New Jersey’s River Line

New Jersey’s River Line, using diesel light rail TramTrains, enables to provide a quality transit service on a predominantly single track rail line. The River Line could be a template for several rail services, both in metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island, track-sharing with lightly used freight lines.

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 […]

Karlsruhe’s longest tramtrain route – The 210 km Route S4

Classic single track TramTrain operation through a rural village. I am updating this post due to a series of recent posts on Facebook and other transit oriented blogs. Karlsruhe’s TramTrain 210 km route S-4 travels through the sparely populated Schwarzwald or Black forest region of Southern Germany. There are no musings about “not enough density” […]

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 […]

More SkyTrain “Puff “Stories From the Vancouver Sun

The Vancouver Sun is famous for its ‘puff’” stories about SkyTrain but with each “puff” story comes little slips and new information. 870 employees seems a lot for a “driverless” system, which was sold to the public that it had fewer employees, thus cheaper to operate than light rail. Somewhat inconveniently, SkyTrain costs about 40% […]

Montreal, Quebec – op-ed: death of Canadian light metro ??

An interesting read. Why would Quebec’s Caisse de dAi??pA?t et placement du QuAi??bec, invest in the obsolete SkyTrain? Could the real reason be to help Bombardier out of its aerospace financial embarrassment, by buying ART? At the current rate, the proposed 67 km Montreal ART light-metro system will cost well over $8 billion or more […]

Now do you beleive Zwei!

Zwei has stated over and over again, one modern tram and tram driver is as efficient as six to eight buses and six to eight bus drivers and for every tram or bus operated one needs a minimum of four people to drive, maintain and manage them. As wages account for 70% or more of […]

PyrAi??nAi??es Line Reopens – How About The Same Quality of Servcie to Chilliwack?

Interesting news from France. The cost to reopen this 25 km line, which was derelict for thirty-six years, was ai??i??102 million or CAD $146.5 million or put another way the cost to do the same with the former Vancouver to Chilliwack interurban line, which is still functioning for S.R.R. of B.C. freight traffic would be […]

Letters from Rail for the Valley folk

Two letters from people who support, Rail for the Valley and improving transit South of the Fraser Users and taxpayers lose with regional transit plan Delta Optimist June 29, 2016 Editor: The recent $740 million photo-op with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, his protAi??gAi?? for the next federal election, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, and B.C.’s premier, […]

TransLink Vindictive & Incompetent? You Decide

Almost same thing happened to my wife who forgot her Compass Card at work only it cost her a big fine. Hell of a way to keep your customer base. User friendly, TransLink is most definitely not. The student had a valid U-Pass, TransLink get over it; there are over 130,000 issued this year. It […]