I noticed this week that Porto's metro maps all show the under construction Metro line G without any indication that it's not open yet, but at least in that case you'll notice that the station isn't there before you wind up waiting for a train that won't come until next year.

The London Midland train I took from Euston to Crewe in May was ten carriages.

These four photos were taken over the course of less than seven seconds as the wagons came together.

In the 80s there were three trains a day CDMX-Monterrey with one continuing to Nuevo Laredo. timetableworld.com/ttw-viewer.p...

The Key System lines over the bridge were mostly every 20 minutes or worse even at peak, don't think they'll add up to much compared to frequent long subway trains.

By raw numbers the Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges have actually fallen slightly further. docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Pretty sure the el tracks were replaced with vehicle lanes?

That said, there *were* steam trains from the Brooklyn elevated lines that ran through to Park Row in 1898, hauled by electric motor cars through the bridge terminal areas and across the bridge itself by cable. See Cudahy "How We Got to Coney Island" p164-165:

I came across this photo which makes me suspect that the (then-mainline) St George terminal may have had high platforms from opening in 1886, and at any rate had them before electrification in 1925, but haven't found sources discussing it explicitly.

I'm less sure about the c. 1871 Grand Central Depot. Wikipedia at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History... claims it had level-boarding high platforms but in the photos and drawings I've found they look low or medium height.

Buffalo is one place where I expect the interurbans to have had much more significant commuter ridership than the steam railroads. As shown on @lostsubways.com's map 53studio.com/collections/..., the International Railway ran every 15 minutes Buffalo-Niagara, mostly on dedicated right-of-way.

But I'm not going to Port Erin today. The request stop at Ronaldsway Airport makes this the world's only steam-powered airport rail link. Here I'm transferring directly from a 1910-built steam train to an ATR-72 turboprop aircraft for the first leg of my flight home.

The other significant railway on the island is the Isle of Man Steam Railway, which runs four times a day in summer from Douglas to Port Erin.

This is such a fun railway

After spending a couple hours walking back down the hill to Laxey, I'm on the MER interurban again heading to Ramsey; I'll have dinner there and get the last departure back to Douglas at 21:40.

On a clear day one can reportedly see England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland from up here, but it's definitely not clear enough today.

Successfully reached the summit after just a brief delay for sheep on the tracks.

An hour later and the problem is reportedly fixed! (Or at least mitigated.) Let's try this again.

Somewhere near Agneash the railcar lost power due to a downed wire; eventually we were transferred across the tracks to a downward-bound tram back to Laxey

The railcar stopped for the passengers to take photos of the Laxey water wheel, then asked if everyone was done with their photos before continuing

The Snaefell Mountain Railway uses ordinary wheel-on-rail adhesion for traction, but has a third rail between the tracks specifically for emergency braking.

The interurban stops in Laxey where one can transfer to a *different* weird electric railway to the highest point in the Isle of Man, Snaefell Summit.

At the north end of the horse tram one can transfer to... a weird electric interurban, also half-hourly in summer

The Douglas Bay Horse Tramway has dedicated (ish) lanes and accepts contactless cards for fare payment onboard. On the other hand it only runs every 30+ minutes, and only in summer.

Now that's a transit wayfinding symbol I hadn't seen before

It's on bahn.de (though not bookable there). Only three times a week and not a particularly popular time of day so it's easy to miss.

All of those have at least a little bit of street running at the downtown end , see for example www.rideprt.org/pdfs/p1.pdf

Looks okay? Not sure these are comparable to the US numbers we are talking about. (Though relatedly I do think it's quite possible that UMich's methodology is just fucked and the US vibes aren't actually that bad or weren't until very recently.)