SkyTrain Ka-Put Again

For a proprietary transit system that is supposed to have a remarkable operational reliability, it is breaking down an awful lot lately. Could it be that SkyTrain is not as reliable as certain people would have us think? Sadly, SkyTrain is demonstrating the perils of an aging proprietary railway. Stalled train creates SkyTrain delays during [...]

When You Really Need It – SkyTrain Craps out!

Again, SkyTrain never fails to, well fail! CKNW NEWS ALERT                                                                                            [...]

Expensive Projects = Expensive Costs

Most people championing expensive transit, fail to see three minutes into the future. The failure of a switch motor on the Expo Line last week caused transit chaos. Switch motors fail and on automatic railways, the regimen is to replace motors on a preventative basis before they fail in revenue service to maintain the integrity [...]

Siemens and Alstom Merge Rail

As reported earlier, it has been announced that Siemens and Alstom will merge their rail units. Time will tell how this will effect Bombardier Inc., but one thing is for certain, the merger will streamline their product line and with no sales in the past decade and a greatly diminishing demand for niche light-metros, how [...]

Canada line Goes Ka-Put – Could Dirty Tunnels Be The Culprit?

The Canada Line was down for three hours on Friday, but if one was looking for evidence of it, well TransLink is doing its best to cleanse the internet from reporting the problem. Trying to avoid the fiasco of last winter, where TransLink abandoned customers, when the Canada Line failed in the snow, officials were [...]

Cowardly TransLink Hides The Truth

This is a rather strange story. A dog is scared by fireworks and ends up on the SkyTrain’s tracks, how, TransLink isn’t saying. I would wager Transport Canada would like to know. SkyTrain is a driverless light-metro and when it operates at-grade it must be completely fenced off to prevent egress by people and animals. [...]

and Now…….Here is The Real Story

The reason the TransLink is making the change may prove rather interesting. The story starts with the old Broadway-Lougheed rapid transit project which was planned for light rail operating from Arbutus and Broadway to Lougheed Mall and the Tri-Cities. This is the transit line that the NDP (under the leadership of Glen Clark and Joy [...]

Calgary’s C-Train Development & Operating Costs

First published in 2009 A note from Zwei: These costs were taken directly from Calgary Transit, which once had a fine web page giving accurate statistics about the C-Train, unlike TransLink and BC Transit, which hid the real costs in a baffle-gab of nonsense and phony news releases. One did not need a F.O.I. to [...]

Over to You Mr. Cow – The Vancouver Sun’s Recent “Puff” SkyTrain Story

This comment from Mr. Cow deserves a post of its own as there is so much information here, it deserves a wider audience. As Mr. Cow is a Canadian Transit Engineer, his comments are well worth reading. When SkyTrain ‘crapped-out’ in the Summer of 2014 there were no drivers or attendants to oversee the evacuation [...]

Compass Card Hack – Another Fine Mess TransLink Has Gotten Into

Not well reported in the mainstream media is the fact that the $200 million Compass Card/Fare gate system  is now next to useless because not so honest people can hack through the system. The Compass Card is old tech, sold to TransLink after an orchestrated campaign by the mainstream media that fare evasion was rampant [...]