Heavy Rail, Commuter Rail, & Intercity Transportation

[ClaytonA]

Originally Posted by Kisai

There's also #4:
Amtrak acts as commuter rail south of the border. So if they cut the commuter stops out on the VAC-SEA-PDX it would also be faster.

Totally agree - it's got to be political that they have so many stops. At least due to the US PRIA monies or whatever it was called they had a trip time requirement imposed between Seattle-Portland, so they've developed new stop guidelines basically saying sorry to the White Rocks of the world that want new stops.

[twoNeurons]

Originally Posted by Kisai

Three things cause delays for the Amtrak Cascades (and usually one of these is hit with every trip)

1) Fraser River Bridge crossing, also the longest delay
2) It's not double-tracked, so the train has to sit on the siding while freight or the Amtrak Cascades train heading in the other direction passes by
3) Track Hazards. I can't name a single trip that's been absolutely flawless, but consider the geography of BC with rock/landslides, wildlife and high wind/rain and you quickly realize the only way to get "high speed" rail of any sort along the Vancouver-Seattle-Portland is to grade-separate or protect the existing rails with a lot more walls/tunnels.

There's also #4:
Amtrak acts as commuter rail south of the border. So if they cut the commuter stops out on the VAC-SEA-PDX it would also be faster.

#3 reminds me of the difference in speed that Japanese trains have. The express trains are considerable faster. The 5-stop Nozomi can do the Tokyo - Osaka run in 2:22. The 8-stop Hikari can do it in 2:53. The All-Stops Kodama does the run in 4:04. That's quite the difference.

Although part of the reason for this difference is because running at high speed exaggerates any stopping delays, what I find more interesting is the breakdown of express to non-express.

Between 6:00 and 8:03:

15 Nozomi (5 stops) 2:22
4 Hikari (8 stops) 2:53
2 Kodama ( 16 stops ) 4:04

For the VAC - SEA run we definitely wouldn't see as huge of an improvement, as the speeds are half of what the Shinkansen does, but I think that really illustrates that higher speed trains are mostly designed to be large urban center connectors... something that I don't think a lot of people understand about high speed rail. The vast majority of ridership will be between Vancouver, Seattle and Portland, with a smattering from Bellingham, Everett and Tacoma.

Great Chart from http://seattletransitblog.com/2014/07/26/amtrak-cascades-express/:


#1 - SEA – PDX
#2 - VAC – SEA
#3 - TAC – PDX

To put it in perspective, revenue from VAC - SEA ridership is 5.4x greater all the intermediate stops in between, despite there being a clear time-savings by starting from Bellingham.

SEA-PDX traffic is more than 2.5x VAC – SEA, if you're including Tacoma. But there are also twice as many trains going back and forth. It would be awesome to have a noon train between VAC and SEA.

[BCPhil]

There is work being done on the BNSF tracks in Canada. They are doing significant upgrades to the bridge over Mud bay. I think the trains will be able to transit the bridge faster, and from what I hear, they might actually be putting in another siding. They have also basically completely rebuilt all the infrastructure around the New Westminster bridge. Piece by piece they removed all the wood and put in steel and concrete. I see trains from the Skytrain doing a decent speed over the bridge. The thing slowing it down is if the Amtrak has to stop and wait for another train to clear the bridge, which I have seen. That is probably the single biggest bottleneck in BC.

Better signalling and scheduling is probably the single best improvement they can make (and most affordable). Also, they need to have full preclearance so the train doesn't even need to slow down at the border. There are also big upgrades they are doing in Washington that will have a bigger effect than anything we can do up here.

Bypassing White Rock won't save that much time, and take away from the whole scenic aspect of taking the train in the first place. The train actually travels pretty fast along the rest of the waterfront, and it slows down way more than the freight trains do in White Rock proper.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by BCPhil

Also, they need to have full preclearance so the train doesn't even need to slow down at the border.

Don't they have that already? If not, then why do they bother with that crazy metal cage they park the train in at the station on Main street?

[GoTrans]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

Don't they have that already? If not, then why do they bother with that crazy metal cage they park the train in at the station on Main street?

I think but I am not sure, but I believe you clear Canada Customs northbound in Vancouver but you still clear US Customs southbound at the border until all the details are worked out between the US and Canada. The hold up before was the Cdn Feds didn't want to pay for Cdn agents to go to Pacific station to clear the passengers. The situation with respect to southbound pre-clearance is an announcement was made but I don't think anything has been implemented yet.
Maybe a regular user of Amtrak could verify this.

