km apart and often less. Typical light rail stops in the US are more spaced in my experience. About 1 mile. Dallas is beyond that at 1.5 miles (2.5 km) on average.
Minor correction. I live in Los Angeles and we have fare gates at all subway stations and at most light rail stations.
Typical rapid transit stops on metro systems like NYC, Paris, London, Boston, Montreal, Chicago, etc are about 1km apart and often less. Typical light rail stops in the US are more spaced in my experience. About 1 mile. Dallas is beyond that at 1.5 miles (2.5 km) on average.
Minor correction. I live in Los Angeles and we have fare gates at all subway stations and at most light rail stations.
Thanks for the correction, and that distance between stations in Dallas is closer to the spacing found on regional ("commuter") rail lines.
I once checked the distance between stations on Philadelphia's two subway lines, and they come out to about 0.7 miles (a little more than 1 km) between the stations outside Center City. In Center City east of 15th Street, rapid transit stations are closely spaced: three blocks, or about 0.3 miles, apart. The three Broad Street Line stations within Center City are similarly close together, or even closer.
It seems to me, and I'd want to check this, that station spacing may be determined more by function than by type or capacity of the trains. Most of those older systems were built as urban circulators - that is, they sped up travel within the city - while mainline railroads provided service that brought commuters from outlying areas into the city. Those "commuter" lines had stations spaced farther apart because they weren't used for local travel and thus needed longer stretches where trains could travel at speed in order to keep the travel times reasonable.
New York's system is unique among the legacy systems in that it served both functions through the provision of express tracks and stations on most lines. The distances between express stations are closer to those of commuter rail stations. Two other cities - Chicago and Philadelphia - also provided this hybrid four-track service on at least one of their rapid transit lines.
All of the post-1960 rapid transit systems built in the United States, and most of the light rail transit ones, are hybrids of this latter type, but since building four-track subways costs a bundle, they handled the competing functions by spacing stations close together in the urban core and much farther apart in the outlying territory. All of the lines on the Washington Metro are designed in this fashion, for instance. Modern streetcars have closer station spacing.
Thanks for the correction, and that distance between stations in Dallas is closer to the spacing found on regional ("commuter") rail lines.
I once checked the distance between stations on Philadelphia's two subway lines, and they come out to about 0.7 miles (a little more than 1 km) between the stations outside Center City. In Center City east of 15th Street, rapid transit stations are closely spaced: three blocks, or about 0.3 miles, apart. The three Broad Street Line stations within Center City are similarly close together, or even closer.
It seems to me, and I'd want to check this, that station spacing may be determined more by function than by type or capacity of the trains. Most of those older systems were built as urban circulators - that is, they sped up travel within the city - while mainline railroads provided service that brought commuters from outlying areas into the city. Those "commuter" lines had stations spaced farther apart because they weren't used for local travel and thus needed longer stretches where trains could travel at speed in order to keep the travel times reasonable.
New York's system is unique among the legacy systems in that it served both functions through the provision of express tracks and stations on most lines. The distances between express stations are closer to those of commuter rail stations. Two other cities - Chicago and Philadelphia - also provided this hybrid four-track service on at least one of their rapid transit lines.
All of the post-1960 rapid transit systems built in the United States, and most of the light rail transit ones, are hybrids of this latter type, but since building four-track subways costs a bundle, they handled the competing functions by spacing stations close together in the urban core and much farther apart in the outlying territory. All of the lines on the Washington Metro are designed in this fashion, for instance. Modern streetcars have closer station spacing.
The main difference is NYC (and maybe Chicago) actually has an urban core big enough that places 15 miles from Lower Manhattan are dense enough to require mass transit (think Jamaica, The North Bronx) most of these towns have about a 75-85sq mile urban core. So an "express train" would skip like 1 stop. Like the Orange Line in Boston has 5 stops between its terminus and North Station and then the last CBD stop Back Bay to its southern terminus is another 5 stops. There is just no need for an express train on a 11 mile line centered on a Downtown.
Now most of these cities have even smaller urban cores than Boston does so if they shouldn't need express trains. The only city that might want to follow an NYC model in LA Places like Seattle or Minneapolis would be better off looking at Boston than NYC because simply their cities are more like the former than the latter.
