 Would you believe it if I told you that there was a city in Chile with a metro that could go toe to toe with some of the world's best? A system which features automated trains, platform screen doors, express service, and integrated ticketing with modern regional rail? A system not dissimilar in size to the Chicago L, but with over three times as many daily users. And plans to add three more lions and plentiful extensions in just the next decade at bargain basement prices. Well this system is real and it's the Santiago Metro, and like a lot of metro systems in Latin America, it is absolutely awesome. Before we ride around the impressive metro system, let's get acquainted with Santiago, which is by far the largest city in Chile, and which has a significant portion of the country's overall population in its metropolitan area. As always, if you want an explainer on your city, leave a comment and mention what makes it special down below. This is Central Station or Alameda, which really isn't all that central these days given the city's development is generally near the Mapocho River, which travels east-west across the north of the city, though dense development also extends out to the south and east. Development would likely extend even further, but it runs into mountains surrounding the city to the north and east. Santiago's international airport is roughly 15 kilometers northwest of the city center, although it's currently not connected to the rail network, despite only being a few kilometers away from it. In the city center, there are a number of great public spaces with metro access, including Plaza de Armas, which reminds me of a certain station on Montreal's metro, and the Palacio de la Moneda, the office of the Chilean president and its surrounding grounds. Further afield, we also have the National Stadium, where major events and concerts are held, as well as Ohigan's Park, a giant mixed-use park with an amusement park within it, as well as the major Movistar Arena, and wide-open spaces, different gardens, and additional event and sports venues. There's also a park at the center of Santiago, known as Metropolitan Park, which encompasses some of the hills near the central business district of the city. Now to get around Santiago, we have the Metro, which first opened in just 1975, and has grown into a roughly 140 kilometer network with 136 stations, though as we'll see later, the system is growing rapidly. Early plans for Santiago's Metro were drawn up by the French, and the influence is obvious, from numbered lines to yes, the rubber-tired trains, which is one of the most significant oddities in Santiago's Metro. Like in Montreal and Lausanne, these trains were derived from the technology created for the Paris Metro, and like these systems, Santiago also adopted a similar naming convention, with letters denoting the type of rolling stock, be it rubber-tire or steel wheels, before numbers representing the year. As with some other metros planned from a grand master plan, Santiago built its lines out of order, respecting their initial designations in the plans, which were actually quite well respected over the decades. To elaborate on the specifics of Santiago's rubber-tired trains that run on lines 1, 2, and 5, most models were manufactured by either CAF or Alstom, however the NS88 model, developed by Conqueril of Mexico, who was later acquired by Bombardier and thus part of Alstom, are actually really similar to the steel wheeled trains running on Mexico City's suburban line A. I'll be doing an updated explainer of Mexico City soon, so make sure you subscribe so you don't miss it. Now the NS88 isn't the only particularly interesting model of rubber-tired train in Santiago, as the NS93 is clearly a derivative of the iconic MP89 trains from Paris. That being said, some NS93 sets from the beginning have been 8 cars long. So where do these trains actually run? Let's take a look at lines 1, 2, and 5. Line 1 is the most heavily used line on the entire Santiago Metro, and with a daily ridership in excess of 700,000 riders pre-COVID, it's one of the most used single metro lines in the Americas. Thanks to its modern communications-based train control, or CBTC signaling, trains come as frequently as every two minutes in peak periods. Line 1 is 19 kilometers long with 27 stations and broadly runs northeast to southwest through the city on a mostly underground alignment, with two short trench sections in the west, passing through the densest neighborhoods and running near many important sites, such as the Palacio de la Manera, as well as a major university and central station. The line runs quite close to the Mapacho River, especially in the center of the city, providing connections to the Metropolitan Park just a short walk away. Line 2 is a similar length to Line 1 at 21 kilometers with 22 stations, traveling from north to south through the city and diverting to the west to pass the traditional central business district. While the northern portion of Line 2 is entirely tunneled, after crossing the river, Line 2 diverts to run in the median of an expressway, hemming in the CBD to the west, ducking under a freeway deck to connect with Line 1. This style of alignment continues past O'Higgins Park, which Line 2 provides connections to, before the line dives back underground and diverts back east, running to the far south of the city in tunnels. Line 5 is the last of the rubber-tired lines, albeit the longest, with 30 stations over 30 kilometers of track. The line forms an east-west arc opening south, and beginning underground in the west, the line pops above and below ground, connecting to Line 1 at its western terminus, before continuing east in tunnels to cross Kintanormal Park, where a station box was created during metro construction to enable a future regional rail station underground here. Let's take a moment to address those regional trains. Currently, Santiago has a single frequent suburban rail line, which travels to the city of Noss to the south and uses modern high-capacity European-style multiple-unit trains, operating on 1676 millimeter track and 3,000-volt DC overhead wire. This service is quite high quality and was branded as Metro Train originally, and it'll also be augmented by another service headed to the southwest, which should be completed in the coming years. This project will also include the beginning of a tunnel north under central station. At the same time, another suburban rail service is being implemented from Santiago to the north, which will feature a tunnel segment into the city center to connect with the metro at the aforementioned Kintanormal Station. Eventually, it seems likely these suburban rail services will connect up and run through the center of Santiago, forming the basis of what could be a comprehensive European-style regional rail network with a center city tunnel. From Kintanormal, the line continues east, intersecting line two at one of its freeway median stations before crossing the CBD and turning south across line one a second time. As line five leaves the CBD to the south, it