Regional Railways – Tavannes–Noirmont Railway Line
Regional railways are far more important than one would think. Regional railways offer an alternative to road travel and help mitigate the issues of pollution and traffic congestion. Regional railways, unlike buses, do not create the demand for larger roads and highways, which is important in the current era of Global Warming and Climate Change. With affordable operating coasts and the ability to travel where road vehicles cannot, regional railways fills a public transport need that politcans in Canada choose to ignore.
The Tavannes–Noirmont railway line is a metre-gauge railway line in western Switzerland. The Tramelan-Tavannes Railway [fr] (French: Chemin de fer de Tramelan à Tavannes) opened the first section in 1884; the Tramelan – Breuleux – Noirmont Railway (French: Compagnie du chemin de fer Tramelan – Breuleux – Noirmont) completed the line between Tramelan and Le Noirmont in 1913. The line was electrified in 1913 and has belonged to the Chemins de fer du Jura (CJ) since 1944.
The most likely rail link to be (re)established at this point in time would be from Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver to Pemberton. Most of the infrastructure is there and there is a demand. The Fraser Valley needs faster service with no level crossings and frequency that can’t be done with existing single tracks. Transit also has to go from places where people are to where they actually want to be. Much of the old BCER goes through long patches of ridership desert. Retracing the old BC Electric ROW is now futile ;maybe 10 years ago utilizing the ROW from Langley to Newton might have made sense, but it no longer does as it will shortly be superceded by SkyTrain. FFS give it up.
Zwei replies: Dated assumptions and man-of-straw arguments I am afraid, all too common with transit in the region.
The “faster service” is a canard as the BCE Line services 10 major destinations and the level crossing issue is nothing more than a man-of-straw issue with no relevance. Try tracing the BCE route, big population increases from Marpole to Chilliwack.
The single track issue is another man-of-straw issue.
This is the issue; Skytrain now costs (without cars) $400 million/km to build. (Financially nonviable). Rail for the Valley’s regional railway, $15 million per km to build (including cars) which is affordable.
At this point in time, SkyTrain is dead in the water.
SkyTrain in Langley will ultimately be a disappointment because every bus route along the line will be designed to feed it, greatly increasing travel times, exactly what the Canada Line did to South Delta and South Surrey. Taking the car will be both easier and faster.
As for Londsdale Quay to Pemberton, the rail service must cross into Vancouver/Burnaby to be successful.
Line 2 and 4 (24 km) in Ottawa have a 10 to 12 minute frequency on a route which is still 55% single track. The only thing preventing 7.5 to 8 minute service is we would have to buy more trains. Single track isn’t much of a problem if passing tracks are judiciously placed. The original 8 km system was nearly all single track except for a single passing track at Carleton University. At the time, it had a 15 minute frequency.
You can also build new sections of track on the old interurban route, if you need to. By pass tracks or parallel tracks can be added to avoid sections of busy freight track or unusable existing track sections. Aĺl you have go do is negotiate with the track owner if necessary. I think you find many railways actually like it when someone else is helping to pay for system maintenance. Modifying existing tracks is order of magnitudes cheaper than building completely new. We learned this when we built the original O-Train back in 2001.
It funny that people complain that the old interurban is not a straight line. it was built to go around the former Sumas lake. They need to add passing sections to make it useful today to have decent frequency.
BC Rail should be bought back with newer trains. There is an old rail bridge from North Vancouver to Burnaby. Trains can go to downtown or to central Burnaby. Siemens is building new trains in California for Amtrak cascades route into Vancouver.
We could buy a few train sets from Siemens for use here.
Vancouver island wants trains back too.
Zwei Replies: Read the Leewood Study. The old interurban line to Chilliwack has 10 major destinations, including 3 university/polytechnics; a future hospital and 5 city centres and 10 minute transfer to YVR.