[HN Gopher] The Subway Game (1980)
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The Subway Game (1980)
Author : Lammy
Score : 35 points
Date : 2025-07-30 19:02 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.gricer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.gricer.com)
| Lammy wrote:
| Meta: More-descriptive title taken from home page instead of the
| short title on the linked page: https://www.gricer.com/
| jachee wrote:
| As someone who was recently in NYC for a conference, I found the
| subway system _very_ easy to navigate in the 21st century. It was
| pretty cool to not need any cabs or cars at all, for a whole
| week.
|
| The Transit app makes it trivial to navigate between any given
| two points on the most efficient route. A current version of this
| game would require prohibition of navigation apps, as well as
| asking directions.
| grishka wrote:
| I was in NYC in 2014 and had no trouble navigating the subway
| either. The only _weird_ thing to me was that trains belonging
| to several different lines would sometimes stop at the same
| platform, but you get used to it quickly.
|
| Speaking of poor navigation signage, I've been living in Saint
| Petersburg my whole life, and our subway system is very simple
| in comparison (5 lines, all transfers in the center), but the
| most visible signs only specify the last station for each
| track. More often than not, whenever I travel an unfamiliar
| route, I have to pause to think which station is at which end
| of the line. And it's me who can draw most of that map from
| memory. I feel sorry for the visitors.
|
| NYC gets this right. As far as I remember, the signs said
| _actually useful_ things like "Manhattan" and "Uptown and
| Queens".
| gonzalohm wrote:
| I completely disagree. I don't know if it's just me or the
| "European mindset" but I find the NYC metro to be one of the
| most confusing subway systems in the world.
|
| - You have trains that don't stop an all the stops of the line.
| - You have lines that share the same tracks but go to different
| destinations (that's okay for trains, but for a subway?!?) -
| You better listen to the crappy PA because if you don't you may
| end up in an express train, far away from where you want to go.
| Or pay attention to the electronic signs (if you are lucky and
| they work)
|
| I think with the help of an app is usable, but I don't know how
| I would have managed 20 years ago
| gonzalohm wrote:
| Oh and another thing that it's extremely annoying and poorly
| designed. The stations with unreachable tracks. You pay your
| fare only to find out that you have to use a different
| entrance to reach your track. In all the other subway systems
| I used, you pay your fare and you are free to roam the whole
| station and reach any track
| grishka wrote:
| IIRC in that case you can exit the station and re-enter
| through the correct entrance for free.
|
| > In all the other subway systems I used, you pay your fare
| and you are free to roam the whole station and reach any
| track
|
| I've also seen such stations in Paris. I was later told
| that the ticket works for 30 minutes after first use, so
| again, you can exit and re-enter just fine.
|
| And St Petersburg has a few of these as terminal stations.
| Not a problem if you went there intentionally, but it _is_
| a problem if you ended up there accidentally, because they
| are rather strict about not letting people ride the train
| as it turns around.
|
| edit: I googled it,
| http://metro.spb.ru/information.html#opl1 explicitly says,
| with too much legalese, that you have to pay again
| -\\_(tsu)_/-
| kccqzy wrote:
| A few more: you have trains where the shape of the bullet
| (circle or diamond like (7) or <7>) differs and has different
| stopping patterns. The train stops change between daytime and
| late nights, as well as weekends and weekdays. In case of
| signal malfunctions trains can be dispatched to go anywhere
| just to clear congestion, like F not entering Manhattan or A
| going to queens (both actual examples in the recent incident
| at W 4 St).
| yapyap wrote:
| This seems really simple no? Like just look at the subway map?
| Illniyar wrote:
| The game suggest - Claremont Parkway to 13 Av. Here's the map
| in 1964 -
| https://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?/img/maps/calcagno-1967-...
|
| I had to use google just to find Claremont Parkway on the map
| :) (I did find 13 av. I imagine people who this is their first
| time in NY would probably also be confused with 13 st)
|
| And from the article it seems like the navigation inside the
| subways were also very hard - they are not intuitive even now
| (with some entrances only allowing one way for example, and you
| have to go out and back in again)
| mtVessel wrote:
| Sure, but don't forget to look for posted signs, like:
|
| "In Upper Manhattan, downtown 1 skips 137 St-City College, 125
| St, 116 St-Columbia University, Cathedral Pkwy (110 St) and 103
| St Aug 1 - 4, Fri 9:45 PM to Mon 5:00 AM
|
| For service to these stations, take the 1 to 96 St and transfer
| to an uptown 1.
|
| For service from these stations, take the 1 to 168 St and
| transfer to a downtown 1." [1]
|
| There are often many simultaneous service changes.
