Carbon Emissions Are Lower for Rail – UK Study.

Interesting study from the UK comparing rail travel to plane travel. As Canadian politicians and bureaucracies are basically anti-rail, if they wish to be honest about global Warming and climate Change, this pampered group of plutocrats must have a serious discussion about passenger rail in this country, including the elimination of short haul flights. Carbon […]

Eby And The NDP Have Missed The Train

It seems Premier Eby and the NDP have been left behind at the station with this. With two railway projects that would have set BC as a leader in “Green” transportation, Premier Eby and the NDP continue to promote Greenhouse gas projects with new highway and tunnel construction: in other words, good old “rubber and […]

Stanley Park Train Fiasco – The Truth Is Not Out There

A C.P. Huntington Train, made by Chance Rides, being shipped to a customer.   The Stanley Park miniature railway fiasco demonstrates the mindset of Vancouver politicians including incompetence, hubris and dishonesty. The fact of the matter is that the Vancouver Parks Board wanted rid of the train and they let it rot until it failed […]

The Staggering cost of Subway Construction – A repost from 2019

A re-post from 2019. It seems several TransLink and City of Vancouver bureaucrats are tying the spin that subways are cheaper in the long run. Of course, they do not give firm numbers on anything! Some transit blogs seem to think that building a subway is easy peasy , costing only a little more than […]

Can A City Fall In Love With A Tram?

    Can Vancouver fall in love with trams?

User Freindliness In Berlin

In Metro Vancouver, again and again, one hears calls for the light metro system to operate 24/7. It cannot, or put in another way, it can but it would increase maintenance costs considerably and TransLink is near broke. The reason is quite simple, automatic or driverless operation. Simply, the light metro system need preventative maintenance […]

And Then There Was Six

Alas, poor SRT! I knew of it, TTC: A system of infinite cost, of most expensive fancy: It hath taken us more than thousand times; and now, how abhorred it is! My gorge rims at it. Here, it cost much money, I know not how much. Where be your new systems now? Your LIM’s so […]

The Rail Renaissance In Europe.

As Europe is rediscovering travel by rail, in Canada rail travel is treated with disdain, yet in the age of Global Warming and climate change, the train is making a strong comeback for travel. It is my contention, that when federal and provincial politicians and bureaucrats are banned from taking planes for travel under 1500 […]

Incompatible Transit – A Taxpayer’s Nightmare

I thought this would be an interesting article as we have in Vancouver two incompatible light metro systems, the Canada Line and the Expo and Millennium Lines. The Canada Line uses ROTEM built EMU’s, standard railway fare and can be used on most standard gauge electric railways. The Expo and Millennium lines use the proprietary, […]

As Preddicted, Major Switch Replacement Begins.

Mr. Cow has been bang on with his predictions of the growing cost of SkyTrain light metro expansion and the following news item certainly shows the ongoing expensive problems TransLink faces. Replacing two switches should take a weekend at most, but these are new high-speed switches, which needs a lot of engineering done to the […]