London Tube and bus fares going up – From the Independant. Looks like TransLink isn’t alone with its financial woes

Some overseas news. Transport for London is increasing fares for the TUBE by 8% as Transport for London is facing a financial crisis on a far grater scale than our TransLink. What this shows, in part, is that maintaining a large metro network is very expensive, due to many factors including wages, maintenance and renewals […]

Train crashes into car in Nanaimo: Another example of a car driver ignoring the dangers of a railway level crossings

Here we have another sad example of a motorist ignoring railway signals and driving into the path of a passenger train, with tragic results. Rail For The Valley must deal with two issues before the reinstatement of the interurban. 1) Before any interurban or streetcar service is to begin in BC, a complete review and […]

The Stadler GTW – A new generation of Diesel light rail.

The Stadler GTW Diesel light Rail car The Stadler GTW, sold by Stadler Rail, Switzerland, is one of the best-selling articulated local transport railcars in Europe. The name GTW stands for Gelenktriebwagen (articulated railcar). Description More precisely, Stadler GTW is actually a whole family of vehicles which differ externally, in the various designs of the […]

December 2019 – The UBCLiner: Chilliwack to UBC – the 6 am through service.

The following is a short tome on a student’s Monday morning commute from Chilliwack to UBC, via the interurban and the Broadway streetcar line and illustrates what can be realistically achieved with light-rail, for a fraction of the cost of a SkyTrain subway to UBC. The longest tramtrain route on Karlsruhe’s famous Zweisystem is 210km. […]

To UBC, from BCIT and Picinics in the Park, by tram – The Light Rail Committee’s Broadway Light Rail Project

A Wee Bit Of Local History InAi??Ai??early 1996, during BC Transit’s meaningless public consultation period for the Broadway Lougheed Rapid Transit Project which later morphed into the Millennium Line,Ai??Ai??Zweisystem received a phone call from an European Transit specialist, who worked for Asea Brown Boverai (later absorbed by Bombardier Inc.)Ai??Ai??regarding the project. The European transit specialist, […]

From the ‘Other’ Vancouver – The Vancouver Columbian "All aboard!’ in Dallas, Seattle, Portland"

ItAi??Ai??seems light-rail is very well spoken of in the other ‘Vancouver‘ (Vancouver Washington State) and one wishes that our local media types would write a few positive things about the worlds most built public transit mode. One would also hope that the mainstream media would entertain a few investigative reports on our light-metro system instead […]

From the North Shore News – No light at end of TransLink funding tunnel

Well Zweisystem isn’t the only oneAi??Ai??waving a red flag about TransLink and transit funding in the region. It seems the transit alarm bells are sounding on the North Shore, as more and more taxpayers are saying no to increased funding to TransLink. This is tragic, but predictable, where senior politicians with out any meaningful public […]

French Delights part 5 – Paris’s TramTrain Line T-4. Could this be a template for TramTrain in the Tri-Cities at $11 million per kilometre?

Ai?? In November 2006, Paris transit authorities openedAi??Ai??a new tram-train line (T4) running from Aulnay-sous-Bois to Bondy (right side of Seine river),Ai??Ai??using the tracks of anAi??Ai??old life expiredAi??Ai??suburban railway (Coquetiers Line), with old and noisy rolling stock.Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Even though the old suburban line hadAi??Ai??14 level crossings,Ai??Ai??it was still important for the connection with Paris center. The […]

A letter to the Editor in the Tri-Cities news – TransLink is broke and broken

The Editor, TransLink is broke and the reasons are easy to understand. TransLink operates light metro (in the guise of SkyTrain and the Canada Line) on routes that do not have the ridership to support them. SkyTrain is subsidized by more than $230 million annually and to date more than $8 billion has been spent […]

French Delights – Part 4: Le Mans Trams for small cities.

Le Mans, with a population of 150,000 and an urban population of 300,000Ai??Ai??(with a density of 2,806 per km/2), opened its first tram line on 17 November 2007. The north-southAi??Ai??route, about 15 km long, serves the city center and the railway station, besides other majorAi??Ai??urbanAi??Ai??transit destinations including theAi??Ai??university and the mainAi??Ai??hospital. An eastern branch-line joins […]