Comments

1. Bryan Vogler says:

   February 23, 2011 at 12:39 am

   Leewood have this reputation of being poor a railway routes already established and better at new rail systems, that do not require reworking rail routes. The Interurban never went down because of passenger popularity, rather passenger car manufacturing came to a halt to make Second World War supplies.
   Right across North America ridership failed due to no choice but the car. Railways quit making passenger cars, and even Montreal Locomotive Works was making tanks.
   After the war recovery of ridership was minimal, new factories were more toward aircraft and cars. This left a gap and a geographical shift in population from the rural areas to Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal by 1970.
   At that time Canada had failed a high speed rail train, due to the stubborness of C.N. and C.P. to upgrade there track to 170mph. The high speed train while picking up speed was braking at the same time causing a fire.
   Since then passenger rail has been a governmrnt issue, building seperate railway lines that are new passenger movers. Commuter Rail uses the established railway routes, and needs less study because the tracks are proven. Commuter Rail is light rail, and is considered safer because speed kills.
   Leewood ends up in a compromise at best, conflicting with passenger rail studies done before the war, that are intact and proven on a conventional railway owned by the Province. Safety was never an issue with Interurbans, however municipal meddling is historically a ongoing population problem that reflects in the report.

   The freeway rail situation is more likely to be accepted with a negative report on the Interurban. Most people want something fast and new. Even more to the point the highway is under major construction and railway plans have been built in, and await approval before the election. Liberals take the freeway option and N.D.P the Interurban.

2. the Ragnore brothers says:

   February 23, 2011 at 10:17 am

   Your posting makes very little sense Bryan, we are struggling to understand the point you are trying to make.
   If you used the correct form of grammatical sentence construction and punctuate your sentences your post would be comprehensible.
   Introduction – content – conclusion; An effective letter uses short, simple sentences and straightforward vocabulary. The easier a letter is to read, the better. …

3. zweisystem says:

   February 23, 2011 at 4:41 pm

   Quote: “The freeway rail situation is more likely to be accepted with a negative report on the Interurban.”

   This doesn’t make sense as:

   1) A Freeway median light rail would be very expensive to build and does not travel through any town centres. One would have to drive or take a bus to it, which certainly would not encourage bus ridership.

   2) What negative report on the interurban? to date, there has been only positive response. The MOT study did not mention the interurban at all and concentrated on commuter rail.

   3) What railway plans have been built in? There is no railway or LRT planning South of the Fraser at present.

4. Dan Bryce says:

   February 27, 2011 at 5:52 pm

   I think what Bryan is trying to say is:

   1. Leewood is better at building New systems than updating old systems
   2. the interurban is an update of an old system so Leewood’s expertise is up for questioning.

   3. Sub argument with himself about why commuter rail failed during/after WWII (unsure why)

   4. Leewood would be better suited for making statements about a high speed commuter train, possibly following hwy 1.

   5. Bryan thinks then that Leewood’s study recommends high speed commuter train following hwy 1.

   6. Bryan makes a good point about inter-community LRT on the old tracks being the best option. Unfortunately this point was already made by Leewood and is the reason for this website….

   7. Bryan says that if you think Leewood’s high speed commuter train following hwy 1 is a good idea vote Liberal. As they concocted a report against the Interurban to promote this option. (this is completely incorrect)

   8. Vote NDP because they support the Interurban (and it was possibly their idea?)

   In conclusion, Bryan did not read the study. I think he is arguing for the Interurban LRT, though I am not positive on that point. To avoid this confusion of who supports what in Liberal vs. NDP, I would recommend voting Green.

