PARIS | RER & Suburban Rail

[edubejar]

Originally Posted by Songoten2554

also is Crossrail in london will be like London's version of RER and is also the San Francsisco BART system is an RER too?

I will let someone else take the Crossrail question. I know little about Crossrail although I do want to say the London Underground extends much further out than Paris Metro, the same way NYC Subway extends very far out. So the London Underground already covers a lot of the periphery that the Paris RER or Transilien covers.

As for SF's BART, I would say it's a sort of RER with many less stations. Some liken the BART to a mix of subway and suburban rail but since you can't use it to get around a significant portion of San Francisco-proper than it's definetely more like the RER, especially since it too acts as express transit through the middle of San Francisco. And like the RER, the BART is underground in very dense areas (e.g. SF-proper) and above ground in many parts outside. I liken the Caltrain between SF and San José a bit more to the Transilien than the RER, though, even if the Caltrain is a single line.

[Minato ku]

Originally Posted by edubejar

The Transilien is a separate network. Transilien has 6 lines, 5 of which depart from 5 of the 6 Paris intercity train stations.

I would use the word network instead of the word line.
Transillien has 6 networks, because a line with many branchs and several trains departing of the same station in the same direction at the same time is not really a line.

These two maps are a good exemple.






Only the transillien networks that departing of La Defense or Gare de Lyon can be called a line because these are a single line.

[Minato ku]

Rush hours


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[Songoten2554]

so basically its like everybody has said in here the RER is a city's planner Wet Dream which that word sounds disgusting.

i noticed that Sydney's Cityrail is like RER alot in someways could the australians saw the RER network in France and decided to do theirs or was it already there?

[Grygry]

Originally Posted by Songoten2554

so basically its like everybody has said in here the RER is a city's planner Wet Dream which that word sounds disgusting.

i noticed that Sydney's Cityrail is like RER alot in someways could the australians saw the RER network in France and decided to do theirs or was it already there?

RER was effectively started early in the 60s as new cities were built around paris and needed better accessibilities, so this is really a concept to sustain an urban development project.

There are many others exemples of modifying the city with a transport system, one of them is Vancouver in the 90's, or joined construction like Madrid where developpers of new quarters actualy contribute to railway development.

[Svartmetall]

Originally Posted by Songoten2554

so basically its like everybody has said in here the RER is a city's planner Wet Dream which that word sounds disgusting.

i noticed that Sydney's Cityrail is like RER alot in someways could the australians saw the RER network in France and decided to do theirs or was it already there?

Cityrail as a company was started in 1990, however, the tracks were already there was already there. In fact, Sydney's rail system has been around for a long time now with the first railway opening in 1855! Electrification started in 1926 so I very much doubt the system was based upon the RER.

If you ever rode both Cityrail and the RER (which I have done) you'll see that they are very different beasties overall. Each line on the Cityrail network (much like the Melbourne suburban network too) is rather interdependant due to the City Loop. This means that there are often knock-on delays between them. The RER lines are mostly seperate except for the branches and so aren't as prone to delay or problems (RER A delay won't affect RER B for example).

[Minato ku]

Nanterre Universite

Nanterre Prefecture station was build in 1970 it is an interchange station between the RER A St Germain branch and Transillien St Lazare, Poissy - Cergy line.
The station is under in reconstruction.

[iampuking]

Which tracks are the RER tracks? Is it cross-platform interchange?

[Minato ku]

No it is not a cross-platform interchange.
Since RATP RER use its own platform and tracks as SNCF Transilien suburban train.

It is easy to see the difference between the platforms, the RER platform have an RATP signs and the suburban rail platforms have transilien signs.

A track map of Nanterre Universite station.



In black Transillien suburban train.
In red RER A.

[Minato ku]

Bourg la Reine

[Songoten2554]

the first station looks busy and the other one looks like a side platform station i guess the first one has alot of traffic though.

[Minato ku]

According my RER book there is about 4 million entrance per years in Bourg la Reine station.
So the traffic of the station is 8 million.
(22,000 passengers per day) not so busy.
It is the third busiest station outside inner Paris in the southern RER B.

Nanterre Universite (Only the RER A) has about 4.5 million entrances per years, so a traffic of about 9 million. (25,000 passengers per day).
The busiest station in the RER A is Gare de Lyon with 36 million entrances.
About 72 million passengers per year (197,000 per day).
The RER busiest station outside inner Paris is La Defense (RER A) with 32 million entrances.
About 64 millions passengers per year (175,000 per day).


RATP data only include entrance, exit are not include, so for having an estimation of the realite I multiplied by two the entrance numbers.
There is about the same number of entrance and exit especially in the RER.
I only have the data for the RER A (excepted Possy and Cergy branchs) and the southern RER B because the other lines or branchs are operated by the SNCF.

[kub86]

Oooo I love those new Transilien trains! So sleek and they even have video screens... How often do those trains run? Is it like commuter rail or what?

[Minato ku]

These trains don't run yet and will not run in RER system.
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Neuilly Plaisance











Fontenay aux Roses

[iampuking]

I don't understand why the deep level RER stations were built with side platforms, it seems bad for passenger flow, and more difficult to construct. I bet it's just the French wanted to be different!

[Minato ku]

It don't change anything for passengers flow but it is difficult to build at deep level.
The history about the choise between side or islands platfroms is complicated, RATP engineers wanted an express subway like the metro but larger.

[iampuking]

Single vault stations in St Petersburg have island platforms, I think it looks tidier and I disagree with the passenger flow, in St Petersburg you just exit the train and walk towards the escalators, on the RER there were several escalator shafts all along the platform which all went to an upper level... Well, that's how I remembered it.

[Minato ku]

even with an island platform it would be the same I don't see the difference.
Stations with island platform like Gare de Lyon or Chatelet les Halles have exaclty the same, several escalator all along the platform.
Having many escalators all along the platform is better for the passenger flow.

I don't get your point.

[iampuking]

The route is more direct with an island platform, that's what I mean.

Anyway, I haven't been to every deep level station on the RER so I probably shouldn't have commented.

[X38]

I was in Paris on 23-25 april 2008, and I was fascinated by the metro and RER!
I took the RER from Versailles-Chantiers to La Défense. (i had visited the castle of Versailles)
Versailles-Chantiers is awful by the way...

my pictures: