Subways of the World (Enthusiast Color)

Nevertheless, it is an interesting book with a lot of nice color photographs. It covers history and recent high-tech developments of both pioneering London Underground and Paris Metro. It tells about the construction of the extraordinarily ornate and effective Moscow Metro, the luxurious Washington Metro, and the state-of-the-art technology of the San Francisco BART. Lesser known subways like the systems in Toronto, Chicago, and Boston are treated as well as, of course, the vast systems of New York City and Tokyo.


The subject may be deep, but the book is shallow   March 8, 2001
 26 out of 27 found this review helpful

Author Stan Fischler's interest in Subways developed as a child in New York City and having ridden subways all over the world, he has now written about 10 major systems (London, New York, Moscow, Paris, Toronto, Boston, Chicago, Washington DC, San Franciso, and Tokyo). As is typical of Motorbooks works, about half of the 96 pages are taken up with (generally) crisply reproduced color photographs, well laid out amid the author's text. Unfortunately, both the text and the photographs leave something to be desired.

A large majority of the photos are the work of one person and in some cases those used provide a very limited view of a given system. In the case of Boston, for example, there are 3 views of the current Orange Line cars, 2 shots of one of the 4 types of Green Line cars - but none of the other 3, no shots of any Blue Line cars, and 2 of the 3 Red Line photos are of a series that was scrapped some time ago while one of the current series goes unseen. At least 4 different series of Chicago cars are shown with little effort to identify their differences, while each of three series of nearly identical DC cars are shown and identified separately - if it matters. On the plus side, some of the photos provide unique views of the diverse systems: a snow-covered underground platform in New York, the museum-like interiors of several Moscow stations, classic brickwork on the London Underground, and interior shots of several cars.

With an average of eight pages available to describe each system, and much of that given over to photos, an author must be very focused to convey information consisely. Unfortunately Mr. Fischler's abbreviated histories of each system lack such a focus. A large part of his Chicago chapter is devoted to the South Shore Lines - an interurban railway which never ran on CTA subway or elevated tracks. Yet no mention is made of Chicago's two other interurbans which did use the 'L' to reach downtown. He is sharply critical of some systems for their failure to build express tracks or run 7x24 like his beloved New York while never mentioning these shortcomings (if, indeed, they are) about other systems. And, clearly, the LRV subways of Boston and San Francisco bother him; he doesn't seem to know how to deal with these aspects of those cities' systems and never mentions their common usage of the ill-fated Boeing LRVs.

Motorbooks aren't known for publishing academic reference books, so perhaps I'm being too critical. This book does provide a variety of information and photos on many of the world's subway systems and may be appealing to those with a developing interest in the subject. But it left me disappointed and unsatisfied.