once again rises to travel on an elevated guideway past one of Santiago's major universities before dipping back below ground adjacent to two major shopping centers to terminate. Because so much of line five is elevated and because rubber-tire trains are actually often louder than steel-wheeled trains, I made a video on this previously, sound figures have actually been implemented on one section of line five, which sort of aligns with Hong Kong. Unsurprisingly, not all of Santiago's metro lines use Paris-derived rubber-tire technology. This other trend began in 2005 with line four, which is a 25 kilometer, 23 station metro line that uses more conventional 3 meter wide steel-wheeled metro trains that get their power from third rail. Line four runs north-south through eastern Santiago, starting at line one in the north, heading underground before popping above ground and running above the surface before connecting with line five at its eastern terminus, about halfway along its route, and continuing further south with much of the route elevated above ground. What's really interesting about line four is that alongside lines two and five, it actually has expressed services during rush hour, a feature which really isn't that common on metro systems. Rather than being implemented with quad track or passing tracks that select stations, this is implemented as a skip-stop service. So different stations get different color codes, with major stations getting both color codes, and services along the lines are branded either one color or the other. This means passengers may need to wait slightly longer for a train, but will only stop at stations of the same color code. If you're wondering why this service isn't implemented on line one, it likely has to do with restrictions on capacity, since a skip-stop service is naturally going to limit the capacity at any station where all trains do not stop. What I find fascinating is there's also an eight kilometer six station line four A, which reminds me a lot of the BISS lines in Paris. Line four A was completely designed as per the track design to operate as a branch of line four, but likely due to its entirely highway median alignment, demand is substantially lower on line four A than on the southern section of line four. Because of this, line four A runs shorter three car trains as opposed to the six car trains of line four, which is practical as the trains come in three car walkthrough sets. At the eastern terminus of line four A, one of the tracks has been covered over to enable Spanish solution boarding on the trains, and at its western terminus, the line connects to the southern terminus of line two. Recently in 2017 and 2019, Santiago opened two new metro lines, which are actually among the most modern in the world, the 15 kilometer 10 station line six and the 22 kilometer 18 station line three. Line three is an entirely underground line, which forms an arc opening northeast, running from the city's north south across the CBD to connect to lines two and five at Plaza de Hermas and line one at one of the major universities before turning east and intersecting again with line five and then with line four before terminating. Line six is more of a circumferential arc that opens to the northwest and runs from a terminus at the north on line one south to intersect with line three before turning west to pass the national stadium and then connect with lines five and two before crossing and connecting with the suburban rail and terminating to its west. Like line three, line six is 100% underground. So what actually makes these lines so modern? Well, both operate large five car long steel wheeled fully automated trains manufactured by CAF with large windowed doors that look incredibly slick. These trains are powered by overhead lines at 750 volts DC and were some of the first high capacity automated metro lines in the Americas. In addition to the modern trains, stations also feature universal platform screen doors which still aren't used on some major transit systems globally like New York and Berlin for safety and comfort. And these go a step further with train loading indicators letting you know how busy each carriage is before the train arrives and so that you can reposition yourself to get into a less busy car. It's fascinating to me that the most modern rail transit system in the Americas isn't in place like Silicon Valley but instead in Santiago. Now, of course, Santiago isn't just impressive because it's built up an incredible network over the years but because it's actually planning and building so much more. And as has been highlighted, despite Santiago moving towards tunneling, virtually all of their metro cost control has been highly effective and new metro projects are built for a fraction of the price that's seen in the UK or North America or Australia and New Zealand despite being more modern in many ways. Santiago is leveraging this incredible expertise in building metro to build a whole lot of metro. To start, existing lines are being expanded. Line two is already being extended south some distance to extend similarly far to line four. Line three will be extended northwest to connect directly with the northern suburban rail. While line six will also be extended to the southwest suburban rail, better integrating the metro and suburban rail systems outside of the city center. It will also be extended one stop to the northeast. On top of these extensions, three entirely new lines will be constructed. These lines will be automated as with lines three and six and likely entirely underground. Line seven will be a new northern east-west line which will parallel line one closely in the east but provide fewer stops to create an express service akin to line 14 in Paris. Line seven will provide connections to line six, twice to line one, line five, line two and line three and the northern suburban rail. And the rolling stock for this line will be from Alstom similar to what's being used on the REM, Sydney Metro and more. The line is already under construction and discussions are underway on how it could potentially connect to the airport in the future. The new line eight will start from the interchange of line one and six in the north and will travel north-south paralleling line four and parts of line six, connecting with line three on the way and crossing over line four to operate on its east partway along. Another north-south line will be added in line nine which will start from line one in the north and continue far south connecting with lines three, six and four A. This will leave Santiago with a shockingly extensive metro network that would be one of the world's largest if it were completed today with nine metro lines, three suburban rail lines and several interchange stations with three or more lines connected. This will likely eliminate thousands upon thousands of car and bus trips and massively reduce emissions and all I can think is when can I get back to Santiago to visit? Thanks for watching. Thanks to Theo and Ismail for providing on-the-ground footage for this video.