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by GoTrans

I think but I am not sure, but I believe you clear Canada Customs northbound in Vancouver but you still clear US Customs southbound at the border until all the details are worked out between the US and Canada. The hold up before was the Cdn Feds didn't want to pay for Cdn agents to go to Pacific station to clear the passengers. The situation with respect to southbound pre-clearance is an announcement was made but I don't think anything has been implemented yet.
Maybe a regular user of Amtrak could verify this.

When you take the train southbound (eg to Seattle or Portland) from Vancouver. You go through customs pre-clearance (like you would at an airport) and then when the train crosses the physical border, a set of US Border agents come on board and pick up the blue customs cards and walk through the train with a bomb-sniffing device or geiger counter or something. Occasionally there are some delays when they see someone who isn't white and actually ask them questions. I've been on the train twice when they've taken people off who didn't come back on.

When you take the train northbound (eg Seattle/Portland to Vancouver), it goes straight through the border without stopping and CBSA does the border stuff at Pacific Central station.

Basically it only works the way it does because there are no additional stops on the Vancouver side. If say it stopped in White Rock itself or Surrey, then it would have to be done like the bus/car border crossing is done, with everyone getting off the train to go through customs. If they got rid of all the stops between VAC and SEA, then putting CBSA pre-clearance in Seattle would likely be viable. Otherwise you have a situation where people could smuggle things into the US/Canada from people boarding at intermediate stops.

[red-paladin]

Has there been any update on the White Rock rail re-alignment proposal?

[GoTrans]

Originally Posted by Kisai

When you take the train southbound (eg to Seattle or Portland) from Vancouver. You go through customs pre-clearance (like you would at an airport) and then when the train crosses the physical border, a set of US Border agents come on board and pick up the blue customs cards and walk through the train with a bomb-sniffing device or geiger counter or something. Occasionally there are some delays when they see someone who isn't white and actually ask them questions. I've been on the train twice when they've taken people off who didn't come back on.

When you take the train northbound (eg Seattle/Portland to Vancouver), it goes straight through the border without stopping and CBSA does the border stuff at Pacific Central station.

Basically it only works the way it does because there are no additional stops on the Vancouver side. If say it stopped in White Rock itself or Surrey, then it would have to be done like the bus/car border crossing is done, with everyone getting off the train to go through customs. If they got rid of all the stops between VAC and SEA, then putting CBSA pre-clearance in Seattle would likely be viable. Otherwise you have a situation where people could smuggle things into the US/Canada from people boarding at intermediate stops.

Thanks for the info. How long are the stops at US Customs usually? I hope they do the same thing on Amtrak's Adirondak form NYC to Mtl and extend the Vermonter to Mtl once again. All the Via Trains should be extended across the border from Windsor to Detroit with pre-clearance done in Detroit. We have made international rail travel net to impossible in North America even where there is a market.

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by GoTrans

Thanks for the info. How long are the stops at US Customs usually? I hope they do the same thing on Amtrak's Adirondak form NYC to Mtl and extend the Vermonter to Mtl once again. All the Via Trains should be extended across the border from Windsor to Detroit with pre-clearance done in Detroit. We have made international rail travel net to impossible in North America even where there is a market.

I can actually check my skype/twitter feed for this believe it or not.

Crosses the border roughly around 8am from a train that leaves at 6:30AM. It then should arrive at Bellingham around 8:32am.

Record time for that crossing, was less than 10 minutes. As mentioned before, unless they pull someone off the train, it's pretty quick because all they do is take the cards and look at the passports. They really have no reason to take someone off the train AFAIK if they went through the preclearance already, but I can't really speculate why. Just that it adds several minutes because they have to get the Amtrak employees to get their luggage.

[GoTrans]

We just need some money invested into rail by the Feds but they would rather starve the rail system and fund transit and highways because of the quantity of votes available. Unfortunately this has been government policy for decades, regardless of their political stripe.

[twoNeurons]

Originally Posted by Kisai

I can actually check my skype/twitter feed for this believe it or not.

Crosses the border roughly around 8am from a train that leaves at 6:30AM.

