Heavy Rail, Commuter Rail, & Intercity Transportation

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

You are quite naive.

The line going towards Sqamish passes through North Van. Several stops, including one at the Seabus terminal could be added.

The line going to White Rock passes through Surrey.

And the current line could have more stops.

It is sad that you really are not understanding this. What is worse is that you are doing it on the wrong forum.

How many people only go from Norgate to Lonsdale or Scott Road to White Rock? How many stops do you want before you end up with what's basically a SkyTrain, but with all the stations completely out of the way like the Surrey Interurban proposal?

And you've still got low CBR, low frequency and low reliability to worry about.

[Tetsuo]

It's really unfortunate that the easiest passenger rail option (cost and practicality) the SRY (old interurban) has such a winding inefficient indirect route to serve Langley/Abbotsford/Surrey.

The province still holds the right to run priority passenger rail on the route.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Come to think of it, anybody know why the BCER decided on such a windy route? A Fraser Highway-like ROW would be a sure win today.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Come to think of it, anybody know why the BCER decided on such a windy route? A Fraser Highway-like ROW would be a sure win today.

I think I read somewhere that it avoided bogs and swampy land.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by officedweller

I think I read somewhere that it avoided bogs and swampy land.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Come to think of it, anybody know why the BCER decided on such a windy route? A Fraser Highway-like ROW would be a sure win today.

On Chilliwack, there used to be a lake (Sumas Lake) that required the detour south.

There are huge inclines in Surrey as you leave South Westminister- and huge inclines in Langley at Murrayville on Fraser Hwy, which the interurban had to mitigate for. There actually used to be a railway that used an alignment close to the Fraser Hwy Alignment- but it was too impractical due to inclination, and was eventually abandoned (Fraser Hwy and KGH/KGB have a ton of steep inclines). The same reason is why the BCER rail goes through White Rock, rather than Hazelmere (Hwy 15 is Shannon Rd)



Remember also, South Westminster, Cloverdale and Langley City were the first parts of the SOF region to develop.





Regarding Commuter Rail in general- I would say it's not a bad idea, but the consistent problem is bad river crossings. Having a high-speed express Diesel LRT (Tram-Train) might allow us to use the excess planned lane-room on the Pautello, though.

SRY isn't THAT windy- especially if you use the CN ROW instead to get to Chilliwack and Abbostford. It hits Cloverdale T. Center, which Skytrain nor freeways don't do (TBF, though, Cloverdale T. Center is the Edmonds of Surrey)

When I get home, I'll post a few reports I've accumulated on the subject of commuter Rail. There was one interesting one on the potential of a Commuter Rail link from Marpole to PoCo and Coq Central, done during Evergreen Line alternative studies. It was the most expensive/passenger of all the options, but it's still probably better in economics than a Marine Dr. Skytrain.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Everything is neglected. Let's build SkyTrain to the North Shore and down Hastings first; forget the 95, almost twice as many people board the SeaBus than the WCE. After those, we can most definitely consider extending to Abbotsford, or twinning the Coquitlam end of the line.

A White Rock branch might work, given a Scott Road or Newton station, but Squamish would be horrible value for money right now; Mission alone is home to more people than both towns put together.

Skytrain is not neglected in comparison to Metro Van's Commuter Rail. The WCE has remained unchanged since the 90s.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by fredinno

On Chilliwack, there used to be a lake (Sumas Lake) that required the detour south.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by fredinno

There was one interesting one on the potential of a Commuter Rail link from Marpole to PoCo and Coq Central, done during Evergreen Line alternative studies. It was the most expensive/passenger of all the options, but it's still probably better in economics than a Marine Dr. Skytrain.

Yeah, a DMU along there would be a good interim measure.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Thanks!



Yeah, a DMU along there would be a good interim measure.

Note that the study only included a Marine Dr. Section for Commuter Rail, so it wasn't entirely fair in terms of ridership/cost- not to mention it had to connect to Douglas and Coq. Central directly, so there's a ton of expensive tunneling and guideway sections that wouldn't normally be necessary. It's still $467M in costs from Braid to Douglas, compared to about double for Skytrain.


