400, and le Métro

This is my 400th post on this blog! Yay!
Happy 400th Postday to my blog.

Ok, so on to the métro. Since I first came to Paris, I'd wondered why some métro lines had train-like wheels and others had huge rubber tyres. I'd never cared enough to ask google to point me in the right direction, but I'd wondered about it. Until earlier this week, specifically on Monday, somewhere between 1:30pm and 3:30pm, when a student who seems rather interested in the workings of things like that told me the reasons. It's essentially this: The train-like wheels are the original wheels and the rubber tyres are new, but have only been installed on some lines because they require some track modification. The bonus of having rubber tyres is that it's more comfortable for the passengers, and perhaps more importanly, the trains can accelerate and decelerate faster, which in turn means they can throw more trains on those lines and make the service more efficient. Lines 1, 4, 6(or maybe 2) and 14 (and perhaps another one or two lines) have the big rubber tyres. Line 14 because it's new and was built with them, and the others because they're the busiest lines and therefore benefit from being more efficient. I also learnt that all the tracks interconnect so the trains can visit other tracks for a holiday (or, more frequently, to go to the maintenance yard).
There, that's probably more than you ever wanted to know about the métro in Paris.

In other news, Sean nie lubi kiedy il pleut and he n'a pas his parapluie, surtout kiedy il fait zimno!