The main difference is NYC (and maybe Chicago) actually has an urban core big enough that places 15 miles from Lower Manhattan are dense enough to require mass transit (think Jamaica, The North Bronx) most of these towns have about a 75-85sq mile urban core. So an "express train" would skip like 1 stop. Like the Orange Line in Boston has 5 stops between its terminus and North Station and then the last CBD stop Back Bay to its southern terminus is another 5 stops. There is just no need for an express train on a 11 mile line centered on a Downtown.
Now most of these cities have even smaller urban cores than Boston does so if they shouldn't need express trains. The only city that might want to follow an NYC model in LA Places like Seattle or Minneapolis would be better off looking at Boston than NYC because simply their cities are more like the former than the latter.
Philadelphia's 2.2-square-mile urban core is pretty small, but the territory within the city limits is pretty large - 141 square miles, 135 of those dry land.
Philadelphia's one four-track subway line was built with a goal similar to the initial Queens line in New York: to stimulate the development of outlying districts. Most of the area around its original northern terminus at Olney Avenue, about 10 miles north of City Hall, was still open fields when work on this subway resumed in 1925, and there are photos of subway construction where you can see homes being built in the distance. You can't see those houses from the vantage point of those photos now.
It was also built to serve as the trunk of a tree with at least three branches: one to the northeast, one to the northwest, and one further to the north. The four tracks were also seen as a way to provide enough capacity for all of the trains that would run through the tunnel from these branches. None of the branches got built. (To see how farsighted this was, consider the plight Washington commuters face now that three different lines operate through one two-track subway tunnel under I and 14th streets NW in the city center. Headways on each of the lines have grown longer as a result.)
The stop-skipping pattern for Broad Street expresses northbound from City Hall is:
Two express stations
One local station that expresses on the spur to/from 8th and Market also stop at
One express station
Two local stations
One express station that only the express trains headed to/from the spur to 8th and Market stop at
One local station
One express station
Three local stations
Express station (original terminus)
Express station (two tracks) in the subway yards added in 1956
Both New York and Chicago have longer stretches of skipped stations on some of their subway lines. A directional peak-hour express in Chicago runs as a local in Evanston, then skips all of the stops between the Chicago city line at Howard Street and Merchandise Mart just north of the Loop. New York's 8th Avenue subway has no express stops from 59th Street to 125th Street, a distance that includes five local stations. Most of the others have three local stops between express stops.
Boston's Orange Line north of North Station is one of those post-1960 hybrid commuter lines grafted onto an older urban circulator one (which it replaced ca. 1979). You might note that it was built with three tracks; the center one was to have provided peak-direction express service. After the MBTA decided not to have this line function in that fashion, the space of the third track north of Wellington station was given over to a commuter rail line.
Philadelphia's 2.2-square-mile urban core is pretty small, but the territory within the city limits is pretty large - 141 square miles, 135 of those dry land.
Philadelphia's one four-track subway line was built with a goal similar to the initial Queens line in New York: to stimulate the development of outlying districts. Most of the area around its original northern terminus at Olney Avenue, about 10 miles north of City Hall, was still open fields when work on this subway resumed in 1925, and there are photos of subway construction where you can see homes being built in the distance. You can't see those houses from the vantage point of those photos now.
It was also built to serve as the trunk of a tree with at least three branches: one to the northeast, one to the northwest, and one further to the north. The four tracks were also seen as a way to provide enough capacity for all of the trains that would run through the tunnel from these branches. None of the branches got built. (To see how farsighted this was, consider the plight Washington commuters face now that three different lines operate through one two-track subway tunnel under I and 14th streets NW in the city center. Headways on each of the lines have grown longer as a result.)
The stop-skipping pattern for Broad Street expresses northbound from City Hall is:
Two express stations
One local station that expresses on the spur to/from 8th and Market also stop at
One express station
Two local stations
One express station that only the express trains headed to/from the spur to 8th and Market stop at
One local station
One express station
Three local stations
Express station (original terminus)
Express station (two tracks) in the subway yards added in 1956
Both New York and Chicago have longer stretches of skipped stations on some of their subway lines. A directional peak-hour express in Chicago runs as a local in Evanston, then skips all of the stops between the Chicago city line at Howard Street and Merchandise Mart just north of the Loop. New York's 8th Avenue subway has no express stops from 59th Street to 125th Street, a distance that includes five local stations. Most of the others have three local stops between express stops.
