On a recent trip to Montreal, Canada I discovered that their subways appear to have rubber tires, like cars…
A friend took a picture:
http://members.rogers.com/peterorgana/evilsubway.jpg
Can anyone explain why a subway running on metal tracks needs rubber wheels?
I found this page by searching Yahoo!: http://www.emdx.org/rail/metro/principeE.html
Have you heard New York City subways? Ear-splitting doesn’t begin to cover it. When I was a kid and went to Montreal for Expo '67 I was astonished at the quiet in their subways.
Ditto to Mr. Meacham; I haven’t been to NYC, but the London Underground can be pretty loud.
I was at Expo 67, and remember the neat way the Metro glided into the stations.
Did you ride the Gyrotron, Cal? I still have a chess knight carved in the USSR pavillion and given to me by the carver, as well as my “passport.” Ah, groovy times.
The metro in Guangzhou, China, is very modern, made by the Germans, and it also runs on rubber tires and is very quiet. It also has no separate cars and is just a huge long tube. It is a strange feeling to see that thing from the inside winding its way along the curves. It is so long you can hardly see the ends of the train. Truly worth the experience.
As has been mentioned…
A) Quiet
B) Smooth Ride
And
C) Increased traction
Acceleration is important for commuter trains. I think it also allows for steeper inclines, which can reduce construction costs.
Where the heck is Matt?
All of the above is true. Downside: twice the power is needed because of the friction. So much heat is generated that there is no need to heat the trains or stations in the Montreal winter (where temperatures can fall to -30C and, very rarely, even lower) Of course, the same heating occurs in the summer 
and there is no air conditioning. Another downside was the fire that was caused when a tire went flat and the motorman kept running and it burst into flames. I forget the details (a long time ago) but I think the train was destroyed. And not only are there running tires, but also guiding tires on the sides. It is quite complicated and I think costly. It was adopted because they were building new subways in Paris that way and, monkey see, monkey do. (They even had portillons in the early days, gates that prevented any new passengers from entering the platform once the train started to arrive. They got rid of them quite soon and I think the French followed.)
Back in the late 60s, I was on a metro and overheard a conversation between one of the metro officials and some visitors from Pittsburgh which was about to build its own subway on the subject. The guy explained that since blowouts weren’t dangerous (this was the days before the fire) (they also have steel wheels and steel rails just in case, which adds to the complication), they retreaded the tires and ran them for 200,000 miles before finally throwing them away. I noticed that Pittsburgh didn’t adopt rubber tires. BTW, there are hardly any grades in the Montreal metro so I doubt that that is a consideration. With cheap hydroelectric power, it is barely acceptable (I pay somewhere between 3 and 4 c a kwh and those are the shrunken, wizened cents we use up here) but in general, I wouldn’t recommend it.
>> twice the power is needed because of the friction. So much heat is generated that there is no need to heat the trains or stations in the Montreal winter (where temperatures can fall to -30C and, very rarely, even lower)
Please tell me you are joking. Or do you really believe that?
According to the STCUM web site
http://www.stcum.qc.ca/English/en-bref/a-faq.htm#metro
the tires are nitrogen-filled to make climbing hills/braking easier, and to reduce the noise/vibrations for riders and for surrounding buildings.
More on the details of the metro at
http://www.nycsubway.org/canada/montreal/
and more on the construction of rubber-tired metros at
http://www.emdx.org/rail/metro/principeE.html
Nothing about the heating, or lack therof, but I rode through many summers without being overheated.
Sigh…there’s never an expert around on the Montreal Subway system when you need one. Who am I kidding, what chance is there that such a person even exists. I mean how big a subway geek would you have to be to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the Montreal Metro, and maybe even a bi-lingual website devoted to it. Yeah… it’s just nuts that someone would spend the vast amounts of effort and time to do this.
Besides the rubber tires the most charming things about the Montreal Metro were:
i) You must buy a ticket! I paid my money and got a ticket. After giving my trademark blank stare the guy in the tooth told me to put the ticket into the receptacle. Why is it necessary to buy a single ticket? What’s wrong with cash fare?
ii) Bus transfers are actually little punch cards. Feed them in at subway stations.
iii) There’s a station called Pie-IX… I understand its named after a pope… but seriously, Pie?
… culture shock I guess 
Thanks for the responses, I guess the Rubber tires aren’t crazy after all.
Does the Toronto system have a cash fare? If so it must be one of the last: NYC has used a token ever since 1950 or so, when the fare when from 5 to 15 cents. Let’s see, what have I ridden…Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Kyoto, Yokohama, and Kobe all use electronic tickets, as do London, Madrid, DC, New Jersey’s PATH and SF’s BART and MUNI. New York and Chicago use MetroCards.
14 posts about the Metro and Mattmcl hasn’t come in yet???
I hope he’s all right:)
OT: I wish to G-d they had rubber wheels in CHicago, the trains are too damn loud!
Toronto has monthly passes, tokens, tickets, and cash fare.
I just thought it was a little odd that one must buy a single ticket in order to ride the subway. Why not just toss money in the box?
I suppose it could ensure that the proper amount is paid, but wouldn’t the system slow things down during busy periods?
In English (Latin, actually), he’s called Pius IX.
Ed
Actually, that’s not true. It just FEELS as if there are hardly any grades. But Universite-de-Montreal station, which is on the slope of Mount Royal, is quite a bit higher than the stations in downtown.
Ed
The Boston T will take (not universally, depends on the line, stop, etc.) tokens, coins, dollar bills and cards.
And on the Metro, “Pie IX” is pronounced (more or less) “pee-nerf”; try figuring THAT out when you’re an anglophone trying to remember high-school French while visiting the city 