The London Tube freaked me out a little because it was so obviously old and the ceilings felt really low (edit: I was only in a few stations, so I have no idea if that's typical)

Totally depends which line you're on, fwiw - the Jubilee Line Extension, for example, is gorgeous and shiny and brand spanking new. Then you've got pretty much every other era represented between now and the Victorian period...and I was never fond of the Northern Line carriages. Still, I don't think the tube is nearly as bad as people often say - not that it's perfect, but it's pretty good. I agree with Am, basically. (Although I v. rarely travelled into or out of the centre during rush hour. Rush hour on the tube IS hellish, imho.)

My theory about the D.C. Metro is that everyone would like it a lot more if they brought a few classes of kindergarteners in to paint murals on all those acres of concrete. It'd really brighten up the place.

Have you seen the Silver Spring station? :)

I wonder who's got the penguin fetish in Silver Spring...

t /hijacking of thread

I love the MIT stop on the Red Line in Boston, with the musical instruments. And the brass gloves stuck to the railings in... Porter Square? I think?

The Embarcadero BART stop in San Francisco has a very large and very ugly brown rope macrame thing hanging on the wall. It's been there for years and it just gets dustier and dustier...

The one thing I did love love love the only time I was in London was that there was a little sign thing that said when the next train was coming. It was so fabulous--and now DC has that too! It's exciting.

t edited to add: it would be more exciting if they had one saying that BEFORE you got down into the station, so you knew if you needed to run down the escalator, or had time to put money on your card, or what...

Best subway I've ever taken was the Moscow one. Drop dead gorgeous stations, and trains that arrived almost before the one you'd just missed had cleared the station.

The last time I caught a train in Adelaide -- about 3 years ago and the first time in around 10 years -- I was surprised when a small speaker squawked to life and announced the arrival of the next train in 5 minutes time.

I love the MIT stop on the Red Line in Boston, with the musical instruments. And the brass gloves stuck to the railings in... Porter Square? I think?

Yes -- Porter has the brass gloves -- some of them are embedded in the tiles on the platforms, too. If you look carefully, there's a glove with two thumbs near the elevator on the inbound side.

Davis has poems etched into the tile floors!

The bronze gloves are indeed all over Porter station. And they're partly there to discourage skateboarders from trying to go down the aisle between the escalators (it's steep and long, with no braking space after).

Red Line trains sometimes get all screwy, and do the in-train announce, "Entering: Porter Square! next Stop: Park Street!" When (a), you're entering Kendall; (b), you're headed outbound not in; and (c), Park Street and Porter and like 6 stops away from each other! We all just frown at each other and go back to our pulp novels.

I avoid trains as a rule. The last time I was on a train was the underground in Glasgow (I took the Outer Line) which is rattly and dirty and smelly. About the ONLY thing in the favour of train lovers that I can think of is that they can take you places. Although the Highland line with the old steam trains are good in a nostalgic way, but SO inelegant.

Nobody has mentioned my beloved Paris metro, which is so confusing since you have to know the end station in the line and direction you wish to travel. Which, all well and good, but there are about 20 lines with 2 ends each, and stations are named things like "La Motte-Picquet-Grenelle", which is where I changed trains on the way to school every day. You need a whole dictionary to keep the lines straight. But there are cool musicians in the tunnels, mostly african, some gypsies, and the occasional classical quartet!

Many cities say that building a decent metro system is "too hard" but I say if Athens can do it - when every shovel put in the ground requires a lengthy and costly excavation of archaeological gold - anyone can. I am willing to make an exception for a lake in the way, I suppose. But Athens has earthquakes! Okay, not very big ones, lately, and if a big one does come, tons of people will be killed by poor building design, but still. Which is more important, fewer cars or public safety!?!