The Return Of The Branch Line – Can You Say E&N, RftV?

Most railway enthusiasts in the UK treat Beeching as a leper. In fact, Beeching predicted the end of local railways altogether, leaving the UK with just three or four trunk lines, connecting major cities by the 21st century. This is not to argue that rationalization should not have taken place, but to tear up the […]

Tram Trains for Hungary!

TramTrain, one of the fasted growing transit sectors in the world and why not; extending public transit cheaply by using existing infrastructure is a win, win situation. The cost ofAi?? of a 25.3 km of route including 3.3 km of new single track line is CAD $62 million! The cost of the eight Electro-diesel trains […]

Memo to Metro Mayors: Forget Road Pricing, build With LRT!

As Vancouver’s metro mayor’s dig themselves further into a financial morass, with the proposed now $3.2 billion Broadway subway to Arbutus and the now over $100/km Surrey LRT, which will demand more and more punitive regional taxation, why instead don’t we plan for affordable European style LRT? The trouble is, our regional mayors think they […]

Game Changer for Regional Rail!

What the FRA does, Transport Canada will soon follow. This news is of great importance to Metro and Victoria’s metro regions, bringing in a transit option that Rail for the Valley has been championing for many years. Proven European technology combined with proven European transit philosophy (which will come with the technology), just may make […]

Sounds of Silence

No surprise here, as Zwei has been sounding alarm bells over this upcoming fiasco for years Now TransLink has an American out of Seattle as the new CEO and this means the sky is the limit for spending on rail transit. Seattle’s LRT is LRT in name only as it is actually a light metro […]

An Open Letter To The NDP & Leader John Horgan

To the Leader of the Official Opposition, John Horgan, Dear Sir; As the NDP have been extremely weak with urban and metro transportation policies in the past two elections, may I offer a suggestion that the NDP take another look at the Rail for the Valley TramTrain plan, providing a TramTrain service from Vancouver to […]

Calgary’s C-Train Development & Operating Costs

First published in 2009 A note from Zwei: These costs were taken directly from Calgary Transit, which once had a fine web page giving accurate statistics about the C-Train, unlike TransLink and BC Transit, which hid the real costs in a baffle-gab of nonsense and phony news releases. One did not need a F.O.I. to […]

Over to You Mr. Cow – The Vancouver Sun’s Recent “Puff” SkyTrain Story

This comment from Mr. Cow deserves a post of its own as there is so much information here, it deserves a wider audience. As Mr. Cow is a Canadian Transit Engineer, his comments are well worth reading. When SkyTrain ‘crapped-out’ in the Summer of 2014 there were no drivers or attendants to oversee the evacuation […]

A Subway To Nowhere

For a $5 billion, 12 km subway to UBC, under Broadway…. …..one could build a tram network in Vancouver and North Vancouver! Zwei been advocating for trams on Broadway since the 80’s, well more and more people are now seeing that instead of a $5 billion plus subway to UBC, one gets way more bang […]

The TransLink Debacle – Brought To You In Part, By Mr. Factbender

Nothing new here. TransLink was conceivedAi?? by the NDP to get then GVRD Chair, George Puil on board to support the now renamed (ALRT to ART) Millennium Line. No one in the NDP at the time had any thought of making TransLink independent as control of major transit projects would remain in the Premier’s office. […]