Postcard from Brazil

[WMATAGMOAGH]

Greetings from Sao Paulo, where I am about 10 days into a 2.5 week trip in Brazil.  I haven't done much real railfanning here.  I only brought my DSLR on account of customs regulations, but for safety reasons, I haven't tried using it on the subway in Rio, and I have yet to take the subway here in Sao Paulo.  Brasilia has a small subway system that I didn't ride at all when I was there.

The Rio subway has two lines, I've only been on the stretch where they run together.  If my ability to translate Portugese cognates is as good as I think it is, the last rule posted in each station is that photography is prohibited without the prior authorization of whoever runs the Metro.  However, photos would be easy to get since the trains are shorter than the station platforms, so there is always a space at the back to get a shot (they pull up to the front of the platform at each station).  Stations have varying artistic and architecture styles, in station signage could be better IMO, the train "destination" signs are LED but show both the origin and destination, which isn't so helpful in my opinion.  No RFWs.
I also rode the Serra Verde Express, which is the state of Parana's second most visited tourist attraction after Iguazu Falls, from Curitiba to Morretes.  I've seen photos that suggest the scenery from the line is really pretty, but it goes through a rain forest, and surprise surprise, it was raining there, so visibility was about 100 feet or so from the train at most.  I got some amazing photos of the fog. 

Have yet to ride the Metro in Sao Paulo having only arrived here today, but I do plan to do so.

On the bus side of things, the buses here are not models that I am familiar with, though there are quite a few Mercedes-Benz models running around.  It seems standard in most Brazilian cities to have passengers enter up front, 1-2 rows for seniors and other priority seating, and then a turnstile manned by an attendant where you pay your fare.  One exits the bus at the back.  Aside from the double decker tourist bus in Curitiba (a great service, BTW), I have yet to use any buses along my trip.  Figuring out the systems is often difficult if one doesn't know the language, buses are prime spots for pickpockets to operate, and it isn't recommended that tourists (or citizens even in some places) ride them at night.

Curitiba, for those of you who don't know, has one of the world's premier BRT systems.  Inaugurated in the 1970s, passengers pay their fares before boarding the bus at a manned turnstile, wait in a covered shelter, and board buses at the level of the bus (all high floors) to speed boarding and alighting.  This system has 2 million trips a day, in a metropolitan area of about 3 million people.  For comparison purposes, that is more than the Rio subway and commuter train system (though I don't think the latter is really extenisve at all) carries each day, and about as many as Sao Paulo's Metro carries each day, and Sao Paulo is the largest city in South America with about 15 million people or so.  The fleet includes double articulated buses, and buses that only have doors on the left side of the bus for some reason that I'm not sure of.

I was fortunate enough to have a meeting with Jamie Lerner, the former mayor of Curitiba who implemented this sysetm initially.  I also heard him speak in Jerusalem last year.  He is an advocate of these sorts of systems to improve transit instead of building expensive light rail and subway lines, since they are inexpensive and able to be implemented very quickly, usually in 2-3 years at most from start to finish.  He says the key to making these systems work is to make them visible, easy to use, and also to give them priority over the cars through the use of dedicated lanes and priority at traffic lights.  Unfortuantely, he fears that the city is letting the system deteriorate so it will have an excuse to build a subway line.
The Curitiba tourist route is one of the greatest tourist services I've ever seen provided by a city transit authority.  The route runs 6 days a week (Monday is the day with no service), with trips starting every 30 minutes from 9 AM to 5:30 PM at the center of town.  The route takes about 2:20 to complete (so there is a 10 minute layover at the start/end of the loop) and makes 25 stops.  A ticket costs about 20 or 25 Brazilian Reais (1 USD=1.75 BRL or so) and entitles the rider to board the bus 5 times including the inital boarding when the ticket is purchased.  The bus also announces the stops and info about each location in Portugese, Spanish, and English.  The day I rode it, one interval wasn't covered (only 4 buses were out, which meant an hour long wait between some trips) and it was raining most of the day, so people jammed into the lower level as best they could.  Towards the end of the day, it was dry enough to sit up on top, though it was quite windy up there.  The next day, I saw a single deck bus operating on the route as well, they had 2 buses covering a single schedule in that case.

Photos to come eventually...

[WMATAGMOAGH]

One thing I left off yesterday was that single tickets in Rio are sold on smart cards. You get your card, go to the faregate, touch the target, but before the turnstile will unlock to let you go through, you have to put the card into a slot on the machine, where I assume it gets recycled for future use by another one time rider. Not a bad idea, and I did make sure to buy one extra to keep as a souvineer.

Anyway, today, I rode two of Sao Paulo's Metro lines, Line 1-Blue and Line 2-Green. It is unclear if the lines are referred to by color, number, or both. For example, some operators announced transfers with both while others seemed to do only color. Anyway, I like the system quite a bit. Line 1 is the first line to have opened, and has the original rolling stock. I can't decide if the cars look more like BART A cars or R40s, I'm inclined to go with the latter but they appear to be about 75 feet long, not 60. The trains used to be in married pairs, but now they are permanently coupled in 6 car sets (each platform is slightly longer than 6 cars, so there is always a space at each end). Unlike in New York, the 6 cars in a single set are not sequentially numbered. Cars on this line have no A/C and announcements are made by the train operator.

Line 2 is a newer line, and quite short (Line 3 is the second oldest line though). It has new trains in addition to an older fleet as well. The new trains have A/C, automated announcements, and a strip map that flashes the dots as stations are passed. However, unlike on the R142s in New York, the light for a station comes on as the train approaches, and the stations that have been served remain on, while stations that are still to come are dark. The older trains on this line have manual announcements and no illumination on the strip maps. One station here is very similar to 125th Street in Manhattan on the 1 line. The station is about 2/3rds underground and 1/3rd elevated (the middle third being the elevated section) over a highway that runs in a valley perpendicular and below the train line. The street that the line runs under is on a bridge over the subway line. I did get a photo of this from the outside of the station.

On all lines, there is no RFW, although interestingly, the cab on the cars on Line 1 is a half width cab. Also, something rare on non-North American systems is that the operator has to access the cab from inside the passenger compartment, there is no access from the exterior. Also, no trains seem to have end doors to allow passage from one car to another, even in an emergency. Stations have mirrors and CCTV to allow the operator to see if the doorways are clear. Busy stations have railings to force passengers into a line to board, these railings line up with the train doors. At other stations, the areas where the doors will open are marked so people can stand aside and let detraining passengers off.

Oh, service in Sao Paulo is amazingly frequent.  2 minutes or less between trains, and at the Vila Madalena terminal on Line 2-Green, trains were turning in under a minute I would say only using a single track.