^^^ this. This is why improvements south of the border can only do so much. That's 33% of the travel time just to get to the border but it's only 10% of the distance. 2 hours out of 4.5 is getting to Bellingham.

While there are limited things that can be done south of the border improvements North of it has more potential to increase speed and reliability. Problem is... they're expensive.

[ssiguy]

Despite living in WR, I actually don't support the Surrey LRT. In reality it won't be any faster than a enhanced BLine system and will cost a 🞵🞵🞵🞵 load more money.

If Vancouver wants to make transit a true alternative to cars use then it will have to develop an effective suburban rail system.

Vancouver's geography is inhibiting but far less so than where the city itself is located. The city is basically at the very tip of a populated valley akin to being the tip of a long ice cream cone and everyone has to filter thru all the other parts to get to the core. It would be like Toronto's downtown being stuck out in Scarborogh and the other 7 million people having to funnel thru the entire metro area to get to that one point. This results in not only long and frustrating car commutes but also long transit commutes and the longer the commute on transit the less likely people are to take it.

A real all day two-way suburban rail system to the Valley would give people a viable option to getting to the city. The line from waterfront to Broadway to NW across the Fraser and into the Valley would serve hundreds of thousands who have few options now. It would also greatly relieve over crowding on the Expo line.

The Valley is the fast growing area of Metro and that will only continue as there is limited land in the city and inner suburbs and real estate prices push people further out into the Valley to find affordable housing.

The reason the WCE has rather low ridership and has seen very little growth in ridership over the last 15 years is that it is strictly commuter rail.............it doesn't offer any convenience for people who travel outside rush hour.

Toronto is moving towards a more suburban rail type system with it's GO trains and now has begun all day 2 way service on it's heavily used Lakeshore line as well as weekend service. Equally important is that it started buying up tracks from CN/CP a decade ago and now owns nearly 80% of all the track it travels on. In conjunction with this it has been building overpasses to make the lines completely grade separated and doubling all it's track. This leads to the ability to have more frequent trains, faster speeds, greater safety, and more reliability. It has also gotten rid of the system being dependent on the whims of freight movement.

GO rail alone already carries 218,000 passengers a day and that ridership has been soaring and ridership is expected to easily more than double within 8 years and triple by 2030. The system is transferring from commuter rail to a system more similar to a U-Bahn.

Vancouver certainly doesn't have Toronto's population shed of 9 million but conversely the location of the city at the tip of the Valley makes the system far more viable than it's smaller population would indicate.

The Valley is metro's growth centre and only true suburban rail will bring fast commutes back to the area as the SkyTrain once did when it had far less people when SkyTrain opened.

[logicbomb]

We will likely never see commuter rail in the Valley in our lifetime. We don't have the infrastructure nor ROW to build it.

Toronto/Ontario were able to buy up the CP/CN abandoned spurs, yards and mainlines; some of which were used for passenger rail back in the day so they did go through other communities.

The big issue here is that any mainlines here are heavily used by CP and CN at all hours of the day and barely touch urban centers. With port expansions, it will cost even more to run any service on these lines.

[trofirhen]

The Paris RER* is a suburban network separate, but with link points to, the Paris Métro itself. Nor is it commuter rail but uses its own purpose-built track, and under the juristiction of both SNCF and the RATP.
*Réseau Express Régional
There are five lines which branch out, providing sommuter service within the metro region. They are buit on their own tracks. Expensive, $ yes, but perhaps the kind of infrastructure that will pay for itself in the decades to come in the Vancouver metro area.


http://www.google.fr/url?source=imglandi...c&usg=AFQjCNEJZeVvBbHqd_E4TfnaRkllwkZOjQ

And the rolling stock ...Typical RER train of the system
Too big and expensive, no doubt. But it is an option to commuter rail on CP and CN track, which as logicbom points out, chokes out any real possibility
of further development. Maybe an idea worth considering, anyway.


https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/image...-v47720Le-jLKTs9IOcToys8AVPsJImb4ydAyokg

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by trofirhen

The Paris RER* is a suburban network separate, but with link points to, the Paris Métro itself. Nor is it commuter rail but uses its own purpose-built track, and under the juristiction of both SNCF and the RATP.
*Réseau Express Régional
There are five lines which branch out, providing sommuter service within the metro region. They are buit on their own tracks. Expensive, $ yes, but perhaps the kind of infrastructure that will pay for itself in the decades to come in the Vancouver metro area.