When I say Urban core I don't mean Center City I mean areas dense enough for Rapid Transit so Philly probably has 215sq miles or something, Philly, Chester, Camden, Media etc. Boston is Boston, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Brookline, Quincy etc. about 150 sq miles. Minneapolis-St Paul and Seattle are both under 100 sq miles of urban neighborhoods. All the others are even Smaller like Cleveland and St Louis are maybe 50 sq miles So Philly might be on that line of footprint big enough that an express train is actually useful bit most of these urban footprints would have to more than double in physical size for that to happen.
Philadelphia's 2.2-square-mile urban core is pretty small, but the territory within the city limits is pretty large - 141 square miles, 135 of those dry land.
Philadelphia's one four-track subway line was built with a goal similar to the initial Queens line in New York: to stimulate the development of outlying districts. Most of the area around its original northern terminus at Olney Avenue, about 10 miles north of City Hall, was still open fields when work on this subway resumed in 1925, and there are photos of subway construction where you can see homes being built in the distance. You can't see those houses from the vantage point of those photos now.
It was also built to serve as the trunk of a tree with at least three branches: one to the northeast, one to the northwest, and one further to the north. The four tracks were also seen as a way to provide enough capacity for all of the trains that would run through the tunnel from these branches. None of the branches got built. (To see how farsighted this was, consider the plight Washington commuters face now that three different lines operate through one two-track subway tunnel under I and 14th streets NW in the city center. Headways on each of the lines have grown longer as a result.)
The stop-skipping pattern for Broad Street expresses northbound from City Hall is:
Two express stations
One local station that expresses on the spur to/from 8th and Market also stop at
One express station
Two local stations
One express station that only the express trains headed to/from the spur to 8th and Market stop at
One local station
One express station
Three local stations
Express station (original terminus)
Express station (two tracks) in the subway yards added in 1956
Both New York and Chicago have longer stretches of skipped stations on some of their subway lines. A directional peak-hour express in Chicago runs as a local in Evanston, then skips all of the stops between the Chicago city line at Howard Street and Merchandise Mart just north of the Loop. New York's 8th Avenue subway has no express stops from 59th Street to 125th Street, a distance that includes five local stations. Most of the others have three local stops between express stops.
Boston's Orange Line north of North Station is one of those post-1960 hybrid commuter lines grafted onto an older urban circulator one (which it replaced ca. 1979). You might note that it was built with three tracks; the center one was to have provided peak-direction express service. After the MBTA decided not to have this line function in that fashion, the space of the third track north of Wellington station was given over to a commuter rail line.
Philly also has an additional quasi-express/local zone in the 1 mile west of 15th Street (City Hall) in a 4-track subway section where the Market Street el (Blue Line) runs non-stop to 30th street on the inner 2 tracks while the inter-lined subway-surface trolleys (Green Lines) run local, with 2 intermediate stations at 19th and 22nd Streets. The subway surface lines, as well as most or all of the remaining streetcars in Pennsylvania (including Pittsburgh's T LRT) run along extra wide gauge track at 5 feet 2 1/2 inches as opposed to the international railroad standard gauge 4' 8.5" width. Interestingly the parallel Market-Frankford el HRT similarly runs on the wide 5' 2.5" track, as well; leading me to believe that planners envisioned trains and trolleys sharing track in some form or fashion -- there are even open gaps of the subway support pillars just outside of certain stations along the 4-track section that could allow for switch/interlocking tracks to be built... Obviously that never happened. However I believe the el trains do share track with the old Red Arrow Media and Sharon Hill LRT interurban cars in at the 69th street yards/maintenance facility so, there, the wider gauge el tracks are a convenience in that case.
When discussing subways in Philly why do people always say that there are only 2 lines. In other cities any rail that travels underground is considered a subway, even if the vast majority of the route is at grade ( on the ground) examples being Washington, Atlanta, San Francisco, Dallas, Portland, Pittsburgh and Buffalo. If the rule of having rail run underground works as a definition for subway in other cities, then why doesn't that same rule work for Philadelphia. Transit enthusiasts always say that Philly has 2 lines. But I contend that by using the definition of subway that other cities follow, Philly has 6 lines. Philly has a subway that runs below broad Street, Market Street, Ridge Ave (this is a spur from the broad street line- however in other cities spurs are considered seperate lines- in DC the green and yellow line travel the same route for the majority of the route and deviate or spur at the ends of the line only- the same can be said for the orange and blue lines in DC). Philly also has a line at walnut street (also called the Patco line from New Jersey). Philly has the Arch street lines these are the multiple cummuter lines that go underground downtown serving 3 stations downtown). Philly also has the subway surface trolley lines- 5 seperate routes in total that travel below maket street downtown but travel below pine street in West Philadlphia. Also, the subway surface trolley lines deviate into seperate tunnels in west philadelphia creating spurs. I do not know he other street (other than Pine street that the subway travels below in West philly.