Link to the Study here, because for some reason, I actually have it at hand right now.
https://1drv.ms/b/s!AphyHYpEjmp-gqIEsMCGXICkYx_cgw

Abbostford Commuter Rail (note that LRT actually does better for some reason- and that the SRY tracks probably are worse than the CN tracks due to their greater length.) https://1drv.ms/b/s!AphyHYpEjmp-gppfDHj0aRh5Bn-7bw

Whister Commuter Rail: https://1drv.ms/b/s!AphyHYpEjmp-gppgqNk3iePL_ADtbw

[officedweller]

Thanks.
I remember the Marine Drive DMU as part of that study, but it was really an outlier to the NE Sector extension.
I think it was only studied in the event the NE Sector extension was implemented as DMU along the SE (Lougheed Highway) corridor,
in which case the DMU could be later extended westwards to the Canada Line (sort of a value-added future prospect for selecting DMU along the SE corridor).

When the NE Sector extension did not proceed as DMU in the SE corridor (it proceeded as the defunct LRT in the NW corridor), the Marine Drive DMU option was also dropped.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by fredinno

Skytrain is not neglected in comparison to Metro Van's Commuter Rail. The WCE has remained unchanged since the 90s.

Question is, does lack of service cause low ridership, or does low ridership cause lack of service? While I'm sympathetic to residents of the Highway 7 corridor, the numbers tend to support the latter.

The Broadway Subway's been on the backburner just as long. As mentioned, Surrey, Hastings and others have been waiting for relief for quite some time too. Everything needs to be built yesterday, but there's only so much funding to go around right now, and so in the grand scheme of things we'd get a whole lot more transit usage by investing a billion on a SkyTrain corridor than a billion on the WCE.

I agree entirely that light/heavy rail would suit Marine Drive better than a metro (don't think anybody's ever suggested one). I'd also point out that unless we get a final price of >$500M, Marine Drive in general is probably not at the front of the list; it can't justify a B-Line right now.

Originally Posted by fredinno

SRY isn't THAT windy- especially if you use the CN ROW instead to get to Chilliwack and Abbostford. It hits Cloverdale T. Center, which Skytrain nor freeways don't do (TBF, though, Cloverdale T. Center is the Edmonds of Surrey)

I can't think of a precedent for using two ROWs for one route. We'd likely need to lay our own track for that, or at least spend a very long time negotiating with both corporations.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Question is, does lack of service cause low ridership, or does low ridership cause lack of service? While I'm sympathetic to residents of the Highway 7 corridor, the numbers tend to support the latter.

The Broadway Subway's been on the backburner just as long. As mentioned, Surrey, Hastings and others have been waiting for relief for quite some time too. Everything needs to be built yesterday, but there's only so much funding to go around right now, and so in the grand scheme of things we'd get a whole lot more transit usage by investing a billion on a SkyTrain corridor than a billion on the WCE.

I agree entirely that light/heavy rail would suit Marine Drive better than a metro (don't think anybody's ever suggested one). I'd also point out that unless we get a final price of >$500M, Marine Drive in general is probably not at the front of the list; it can't justify a B-Line right now.



I can't think of a precedent for using two ROWs for one route. We'd likely need to lay our own track for that, or at least spend a very long time negotiating with both corporations.

According to the Evergreen Line Phase 2 report, Ridership is limited by frequency (something I can attest to the few times I used it). It actually recommends increasing the WCE frequency to 15 minutes (which it notes would divert traffic from the Evergreen).

People have suggested a Marine Dr. Skytrain- on Transit Fantasies.

Well, I mean, no one's rushing for Abbotsford anyways.

[fredinno]

I'm pretty experienced when it comes to experimenting with Commuter Rail in Vancouver. So here we go with the last 2 pages.

Originally Posted by lokyin

Regarding WCE commuter rail between Waterfront and Moody/Coquitlam to be extended to bidirectional-allday, is the entire current corridor of land owned by CP? or does CP just own their current rail track? Can we technically double/triple-track alongside the corridor for WCE? Is there room?

Similarly, could we track along CN's rail from Pacific Central outwards southeastbound?

Are there any realistic corridors for commuter rail to hit Langley so that it makes stops at local population centers at Langley, then Abbotsford, then Chilliwack? Perhaps turn south from the existing Pitt Meadows WCE station down 200th?