5. Bryan Vogler says:

   February 17, 2012 at 10:35 pm

   Thanks for the feedback.
   It is always helpful to correct me, constructive critics like we have here are wonderful. All of us are train fans with our emotions, and sometimes expressing them jiggers the facts or points we are trying to get across.
   It makes a democratic process and freedom of expression that shows are differences. Sometimes we fall victim to time constraints and get lost in our own mumble jumble. Speed not only kills on the highway, it may kill thoughts too.
   I am going to try and set my thoughts in some sort of pattern we can all understand.
   1992- The Federal Progressive Conservative Party had a cross country Transportation Study done chaired by Lou Hyndman a Alberta conservative M.L.A. It became the tattoo of Transportation for the next forty years. In Transportation planning that is not to far reaching. It covered High speed rail recomending three corridors;
   1. Montreal to Toronto
   2. Edmonton to Calgary
   3. Chilliwack to Vancouver
   Problems

   Montreal -Toronto- C.N.Rail a private company owned by the giant, Illinois-Central of the U.S. owns the operation rights. Via Rail the current operator of passenger rail between these cities holds it by contract only. Owned by the government, which has an obligation to supply passenger rail, there is no incentive to improve it.
   Toronto Regional Commuter Rail System operates on a lease agreement using the right of way and ajacent land.
   If there were going to be high speed rail in this corridor it would have to be an agreement between railways, provinces and the federal government. This complicated method has not shown much promise so far. The arguments for high speed rail have continued since before 1992, and it no solutions for them have been approved.
   School is still out in the most populated train corridor in Canada.

   Edmonton- Calgary- Located in prime Conservative Alberta, this high speed rail corridor is flat, and can use maximum speed along the Highway 2 right of way. It can join both International airports together and join both light rail systems of both cities together. Weather used to be a questionable reason to maybe think twice, however with the new St.Petersburg-Helsinki high speed rail opened by Putin of Russia two years ago, its now not a challenge.
   Calgary and Edmonton are poised for huge growth because of lower housing prices, and the petroleum industry.
   There is not much opposition to the plan, and because in the the past the air bus hourly service between the two cities was so successful, high speed rail if it were two hours or less would be popular.
   Chilliwack-Vancouver
   This corridor was recommended by The Royal Commission on Passenger transportation also. I huge submission was put in by the Lower Mainland Commuter Rail Consortium which implemented The West Coast Express. The original commuter rail run was the B.N. right of way, however when B.N. refused to buy C.N. a proposal to build a susbtitute line through Sapperton to lougheed mall and west parelleling the B.N. tracks, as C.P.R. had agreed to take the W.C.E earlier in 1993. It was a decade of excitiment across the nation when at the manufacturing level the plant was making identical cars for Los Angles, Toronto and San Diego. B.C. hoped on the order form for a fleet purchase also.
   At the B.C. Policing Commission hearings in Burnaby a plan was presented to Cheif Justice Wallace Oppal to have hig speed rail tofollow the freeway once all construction was done to remove overpasses to a higher level and eliminate all level crossings on the freeway. It was approved to make police response better to the public demands, with faster response times and putting people on a train to get them faster to there destination in a safe way.
   When former Preimer Glen Clark recommended the North-East sector Review Committees findings and past Bill 3 in Victoria it paved the way for all this to happen and be finished by 2014. Today we are two years from that date and Abbotsford Council passed a recommendation to support any passenger rail route coming to there city or area.
   Langey passed the light rail line from Willowbrook to the Freeway station and beyond allong the 200th street corridor.
   Recently Surrey put light rail at the top of there list with a planed light rail line joining Gateway skytrain station to Guilford Station on the Freeway.
   The proposals and City plans await the government approvals, which is the next step. The Interurban line is a south feeder line, and the milage between the freeway on the north side and theInterban track on the south side is low for a huge area of growing population that escapes accurate cencus.
   This is going to be a contest for the west and it comes at a time of growth and past prosperity that seems unstoppable as real estate prices continue to rise on both corridors.
   The planning and submissions of the past have prooved there worth to mass public transportation, yet today it is fragmented into groups that need to form a Consortium under one roof and speak together and plan together.
   We have all this in common and the pieces are together, it will not take much to push public will our way, and the political tide will follow in the next election. I suggest this proposal be put forth at the meeting later this month at Langley City hall put on by one of the groups. Lets thow are hats into the ring.