So using this definition of subway lines (recognized and used by other cities) Transit enthusiast should agree that Philly has 6 lines total - 1) Broad St. 2) Market St. 3) walnut st. 4) Ridge ave 5) Arch St. 6) Pine St. In other cities (washington and Atlanta) you have seperate routes traveling in the same tunnel and souring/ deviating at the end of the line creating (in their definition) seperate distinct subway lines. If this rule/ definition Of seperate distinct subway lines followed in other cities, was also applied in philly then the subway surface lines would all be considered 5 seperate distinct subway lines and the Arch street line should also be considered 15 seperate distinct subway lines....Sadly, we all know that the rule and definitions of what is and what is not considerate a seperate distinct subway line (while it works in most other cites outside of NY, Chicaga and Boston) do not work for Philly in the eyes of transit enthusiast.
Also, when other cities ( excluding New York, Chicago and Boston) count lines they count all lines combined city and cummuter -suburban lines. When using that line counting method, Philly could identify 20 lines.
As a native Philadelphian I think that most native Philadelphians, Bostonians, New Yorkers and Chicagoans assume that a subway/ El is considered such if the entire route ( or majority) is either buried In a tunnel or travels on a bridge directly above a street, Whereas people from other cities define a subway simply if any of the line (even if it's not the majority of the route ) travels below ground.
As I have always said, Philly is like Rodney Dangetfield's famous statement, "I gets no respect."
I am originally from Philly and have been a lifelong subway enthusiast and rider, since the 1970’s to school 7th grade thru 12th grade and to work for a few years. I have also ridden subways in New York, Boston and Washington, DC.
My questions are this:
In Philly there are express tracks where you have tunnels that are 4 tracks wide in North, South, Center city and West Philadelphia -2 tracks for local trains and 2 tracks for express trains, other than New York do other cities have this arrangement? This is a cool effect when two trains are riding side by side heading in the same direction-it's almost as if they are racing.
In Philly there are certain instances where you have tunnels that are 6 tracks wide -2 tracks for local trains, 2 tracks for express trains and 2 tracks for spur trains (in North Philly Between Girard and Fairmount avenue and at Erie avenue) do other cities have this arrangement?
In Philly you have instance where there are 4 track wide tunnels and 2 of the tracks either raise up to another higher level tunnel or sink down to a lower level tunnel. This is a cool effect when two trains are riding side by side heading in the same direction-when the other train either rises up or lowers into a deeper tunnel right next to your train.
In Philly at a major hub station-(Suburban Station) the tunnel is from 8 to ten tracks wide, other than New York’s Penn station and Grand central Terminal, do other cities have this arrangement?
In Philly you have double and triple level stations, I know that New York, Boston and DC have double level stations where two tunnels intersect, do other cities have triple level stations?
In Philly you have certain locations where you have several lines in separate tunnels merging together at one location (i.e. City Hall and 8TH STREET- Commuter Lines Train station 4 tracks- Market Street Line-2 tracks- Ridge Ave train 1 track –Patco train -2 tracks) do other cities have this arrangement?
In Philly you have abandoned subway stations and tunnels, other than New York do other cities have this arrangement?
In Philly you have a train that runs over a major bridge over the river right next to automobile traffic (Patco line on the Ben Franklin Bridge) and tunnels that run under the river, other than New York do other cities have this arrangement?
In Philly you have elevated train structures where one elevated train bridge crosses directly over another train bridge structure, do other cities have this arrangement?
In Philly the number of cars on each train varies-on the Broad street and Market street lines there are usually between 5 and 6 car trains, on the Subway surface lines (5 separate lines in total) there are usually one car trains, on the Ridge Avenue line there are 2 to 5 car trains, on the Patco trains there are usually 2 to 5 car trains and on the commuter lines there are 2 to 8 car trains. How many cars are there on other city trains, I have seen up to ten car trains in New York.
In Philly several tunnels and abandoned stations are heavily painted over with graffiti, the stations and trains are cleaner now than in the 1970’s, do other cities have this issue?
