Talk:Commuter rail

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Please see Talk:Commuter rail in North America for a discussion about renaming Commuter rail in North America to Commuter rail. --Jason McHuff 00:33, 4 October 2005 (UTC)


Would it be useful to have a commuter train listing, as there is an Underground listing?

Surely "Commuter trains" are more public transport than say goods trains ? --Imran

Mmm I guess so. But I don't see a commuter train as being any more public transport than a long distance train. -- AdamW
But a long distance passenger train is public transport! Phlogistomania 14:27, Apr 23, 2005 (UTC)

This page should be merged with regional rail, but I don't know at which location. The Google test reveals that 'commuter rail' is much more common than 'regional rail', but the former is a needlessly specific usage that excludes systems in countries where bedroom communities are not as epidemic as they are in the United States. --Smack 00:45, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Move to regional rail

I've copied the content from regional rail here, because it was just one user's edits, who I attributed in my copy (thus their contribution is now in the edit history of this page). I suggest we now do a simple move of this page to regional rail (a more general/non-locale specific term).

I'll clean up the page further once this is done.

zoney ▓█▒ talk 11:47, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've swapped the pages regional rail and commuter train. So the history here reflects what was there originally and vice versa. I hope this isn't too confusing. Mintguy (T)

[edit] Commuter Rail vs Regional Rail

This page doesn't seem to be about Regional Rail to me. Regional Rail consists of the services left when you exclude the InterCity and Commuter Lines. Typically, these are rural branch lines and lines connecting small towns to the National Rail network. Phlogistomania 14:31, Apr 23, 2005 (UTC)

As a data point, what country do you live in? There seems to be a lot of disagreement of terminology between countries; I've attempted to explain this on Passenger rail terminology. The part on regional and commuter rail is currently empty; it would be greatly appreciated if you could add your local usage. It would probably be best to get that all fixed up before we decide what terms to use on the individual articles (such as rapid transit as a neutral term for subway/metro). --SPUI (talk) 16:21, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't think this term "regional rail" is in common use anywhere. There was a "Regional Rail" sector of British Rail for a while included services that didn't fit into the Inter City or Network South East sectors, but the term is not used today. In the USA and Canada, I don't think the term has ever been used. Since this is an English Language encyclopedia, what does that leave us with? Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, India? Does anyone here ever use this phrase?

Exile 16:26, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Phlogistomania. Leaving aside the poor grammar of Regional rail or commuter rail usually provide a rail service between a central business district and suburbs or other locations that draw large numbers of people on a daily basis', suburbs-to-city-centre operations do not constitute "regional rail" in Europe, where passenger operations typically divide into high-speed, other long-distance, regional, and suburban. Regional services are medium-distance inter-urban services connecting two or more towns and calling at all or most intermediate urban and rural stations or similar branch-line services connecting to the main lines. Some of these services will carry commuters, but they are more than simply commuter operations.
I think it was a mistake to merge the two concepts. At least it should be explained that the (commuter rail) defintion given to "regional rail" here is an American peculiarity. -- Picapica 11:20, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
I think this article should be renamed to Commuter rail, which is unambiguous. Regional rail should then be a disambiguation-like page explaining that "regional" as applied to rail has different meanings in different places, and providing appropriate links. Henning Makholm 20:03, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
I think this article should re-named commuter rail (currently a re-direct to here). The article is about "rail services between central business districts and commuter towns or other locations that draw large numbers of people on a daily basis" (to quote the opening sentence)... which is my view is commuter rail. The term "regional rail" is associated with things like BR's Regional Railways - services between smaller towns, used primarily for leisure and other non-business/commuting uses. Tompw (talk) (review) 19:55, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
In view of the reactions since my earlier comment, I propose moving this article, at the end of a fortnight, to Commuter rail (with appropriate indications of the fact that commuter rail operations may also be termed "regional rail" in North America). -- Picapica 22:04, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Airplanes?

Why is there mention of the Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 in an article on regional rail travel? These are airplanes.

[edit] Terrorist Attacks

I added link to one of the articles about the 2005 London Underground terrorist attacks, and other major incidents involving railway systems. AlMac|(talk) 15:43, 25 July 2005 (UTC)