50 Years Out of Date

Memo to the Caisse du Depot: REM is a light metro and light metro is obsolete. Automatic (driverless) railways have issues in the snow.

It snows in Montreal, doesn’t it?

What Vancouver calls SkyTrain is a light-metro and it was deemed obsolete back in the late 70’s and why it was unsalable. Six marketing names and four owners, with only seven systems sold in almost 50 years tells the tale. Too bad the Caisse failed to recognize this salient fact, but greed and good luck with Vancouver’s Canada Line, which is a conventional heavy-rail metro built as a light-metro, combined with some very questionable political interference in Victoria, cause them to believe that they could sell light-metro abroad.

Why would a transportation authority invest in light-metro, when a conventional heavy-rail metro could be built for the same price and carry a lot more customers, with cheaper operating costs.

Again, why would a transit authority build with light metro when a tram/LRT system could be built, costing much less, but offering a lot more advantages, including higher capacities than an automatic light metro.

The above graph avoids the name light-metro and instead uses “elevated LRT” which is a light-metro. There is a reluctance to use the term light-metro in Canada simply because the mode is obsolete, something the Caisse should have known.

As well, light-metro, operating in a subway is in fact a subway, but with much less capacity than operating heavy-rail subway trains.

The Caisse du Depot just learned a very hard lesson, bankers are not transit experts, sadly is the the lesson that politicians never learn.

Plans to sell REM trains to the U.S. have been scrapped, Caisse says La Presse Canadienne, 2025 2:21 PM Construction at the REM station at Sources Blvd. in Dollard-des-Ormeaux May 6, 2025.

Construction at the REM station at Sources Blvd. in Dollard-des-Ormeaux May 6, 2025. Dave Sidaway Montreal Gazette After dreaming of exporting its REM light automated rail service to the United States, the CEO of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec told a legislative committee on Tuesday the idea had been scrapped.

Charles Emond told Liberal MNA Frédéric Beauchemin that the context in which the pension fund had several conversations in 2018 about exporting the service had changed. “I have no intention of exporting the model to the United States in the same way it was discussed at the time,” Emond said. “All of the team is concentrated on delivering the project (the REM expansion in Montreal) in its entirety.” Emond justified the change in policy by noting that “charity begins at home.” His comments come as the existing REM service between Brossard and Central Station continues to be interrupted because of what operators describe as “technical issues” or, in some cases, winter weather.

Meanwhile, the Caisse defended its investments and operations in India in the wake of what the Liberal opposition is describing as a “scandal.” The Caisse invested US$470 million in Azure Power Global, an India-based solar energy company that is now worth no more than US$100 million. The company is at the centre of an alleged bribery scheme. Emond said Quebecers “should not be worried,” saying the incident was an isolated case.

Read more at: https://www.montrealgazette.com/business/article919218.html#storylink=cpy