In Philly I have seen special trains for money collection-“The Money Train”, police trains and buses for getting a lot of police officers to a location quickly and special event trains for sporting events- The Phillies/Eagles Express train. Do other cities have specialty trains?
Thanks in advance for your responses. I have often wondered about the Subway System infrastructure in other cities. It’s sad that in these days and times, infrastructure like this would be considered too expensive to build, especially considering that most of the infrastructure in question was built from 1900 to the 1930’s, through the Great Depression.
When discussing subways in Philly why do people always say that there are only 2 lines. In other cities any rail that travels underground is considered a subway, even if the vast majority of the route is at grade ( on the ground) examples being Washington, Atlanta, San Francisco, Dallas, Portland, Pittsburgh and Buffalo. [...]
So using this definition of subway lines (recognized and used by other cities) Transit enthusiast should agree that Philly has 6 lines total - 1) Broad St. 2) Market St. 3) walnut st. 4) Ridge ave 5) Arch St. 6) Pine St. [...]Sadly, we all know that the rule and definitions of what is and what is not considerate a seperate distinct subway line (while it works in most other cites outside of NY, Chicaga and Boston) do not work for Philly in the eyes of transit enthusiast.
Also, when other cities ( excluding New York, Chicago and Boston) count lines they count all lines combined city and cummuter -suburban lines. When using that line counting method, Philly could identify 20 lines.
[bunch of questions snipped]
Thanks in advance for your responses. I have often wondered about the Subway System infrastructure in other cities. It’s sad that in these days and times, infrastructure like this would be considered too expensive to build, especially considering that most of the infrastructure in question was built from 1900 to the 1930’s, through the Great Depression.
First off:
New York, Chicago and Boston are Philadelphia's peers in that they are the only US cities to have placed rapid transit subways into service prior to World War II. (Chicago, whose rapid transit system was all-elevated until the subway tunnel under State Street opened in 1940, was the last of these, and the subways there were regarded by critics as attempts by Loop business interests to drain commerce and vitality from the city's outlying business districts - there's a cartoon out there that depicts a businessman wielding a "Loop Tube Magnet" that attracted people downtown.)
All four have trunk subway lines that branch at outlying ends (Philadelphia's, at the in-town end), and the branches are not given separate line designations (in New York, they are, but the lines are color-coded according to the trunk line they follow through midtown Manhattan). See the South Shore side of Boston's Red Line or the South Side end of Chicago's Blue Line. The Ridge Spur is in good company.
The PATCO subway runs under Locust Street, not Walnut. It uses the east and south legs of what was supposed to have been a loop subway beneath Center City that would serve as a collector-distributor for the Broad Street trunk line. The Arch Street leg was started but never finished, and by the time work had resumed on the Broad Street Subway in 1925, the loop had been dropped completely, which is why there is no wye junction at Broad and Locust.
No city counts its commuter (regional) rail lines as part of its rapid transit system. Light rail lines are counted. In Philadelphia, as in Boston, where the light rail lines use the first subway tunnel in America, the lines all get the same color - green - and are given individual route designations (in Philadelphia, they are the surface transit route numbers they use once outside the subway; in Boston, they are considered branches of one line and given letters).
If we follow the Boston convention, Philadelphia has four subways: 1) Broad Street (including Ridge Spur), 2) Market-Frankford, 3) PATCO Lindenwold Line, 4) trolley subway.
There are only three North American cities with four-track rapid transit lines: New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. Some might consider the stretch of the Red Line between where the South Shore Extension splits off the original line above JFK/UMass station and Savin Hill, where the main line turns west and the extension turns southeast, a four-track stretch, but it's not configured in a "local/express" fashion the way the other three are. (Boston does have a stretch of three-track rapid transit, between Community College and Wellington stations on the Orange Line. This was to have been used for a peak-direction express service back when the MBTA was contemplating replacing some of the commuter trains with extended rapid transit lines; when that idea was scrapped, the third track space north of Wellington was given over to one of the commuter rail lines.)
The six-track stretch of the Broad Street Line consists solely of the place where the Ridge Avenue subway connects to it after passing beneath its northbound tracks (and the southbound express track for southbound trains). That really doesn't count as a "six-track subway". Ditto the place at Erie where two tracks ascend to an upper level after splitting off the local tracks; those ramps were where the branches to Germantown and Northeast Philadelphia were to have connected to the trunk line.