|
| [1] https://www.mta.info/
| Sniffnoy wrote:
| You'd think so, but there's a few things that make it more
| complicated:
|
| 1. While the new subway map (introduced only a few months ago!)
| makes it pretty easy to tell what stops where, the old subway
| map didn't. It was easy to see which stops were marked as
| "express" (white) or "local" (black), but which trains are
| express and which trains are local? That's the trick, isn't it?
|
| If you looked closely you could see the little letters telling
| you exactly which trains stopped where... but I think I lived
| in New York for years before I noticed those! Even with the new
| map, which does an admirable job at clarity, there are pitfalls
| for the unwary (someone unfamiliar, for instance, might not
| think too much of that circle around Gates Avenue), and they
| were much worse with the old map.
|
| (Also, the yellow and orange trains are just plain confusing;
| the subway map will give you the correct information, sure, but
| you have to make sure you don't accidentally misread it, and
| those lines are easier to misread than most. And don't get
| Queensboro Plaza mixed up with Queens Plaza! If you didn't know
| they were different, you might think they were just long and
| short forms of the same station name... they're not!)
|
| You're right that correctly reading the subway map does
| entirely negate this first point; but the point is that reading
| the subway map is surprisingly easy to mess up, and was much
| easier to mess up just last year.
|
| 2. "Just look at the subway map" tells you which train to take.
| It does not, however, tell you how to navigate the station or
| identify your train. I live here, I know how to read the
| signage, but tell a tourist to transfer from the 4 to the 3 at
| Fulton Street and they're likely going to have some trouble,
| turning around a bunch and looking for another way before they
| finally hit upon the correct approach. And once you're at the
| right platform, there may be two tracks. If you don't
| understand the signage, you might pick the wrong track; even if
| you are making sure you get on a train with the right letter,
| you could get on a train going the wrong way.
|
| 3. Let's say you mess up and get on a train going the wrong
| way. Where can you turn around? Remember, the game requires you
| stay within the subway system! Many stations in New York City
| have separate entrances for the two directions with no in-
| system way to switch between them (and no if you break the
| rules of the game and go outside, it isn't a free transfer,
| either). This isn't indicated on the map at all, nor will it
| necessarily be immediately apparent once the train stops there.
|
| 4. Finally, the subway map gives you an accurate picture of how
| the subway normally work... but this is New York and there
| could be reroutes. There will generally be some way to know
| about these before you actually find yourself going down the
| wrong path, but, if you don't know to look/listen for these,
| you may miss them. The map ain't the territory, you know. :P
|
| I do think that Samson overstates the difficulty (at least
| currently; he was writing in 1980, it may have been more
| accurate then!), on the whole I agree that it's not actually
| hard... but it's still harder than "just look at the subway
| map" would suggest, due the ease of misreading said map,
| confusing within-station navigation, and the occasional
| necessity of off-map info.
|
| (Now, if you want to introduce some _real_ difficulty into the
| subway game, try playing it as a person with mobility
| issues...)
| mnutt wrote:
| As a four year old, my child loved playing "the subway game",
| which is similar to this but just in our heads: I name two subway
| stations and he tries to think of the fastest route between them.
| When that is exhausted, we move onto the fewest transfers, the
| most convoluted routes, the 1968 lines only, etc. There's just
| something about the NYC subway which really draws kids (and many
| adults) in.
| lucaslazarus wrote:
| You may like the Subwaydle: https://www.subwaydle.com/
| Sniffnoy wrote:
| > One problem which is perhaps more interesting now than ever
| before is to get from Junius St. to Livonia Ave. [...] There are
| two plausible solutions staying in Brooklyn, but they each
| involve four transfers (five trains again).
|
| This is now doable with only 3 transfers (4 trains). I wonder
| what was different then that it wasn't? (Whitehall St to Hoyt-
| Schermerhorn, meanwhile, presently requires only 2 transfers (3
| trains). Edit: Actually it's even fewer, see below.)
| kccqzy wrote:
| Why would Whitehall St to Hoyt-Schermerhorn require 2
| transfers? Take the R/W to Cortlandt St and there will be a
| series of passageways leading to Chambers St where you can take
| the A/C.
| Sniffnoy wrote:
| Oh, good point, I completely missed that. So it's even fewer,
| then!
| Sniffnoy wrote:
| I think the subway game is probably mostly not that hard these
| days, with only a few tricky spots, but if you want some real
| difficulty, try playing as someone with mobility issues...
|
| (Yeah I mentioned this elsewhere, but it seemed worth its own
| comment.)
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