Power rail problem halts SkyTrain service in New Westminster
As metro lines age, maintenance problems come into the fore. With automatic or driverless transit systems, this means complete shutdowns of sections of track or an entire route.
Last night, a reported failure of the power rail caused chaos all Thursday night for transit customers. Failures do happen, but a failure of a power rail is unacceptable and points to shoddy maintenance practices by TransLink. Even more disturbing is shoddy maintenance practices, will lead to more SkyTrain disruption as the system ages.
This means scarce transit monies will have to be diverted from South of the Fraser municipalities to fund expensive SkyTrain maintenance and renovation in Vancouver, Burnaby and new Westminster.
This is not to say light rail does not suffer increasing maintenance as the system ages, but the inherent robustness and simplicity of LRT means maintenance costs are simpler, easier, and much cheaper to do and in many cases can be done on the fly, without greatly affecting schedules.
Those who support more SkyTrain construction are in fact supporting huge maintenance and operational costs onto future generations of taxpayers.
Power rail problem halts SkyTrain service in New Westminster
Ai??By Mike Hager, Vancouver Sun
SkyTrain service on the 30-year-old Expo line was disrupted by a broken power rail support post as thousands streamed in and out of downtown Vancouver for the last Canucks home game of the regular season Thursday night.
The broken section may have originally been laid just before Expo 86 ai??i?? the lineai??i??s namesake ai??i?? and disrupted service between New Westminster and 22nd Street stations, according to TransLink spokeswoman Jennifer Siddon. Repairs were expected to last through the night, but be completed in time for rush hour this morning, she added.
Meanwhile, riders fumed online while dealing with the delays that saw them either board buses between disrupted stops or take the long way around to Surrey through the Millenium Line.
Twitter user AurAi??lien Grangeret wrote, ai???Spending 2h30 in the skytrain is a great way to make new friends but itai??i??s a lot of effort to end up in Surrey. #beautifuldayinvancouverai???
Jon Jennings added, ai???Well, after watching a guy go crazy and try to break out of the skytrain carriage, at least I know the doors donai??i??t open.ai???
Since last year, the transit authority has been working to replace the 30-year-old tracks and will continue with planned maintenance this weekend that will see trains moving slower between Edmonds and 22nd Street stations on Saturday and Sunday mornings, Siddon said.
The Canada Line was unaffected by the disruptions.
http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Power+rail+problem+halts+SkyTrain+service+Westminster/8297144/story.html
It is easy for the TransLink CEO who isn’t an engineer to be a star performer for his year end bonus – he just doesn’t do prudent preventative maintenance costing billions of dollars until things break and leaves it to taxpayers to foot the huge bills later while making transit users pay the price.
This white collar crook deserves to be fired not only for lying about the low cost of sky train to mislead other clueless accountants in other cities to try to copy sky train requiring billions of dollars to refurbish after 25 years but also for costing taxpayers billions of dollars in wasted money for sky train when trams are the logical choice, here and in Honolulu, which will learn the hard way what all the hidden costs of sky train really are.
A broken power rail? Very unusual and the same time very disturbing.
Though a fractured power rail is very uncommon, they do happen and Zwei has quite rightly pointed to slipshod maintenance practices by the operating authority.
One wonders why the power rail broke? Certainly the pick up shoes do not exert a great pressure and if it was wear from the shoes that caused the power rail to grow thin and break, then the manager of track maintenance should be fired for dereliction of duty.
The only other cause I can think of is that some sort of debris was caught up in the running gear causing the power rail failure.
Bad maintenance is the lead cause of most track and associated operating failures.
It seems to me and my compatriots that the operating authority, TransLink, really have no notion about metros or the need of regular preventative maintenance.
Personally I think the mayors shuold just give translink the property tax and be done with it. It is the easiest, fastest, and fairest way to get money for transit around here.People with cheaper house who have less transit pay less so areas like SOF mean while where transit already is great they have more expensive land thus paying more to push transit out towards the areas that need it while covering their own transit