Public Transit In Canada – All About Profits and Politics

Just like the Canada Line, politics and profits; REM is the Canada line on steroids. Just like transit planning in Metro Vancouver, it isn’t about providing better transit options, it is all about profit and politics, rezoning, demovictions, and building high rent towers and high rise condos. And like Vancouver, Montreal calls it’s light metro […]

Toronto’s ‘SkyTrain’ Is Not Going Softly In The Night

The end of ‘SkyTrain’ service in Toronto is nearing and it seems the subway replacement is now treading on financial thin ice. LRT is the big bogey man of both light and heavy metro supporters, simply because LRT has proven far more economic to operate than light metro and can economically cater to loads at […]

Sorry City of Vancouver, Movia Automatic Light Metro is the Brand Name…….

……..Of What We Call SkyTrain And It Is A Proprietary Light Metro! Get Over It! Mr. Burgess brought up a interesting point, the city of Vancouver claims that SkyTrain is not proprietary and SkyTrain is the “brand” name. Really? Really, really? The term SkyTrain is used on a lot of elevated transit systems, notably Vancouver […]

Old News, But Where Is The Funding?

Thanks to Mr. Cow, Rail for the Valley knew about this over five years ago. RftV knew that the current Edmonds yard was near capacity and a new yard had to be built to accommodate the new cars as far back as 2016. Couple of items ignored with this story, which is nothing more than […]

Hungary’s New TramTrain

  A new TramTrain operation has opened on Feb. 22, in Hungary and all one can say is wow. The 26.2 km Szeged-Hódmezővásárhely (please watch video) tram-train system is now open for operation in Hungary, connecting two of the cities of Szeged and Hódmezővásárhely. Costing a total of €224 842 224  (CAD$345,750,843 or $8.6 million/km)), the diesel-electric […]

Not Cost Effective.

Another suicide, another death and TransLink washes it hands of the problem. The SkyTrain light-metro system doesn’t have an attendant on board to monitor the tracks. This is the darker side of driverless trains. Unlike other automatic metros, there are no sliding glass gates at stations to prevent egress onto the tracks. This costs money […]

And Then There Was Six

Despite the ongoing charade by regional mayors pretending that the now called Movia Automatic Light Metro is not a proprietary railway, the singular fact remains, it is. This Linear Induction Motor (LIM) powered bit of history has always been a proprietary railway, unable to operate with any railway, except its own family of seven such […]

Meet The Canada Line’s French Cousin, REM.

REM is a clone of the Canada Line, a faux P-3 project designed to benifit land speculators, land developers and of course the financiers, which in this case is the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, or CDPQ . The local rail advocates are now fully understanding at how REM will not provide better […]

Alstom Completes Bombardier Transportation Acquisition

Alstom is now the owner of the proprietary Movia Automatic Light Metro (MALM) system and the big question is, will Alstom continue to produce the MK.2/3 cars or even honour Bombardier’s contracts with TransLink. Will Alstom treat TransLink and regional politicians as rubes for the taking? The early resignation of TransLink CEO Kevin Desmond, and […]

A Repost From 2017- La Renaissance Du Tramway en France

La renaissance du tramway en France Tours The French (Tram) Renaissance is amazing! 17 brand-new systems opened since 2000. A single line in Montpellier, line T1, carriess over 130,000 weekday riders! And thatai??i??s with no tunnels, mostly street running. Systems in Nantes, Bordeaux and Montpellier have ridership at or near 260,000 riders a day! That […]