Since the ramps at Erie are currently not used for revenue service (i.e., to turn trains around as was once the case for Ridge Spur trains), the only place where you see what you describe is at the switch between Girard and Fairmount stations. There are some places on the New York subway where, were you to pay attention, you'd see trains on one track head up or down relative to those on the track you're on as well.
What triple-level stations does Philly have? Both 8th and Market and City Hall/15th Street have two levels. The Broad Street and 8th Street concourses are at the level of the Market Street subway tunnel. I think that West 4th Street in New York does have three levels, with a concourse between the Sixth Avenue and Eighth Avenue platforms, and the Times Square and Grand Central stations are also both three levels: shuttle on the upper level, IRT (and BMT, at Times Square) platforms below it, IRT Flushing Line platforms well below these.
Note my comments about regional/commuter rail. Several of Chicago's terminal stations have more than four tracks, including Union Station and the northern terminal for the Metra Electric lines. So do both North and South stations in Boston, and so do the Union Stations in DC and LA.
I think some Chicago lines also cross elevated mainline railroad viaducts the way the Frankford Elevated crosses the old Reading ROW to the Port Reading piers.
I've never seen a Broad Street main line consist with more than five cars. For the weekend overnight service, SEPTA runs three-car consists. Though the 8th and Market station is long enough, all Ridge Spur consists are now two cars long. Market-Frankford Line trains are all six cars long, AFAIK; I don't think SEPTA runs short consists on the weekend overnight runs. PATCO is the only rapid transit line in this region whose consists vary in length throughout the course of the day (two minimum, six maximum). It's also the only one that operates 24/7. (New York and Chicago also run rapid transit service 24/7, but some Chicago lines don't run overnight.)
I know of no city other than New York where rapid transit trains use a road bridge to cross a river. Washington's Yellow Line does cross the Potomac on a dedicated bridge that's connected to a subway tunnel at both ends.
I haven't taken notice of the condition of the walls at 18th Street on New York's IRT East Side (Lexington Avenue) subway or 91st Street on the IRT West Side (Broadway-7th Avenue) line. I don't think there are any subway stations in either Boston or Chicago that have been completely closed and abandoned, save for a section of Boston's Tremont Street subway tunnel that ran under two no-longer-extant streets. That segment and its one station (Adams Square) was replaced by a new northbound tunnel in 1964, when Boston City Hall and the Government Center plaza were built, and the old tunnel sealed off completely. Franklin Square station here also remains closed, but there are plans to reopen it once again (for the fourth time since it went into service in 1936). Its walls aren't covered in graffiti, though.
I'm not aware of special "Sports Express" trains in any other city. "Money trains" are pretty common, and when you think about it, it should be obvious why.
Finally: More US cities built subways during the second era of subway construction (1969-1993) than the first: San Francisco/Oakland, Atlanta, Washington, Baltimore, Miami (all-elevated), Buffalo (light rail), Los Angeles. Seattle's LRT network is better understood as a light metro, which would make it the one subway to be built since this era.
New York, Chicago and Boston are Philadelphia's peers in that they are the only US cities to have placed rapid transit subways into service prior to World War II. (Chicago, whose rapid transit system was all-elevated until the subway tunnel under State Street opened in 1940, was the last of these, and the subways there were regarded by critics as attempts by Loop business interests to drain commerce and vitality from the city's outlying business districts - there's a cartoon out there that depicts a businessman wielding a "Loop Tube Magnet" that attracted people downtown.)
All four have trunk subway lines that branch at outlying ends (Philadelphia's, at the in-town end), and the branches are not given separate line designations (in New York, they are, but the lines are color-coded according to the trunk line they follow through midtown Manhattan). See the South Shore side of Boston's Red Line or the South Side end of Chicago's Blue Line. The Ridge Spur is in good company.
The PATCO subway runs under Locust Street, not Walnut. It uses the east and south legs of what was supposed to have been a loop subway beneath Center City that would serve as a collector-distributor for the Broad Street trunk line. The Arch Street leg was started but never finished, and by the time work had resumed on the Broad Street Subway in 1925, the loop had been dropped completely, which is why there is no wye junction at Broad and Locust.
No city counts its commuter (regional) rail lines as part of its rapid transit system. Light rail lines are counted. In Philadelphia, as in Boston, where the light rail lines use the first subway tunnel in America, the lines all get the same color - green - and are given individual route designations (in Philadelphia, they are the surface transit route numbers they use once outside the subway; in Boston, they are considered branches of one line and given letters).
