Welcome To The World Of Congestion Folks!

This should not be news but it is, congestion has returned to the Port Mann Bridge With tolls, traffic and gridlock was just moved to the Patullo and Alex Fraser Bridges and the Massey Tunnel, but with the tolls eliminated, traffic pasterns are getting back to usual. Welcome to the commuting world brought to you […]

Is TransLink Admitting the Canada Line is a White Elephant?

It is not an either/or situation. As built, the Canada line has small stations with 40 metre long station platforms, while the ALRT/ART Expo and Millennium/Evergreen lines have 80 metre long station platforms. The Transport Canada operating certificate for the ALRT/ART lines allows capacity no more than 15,000 pphpd. It is reasonable to suspect that […]

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 […]

Expo Line Goes Kaput – Canada line Ills – TransLink’s Bad Day

The aging SkyTrain system is having many troubles today. One of the big problems with expensive light-metro lines is the lack of redundancy in the system. With the huge costs to build just one line, only one line is built, unlike mature light rail systems, where multiple lines offers redundancy in the system if problems […]

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 […]

Alstom, Siemens Rail-Merger – Is SkyTrain going The Way Of The Edsel?

This could be game changer for Bombardier’s rail division and a big game changer for transit planning in Metro Vancouver. If the Siemens and Alstom merger goes through, it could mean those expensive ART, monorail, and other proprietary transit modes currently marketed by Bombardier Inc. may be chopped from production as a newAi?? “rail” reality […]

From Pole to Pan in Toronto

NO, we are not talking ‘pole dancing’ but another kind of ‘pole’ dance happening in Toronto. The use of panto-graphs or “pans” for the collection of electrical power has been around a long time and now it is Toronto’s turn to switch from the old trolley pole to a modern pan. Sadly, some of our […]

Requiem For The Massey Tunnel Replacement Bridge

The Massey Tunnel Bridge replacement project is again in the news, as the massively expensive replacement bridge for the Massey tunnel has been mothballed. Now, the CBC has found hugely expensive financial irregularities with the new Port Mann Bridge, and the air of political corruption hangs heavily in the air. Was the proposed mega bridge […]

Heritage Tram for Richmond?

Most of us have forgotten that Richmond once supported an interurban service from Steveston to Vancouver and New Westminster and now the city of Richmond is investigating a heritage line to operate the interurban. Rail for the Valley wishes everyone good luck with this endeavor. With the then new Oak St. Bridge in the background, […]

The Perils Of A Proprietary Railway

ALRT/ART is what we call a proprietary railway and because Bombardier Inc. hold the technical patents for ART, they are the sole supplier of ART cars, as they can always undercut the competition, who must design a Linear Induction Motor powered car from scratch. Designing a specialty transit vehicle from scratch is a very expensive […]