Talk:Spanish solution

Park Street Under

Park Street Under on the MBTA allows passengers to board and alight at either side of the platform, so I'm not sure how good of an example it is? I'm not sure if it was ever set up to operate that way in the past, though. --Imajin999 (talk) 01:58, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Not only does it "allow" boarding and disembarking on both platforms (either side of the train), Park Street's design does nothing explicit to encourage one side or the other for any particular direction of travel (you could argue there are some implicit architectural directions, and of course for any particular source/destination pair, some paths are longer and some paths are shorter). It seems like this article should get a caveat about Park, either in the lead section (3rd paragraph) or the detailed North American section; or even both. And perhaps Park should be removed from the lead section because it is a problematic example. I suppose given the lack of response to this part of the talk page in the past 5 years, such an edit is not likely to be critiqued too strictly for NPOV issues? Or perhaps it will be... jhawkinson (talk) 08:43, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Park Street Under was actually designed with this method in mind in 1911, before the first recorded use of the Barcelona Solution in the 30s. Here are the original plans from 1911: https://www.wardmaps.com/viewasset.php?aid=17085 2601:18D:4A7F:EA81:3804:F392:ED53:658D (talk) 01:03, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, '658D, I had missed this comment a year ago. Here's the image (right). The central platform is clearly designated for loading. I wonder why it's not used or marked that way today. Was it tried and failed? jhawkinson (talk) 16:33, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Sources

Is there any source that indicates that "Spanish Solution" has ever been widely used as a name for this technique? I only see a handful of informal references in a Google search, and they appear to be dated after this article was created. Any chance we can get a transportation engineering paper or textbook as a reference? --Frankg (talk) 20:14, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

I have made the same observation. I can't find a single WP:RS that uses the term "Spanish Solution". The best I've found is this article, but it looks like more of a blog than a reliable source ("His views are his own and do not represent those of his employer"). And, as Frankg points out, it's dated 2014, more recent than Spanish solution. So, I think we've got a case of a neologism coined on Wikipedia, which is then being used in a circular reference chain. -- RoySmith (talk) 02:03, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, GGW is a very good blog, but not a reliable source on its own. This entire article is some unsourced claims about terminology, and then a massive unsourced list. The entire article could be condensed to a sentence or two and merged into railway platform. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 02:12, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

I seem to recall the name being used when Bloor–Yonge station was proposed for rebuilding in the late 1980s. Useddenim (talk) 22:57, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

• All these years later, and there's still no decent source. There's some German sources, but surely they don't use English-language terms! Perhaps we should rename this article - or better yet delete it. Smells of original research to me. Nfitz (talk) 00:05, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
  • ...all these years later, I'm still curious about this! I'm going to figure out if there is a proper term for this configuration. This is referenced on the Railway platform page, so I think preserving the description might be valuable. Frankg (talk) 03:53, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
    • One English language mention of the concept can be found in the bilingual English/German book München U-Bahn Album (Florian Schütz, Robert Schwandl Verlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-936573-19-0), which also has a couple of pages dedicated to the underground stations of the Munich S-Bahn network. To quote "Due to the high passenger volume they have to cope with, they were designed with 'Spanish' platforms, i.e. with a platform edge on either side of the train to separate alighting from boarding." (page 134). Hope that helps. Regards, Nyamo Kurosawa (talk) 18:09, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Can someone explain why it is the arriving side that gets the island platform?

It says here that "there is no point in segregating arriving passengers", but isn't it better to put departing passengers together, especially in places where both platforms go in the same direction, so that passengers can hop on whichever train that comes first? Does anyone know why?--144.82.241.147 (talk) 21:52, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Because in most places the tracks are for traffic in opposite directions, so keeping this e passengers pre-sorted on separate platforms speeds boarding. On the other hand, for passengers arriving at a station it doesn't matter which train the got off of, so a simple common exit makes sense. oknazevad (talk) 18:00, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Grand Central Station

I seem to recall this method being used on the Time Square Shuttle at Grand Central. Can anyone confirm? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Otaku2 (talk • contribs) 15:58, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

It is not used at Grand Central. Doors only open on one side. jhawkinson (talk) 02:11, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Isn't one or more station on MARTA in Atlanta configured this way? 108.28.184.79 (talk) 18:34, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

59th Street - Columbus Circle Middle Platform

Columbus Circle station in Manhattan is designed with with four tracks and a middle platform suitable for use as a Spanish system, but the car doors don't open on that side. It's only used as a corridor. Jim.henderson (talk) 15:52, 16 December 2022 (UTC)