Lawned Rights-of-Ways Revisited

One item that the SkyTrain lobby are loath to show, is lawned rights-of-ways for modern LRT and I wonder why? Even in parched Australia, lawned tram track is being laid. But it is in France, where lawned tram track is de rigueur, making the tram a part of the cityscape and not an eyesore. The […]

When SkyTrain Grows Old

Age is an expensive journey for older transit systems, especially older proprietary transit systems and the MK.1 cars operating on the SkyTrain network are indeed showing their age. The majority of Mk.1 cars are now over 34 years old and are in dire need of major maintenance and/or refurbishment. This is why TransLink is ordering […]

BCIT to UBC and Picnics In The Park

First published in 2009. Updated 2014, 2016 and in 2019   A Wee Bit Of Local History In early 1996, during BC Transit’s meaningless public consultation period for the Broadway Lougheed Rapid Transit Project which later morphed into the Millennium Line, Zwei received a phone call from an European Transit specialist, who worked for Asea […]

Stadler Trains For Ottawa’s Trillium Line

This is of great importance for Fraser Valley passenger  rail. The  Stadler FLIRT is a close cousin of the Stadler  GTW tramtrain and like the GTW, the articulated FLRT uses a diesel power-pack located in the middle of the train. The FLIRT DMU is really a five section, articulated diesel rail car, with four sections […]

South Fraser Community RAIL

South Fraser Community Rail South Fraser Community Rail is the latest group joining the struggle to get rail passenger service operating in the Fraser Valley. Instead of TramTrain and its variants, they opted for the hydrogen powered electric train in the guise of an electric multiple unit (EMU) passenger trains.        

Valley Rail Gaining Steam

It’s good news so far. The real trick is to plan for rail properly, which is hard to do in Metro Vancouver, where politicians think they are better at planning for transit than the real experts. It is hard to think any valley mayor and council would be against a viable Vancouver to Chilliwack rail […]

90 Years And Counting

Well, it has taken almost 90 years for transit planners in North America to realize that by giving a streetcar a dedicated lane it becomes light rail. European transit planners clearly understood by the 1930’s that by giving a streetcar a dedicated route, its performance almost matched that of a much more expensive metro or […]

Chilliwack Is On Board

Finally! It seems the good burghers of Chilliwack see the benefits of a rail servcie connecting Vancouver to Chilliwack. A basic Vancouver to Chilliwack DMU servcie can be had for as little as $750 million and a more elaborate service using hydrogen powered trains or electric servcie, with several trips per direction each hour would […]

Historic Public Transit Systems Versus Today

From the Guardian newspaper. Mapped: historic public transit systems v their modern equivalents Artist Jake Berman plots old public transport systems in period style. From LA to Toronto, San Francisco to Buffalo, he has created maps of cities’ modern transit too, so you can click and compare Just click the title and enjoy!

New TramTrains for Manchester?

As interest in TramTrain grows abroad, we are left with Translink’s SkyTrain only planning. The lack of flexibility of SkyTrain will soon hamstring our urban rail system under the weight of massive subsidies and debt serving costs. TramTrain, first designed to make transit more user friendly, by eliminating transfers, now seems to be the affordable […]