If we follow the Boston convention, Philadelphia has four subways: 1) Broad Street (including Ridge Spur), 2) Market-Frankford, 3) PATCO Lindenwold Line, 4) trolley subway.
There are only three North American cities with four-track rapid transit lines: New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. Some might consider the stretch of the Red Line between where the South Shore Extension splits off the original line above JFK/UMass station and Savin Hill, where the main line turns west and the extension turns southeast, a four-track stretch, but it's not configured in a "local/express" fashion the way the other three are. (Boston does have a stretch of three-track rapid transit, between Community College and Wellington stations on the Orange Line. This was to have been used for a peak-direction express service back when the MBTA was contemplating replacing some of the commuter trains with extended rapid transit lines; when that idea was scrapped, the third track space north of Wellington was given over to one of the commuter rail lines.)
The six-track stretch of the Broad Street Line consists solely of the place where the Ridge Avenue subway connects to it after passing beneath its northbound tracks (and the southbound express track for southbound trains). That really doesn't count as a "six-track subway". Ditto the place at Erie where two tracks ascend to an upper level after splitting off the local tracks; those ramps were where the branches to Germantown and Northeast Philadelphia were to have connected to the trunk line.
Since the ramps at Erie are currently not used for revenue service (i.e., to turn trains around as was once the case for Ridge Spur trains), the only place where you see what you describe is at the switch between Girard and Fairmount stations. There are some places on the New York subway where, were you to pay attention, you'd see trains on one track head up or down relative to those on the track you're on as well.
What triple-level stations does Philly have? Both 8th and Market and City Hall/15th Street have two levels. The Broad Street and 8th Street concourses are at the level of the Market Street subway tunnel. I think that West 4th Street in New York does have three levels, with a concourse between the Sixth Avenue and Eighth Avenue platforms, and the Times Square and Grand Central stations are also both three levels: shuttle on the upper level, IRT (and BMT, at Times Square) platforms below it, IRT Flushing Line platforms well below these.
Note my comments about regional/commuter rail. Several of Chicago's terminal stations have more than four tracks, including Union Station and the northern terminal for the Metra Electric lines. So do both North and South stations in Boston, and so do the Union Stations in DC and LA.
I think some Chicago lines also cross elevated mainline railroad viaducts the way the Frankford Elevated crosses the old Reading ROW to the Port Reading piers.
I've never seen a Broad Street main line consist with more than five cars. For the weekend overnight service, SEPTA runs three-car consists. Though the 8th and Market station is long enough, all Ridge Spur consists are now two cars long. Market-Frankford Line trains are all six cars long, AFAIK; I don't think SEPTA runs short consists on the weekend overnight runs. PATCO is the only rapid transit line in this region whose consists vary in length throughout the course of the day (two minimum, six maximum). It's also the only one that operates 24/7. (New York and Chicago also run rapid transit service 24/7, but some Chicago lines don't run overnight.)
I know of no city other than New York where rapid transit trains use a road bridge to cross a river. Washington's Yellow Line does cross the Potomac on a dedicated bridge that's connected to a subway tunnel at both ends.
I haven't taken notice of the condition of the walls at 18th Street on New York's IRT East Side (Lexington Avenue) subway or 91st Street on the IRT West Side (Broadway-7th Avenue) line. I don't think there are any subway stations in either Boston or Chicago that have been completely closed and abandoned, save for a section of Boston's Tremont Street subway tunnel that ran under two no-longer-extant streets. That segment and its one station (Adams Square) was replaced by a new northbound tunnel in 1964, when Boston City Hall and the Government Center plaza were built, and the old tunnel sealed off completely. Franklin Square station here also remains closed, but there are plans to reopen it once again (for the fourth time since it went into service in 1936). Its walls aren't covered in graffiti, though.
I'm not aware of special "Sports Express" trains in any other city. "Money trains" are pretty common, and when you think about it, it should be obvious why.
Finally: More US cities built subways during the second era of subway construction (1969-1993) than the first: San Francisco/Oakland, Atlanta, Washington, Baltimore, Miami (all-elevated), Buffalo (light rail), Los Angeles. Seattle's LRT network is better understood as a light metro, which would make it the one subway to be built since this era.
The Red Line in Boston crosses the Longfellow Bridge.
I would also argue that since Denver and Salt Lake both have light rail that goes out like 20-25 miles into the Suburbs along freight ROW with stops up to 3 miles apart that they are practically commuter lines.
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