Four Words for One Train

Four cities, four words, one idea: a railway that runs under the ground.

London calls it the Underground, and most people call it the Tube. The first line was opened in 1863, when the trains were still pulled by steam engines. London holds the record: it was first, and it is still the oldest one working today.

Paris opened its own railway in 1900 and called it the Métropolitain. That was too long, so everybody said Métro instead. After that, city after city copied Paris, and copied the word too. Several countries in Europe, Asia and South America use some form of “metro” today.

New York opened its first underground line in 1904 and called it the subway. That is the American word, and cities that learned from American engineers often use it too.

So the word is a small piece of history.

Underground means old and British. Metro usually means Paris, or a city that liked what Paris did. Subway usually means America.

Then there is Glasgow. Glasgow calls its railway the Subway, and it was opened in 1896, eight years before New York. It is the third oldest in the world, after London and Budapest.

The word usually tells you how old a system is. In Glasgow, it tells you the wrong thing.