And the rolling stock ...Typical RER train of the system
Too big and expensive, no doubt. But it is an option to commuter rail on CP and CN track, which as logicbom points out, chokes out any real possibility
of further development. Maybe an idea worth considering, anyway.

I like the idea but something drastic will have to happen for it to be considered. Car is king here, and until that changes anything else is just a pipe dream.

[ssiguy]

It will require some solid action but it is something that will eventually have to take place.

Vancouver is sprawling and that will only continue and the only real space still available is further up the Valley. It is a very poor use of funds to try to keep extending SkyTrain to keep up with the sprawl. Even if they had the money it would not get near the ridership of a true suburban rail system. The further out you go, the longer your SkyTrain trip and your rapid transit doesn't seem too rapid any more. Also suburban rail would relieve stress on the already overcrowded SkyTrain.

It will have to come sooner or later but sooner would be, of course, far better. If nothing else Translink and the province should be making plans and doing all assessments needed to twin the tracks, buy ROW and building grade separations along the route.

[casper]

Originally Posted by logicbomb

We will likely never see commuter rail in the Valley in our lifetime. We don't have the infrastructure nor ROW to build it.

Toronto/Ontario were able to buy up the CP/CN abandoned spurs, yards and mainlines; some of which were used for passenger rail back in the day so they did go through other communities.

The big issue here is that any mainlines here are heavily used by CP and CN at all hours of the day and barely touch urban centers. With port expansions, it will cost even more to run any service on these lines.

What is ironic is that the province (BC Hydro) already owned most of the rail network it would need and solid it off. Not certain if it retain any rights to run passenger service on the line.

The old BC Hydro network is mostly party of SRY:
Source: SRY Rail Link

[red-paladin]

The government retains rights to run passenger trains on SRY.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Railway_of_British_Columbia#History

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by red-paladin

The government retains rights to run passenger trains on SRY.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Railway_of_British_Columbia#History

You know, I keep seeing that on every railfan's site, but I could not produce a source for it until I found the right combination of keywords...

http://www.teamstersrail.ca/TCRC_News_July_7_2009_3.htm

Rail reality grows with Hydro's revelation
Published: July 7th 2009
Source: By Brian Lewis, The Province

Advocates for establishing a light-rail passenger service in the Fraser Valley have found an ally in B.C. Hydro.

And, not surprisingly, they've also found an opponent in mighty Canadian Pacific Ltd., the railway-based corporation that many have loved to hate throughout its century-plus history.

In fact, it's the ever-present power of Canadian Pacific that led Langley Township Mayor Rick Green to issue a media release yesterday that he hopes will stop CP in its tracks.

The release announced that Langley has a letter from Hydro stating that the utility will continue to protect its historical rights to run passenger-rail service on a section of railway line it sold to CP years ago.

...

However, the 21-year-old agreement between Hydro and CP, which protected those passenger rights, only became public knowledge last April.

The rights will expire on Aug. 29, unless they're renewed at the option of either party.

...

BTW this first appeared in this thread back here

[logan5]

Originally Posted by logicbomb

We will likely never see commuter rail in the Valley in our lifetime. We don't have the infrastructure nor ROW to build it.

Toronto/Ontario were able to buy up the CP/CN abandoned spurs, yards and mainlines; some of which were used for passenger rail back in the day so they did go through other communities.

The big issue here is that any mainlines here are heavily used by CP and CN at all hours of the day and barely touch urban centers. With port expansions, it will cost even more to run any service on these lines.

All the highways running through Metro Vancouver all have a lot of open space on either side them that provide a nice big right of way for rail transit. These routes would be more ideal for commuter rail as there would be almost no street crossings, consequently much higher speeds can be maintained.

I'm getting into Zwei territory here but implementing at grade rail transit along highways would be very inexpensive compared to Skytrain. The 99 corridor for example has room for rail transit all the way up to the Oak Street bridge, then follow the Arbutus right of way into the city centre. Even 17A, going through Ladner, Tsawwassen, and on to the ferry terminal, has plenty of open space.

Since we're not building freeways on a scale similar to that of American cities, we should be building commuter rail to compensate, but we're not. If you look at European cities around the same size as Vancouver (or even smaller) they have far more extensive commuter rail lines on top of Metro lines in a lot of cases. Either start building more freeways or start building more railways. We're doing neither.