Light Rail questioned by Langley Township planner – Yesterday’s planning at work!

The same old cliched arguments about modern light rail have surfaced in Langley Township. What old Zwei finds so tiresome is that the some planners remains so uninformed about SkyTrain light-metro and modern light rail, think both are “rapid transit“. Transit is only as ‘rapid’ as it is designed to be. Sadly, the term “rapid […]

TramTrain for Hungary

From the International Railway Journal. As TransLink and the regional mayors still champion hugely expensive vanity projects for the region, TramTrain makes very good economic sense. A basic, bare-bones hourly service, using diesel light rail vehicles, from Vancouver to Chilliwack, would cost about $750 million. A more intense electric service, with a 20 minute service […]

Replacing the Fraser River Rail Bridge

Interesting item from the Netherlands. Dutch Engineers have been at the forefront at lift bridge technology for over a century, due to the many canals that traverse the country. The “tilting lock” would be especially beneficial to railways as there would no need for a lift span at all and trains could cross the bridge […]

Prototype battery-powered ai???IPEMUai??i?? carries passengers for first time

Battery powered trains are evolving at a fast pace. For the Chilliwack interurbanAi?? purposes, this sort of train could operate quite well on sections of non electrified track, including the 12.5 section of shared track with the Roberts Bank Railway and the 22 km section from the Fraser river Bridge to the downtown Vancouver Central […]

Karlsruhe Revisited

Let us not forget, the birthplace of what is now called TramTrain, was in Karlsruhe Germany. When it comes to denial, the following statistic is greeted with hoots and howls of disbelief from the anti-tram crowd, yet it is the very basis for the success of TramTrain today. Ridership of the Karlsruhe-Bretton route went from […]

The Failure To Understand Modern Light Rail = Public Transit Chaos – From May 2010

The Failure To Understand Modern Light Rail = Public Transit Chaos First published in May, 2010 From, May 25, 2010 – five years later, the song remains the same. ai???Zweiai??i?? has been taken aback by the viciousness of the SkyTrain Lobby and the great lengths they have taken in discrediting the LRT, while at the […]

April First Comes Early In Vancouver

I just do not know whether to laugh or cry at this one. Business in Vancouver (who’s co-founder is one Peter Ladner, noted Vancouver politician) has printed the puff piece of puff pieces, regarding TransLink. In Zwei’s timid way and not wanting to get TransLink’s higher purposes persons in a tissy, I have made a […]

A Light (Rail) In The Piazza

A very welcomed editorial in the Delta Optimist. Slowly, ever slowly, people are beginning to realize that modern LRT is just not a transit mode, but a transit philosophy! Here lies the difference between LRT and SkyTrain; as SkyTrain or light metro is designed to give fast service between transit hubs forcing transit customers to […]

The Broadway Subway, No Value For Money

Despite a growing number of supporters, such as the business community, the City of Vancouver; most of the regional mayors, the provincial NDP and their combined sundry of shills clamouringAi?? for a SkyTrain Broadway subway, many serious questions remain unanswered. The following op-ed commentary published by The Toronto Star questions whether the concept of building […]

Some New Year’s Reading – Eric Chris’s Six Facts About Hub to Hub Transport

Eric Chris is an Australian professional engineer with a masterai??i??s degree in chemical engineering and has been living in Vancouver near UBC on the 99 B-Line route for the last 16 years.Ai?? He works in the hydrocarbon industry as a design engineer for his entire career.Ai?? His masterai??i??s thesis was on real time air dispersion […]