1. CP owns the WCE corridor. The issue is the Waterfront section, where you’d likely have to turn Waterfront Road to some sort of viaduct structure in order to have enough room.

2. Yes.

3. Yes. The SRY corridor that Zweisystem will never stop yelling about. Come on guys, it's not THAT windy.

The CN route SOF is a faster corridor with a wider corridor (mostly), but misses the Town Centers of Langley and Surrey. It’s only really good if you want to go directly to the exurbs fast.
There's also a BC Hydro ROW Alignment through Surrey, but it kind of bypasses any town centers, so
Should be ok for HSR though.
The SRY corridor should allow for only building 1 new rail (with passing rails) and still get frequencies to 15 minutes. It's not the most used railway in SOF- the mainline is CN, so even 10 minutes may be feasible.

In Phase 1, it was contemplated that single track with two-way operation would be feasible, with
passenger trains passing at stations. In order to test the feasibility of this operating
arrangement, a microsimulation was carried out to examine whether single track / two-way
operation is feasible for a range of DMU headways, 15 minutes and 10 minutes. This analysis
concluded that two-way operation is feasible with passing at every station if headways are 15
minutes or greater, but delays would be excessive and significant conflicts would be
experienced if headways are 10 minutes or less.

^From the Phase 2 Evergreen Line study
15 minutes is double the current capacity on the WCE.

3. See the studies I posted.

Originally Posted by Sheba

It's come up on here before - not everyone is trying to get to downtown Van. A SoF line could just as easily terminate at Surrey Central (aka becoming the SoF downtown). It's like saying your North Shore line MUST terminate in downtown Van.

Well, getting it to Downtown is optimal, both for Commuter Rail and Skytrain to North Shore. The ridership potential from going Downtown is not trivial.
SRY does not terminate at Surrey Central- it terminates at Scott Road. BIG difference.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Likewise, Vancouver can't be called a "major city" in the same breath as Toronto/Montreal/Europe/Asia/blah blah blah. Not enough political/economic/logistical strength to be analogous. Our league is Seattle and Portland and Calgary. I'm not seeing commuter rail to Olympia just yet, or any kind of massive rapid transit expansion like ours.



Cost. Benefit. Ratio. Seeing the difficulty of just getting funding for UBC and Langley, adding another $2-3 billion to twin an already redundant line is just wasteful. Let's spend that effort on Coq-Mission or Mission-Chilliwack or something productive.

Not yet. There are plans to get to Dupont, and it’s not that for from there to Olympia. Seattle actually has a ton of RT plans in way.

It’s not wasteful- it would connect Cloverdale T. Center and take pressure off the Expo (which has similar expected lifespan to the Canada Line due to ridership growth- and less if you can’t hit the crucial 75s headway.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Mission would be much the same; it already had 80+ percent of its population when the WCE opened. It's still growing at the same rate. The train went there because the town was big, not the other way around.

Mission has a 30% commute to Metro-Van ratio- compared to Abbotsford’s ~10%. The only explanation is Commuter Rail.

So, yes, it would help solve the housing crisis by actually making helping Abbotsford a viable suburb to Metro Van- if you can hit the speeds necessary.

Development DOES occur near WCE. Coq and PoCoq Central got a head-start with tower construction due to the WCE, and even Port Haney gets Medium Density. Otherwise, there would be no towers in Coq Central right now, without RT to support them. (OK, Evergreen Line, but few of those are actually finished- Look at Burquitlam. That's what Coq. Central would be like today without WCE)

No offense, but please be careful when talking about suburban stuff. It's a gaping hole in your perspective.

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

The line going to White Rock passes through Surrey.

And the current line could have more stops.

It is sad that you really are not understanding this. What is worse is that you are doing it on the wrong forum.

The line to White Rock is even more windy than SRY and is isolated from the population centers in North Delta and Surrey by industry, bogs, Freeways, and a hillside. It’s actually probably one of the worst corridors for Commuter Rail. Skytrain is actually probably faster <CALC?>.
Even a line going from Marpole/Marine Dr.-YVR-Steveston-GMB/Ladner-Tsawwassen is better. And there’s not even any rails on the route, only a ROW.

[BCPhil]

That 15 minute headways on a single track is for bidirectional service. I think that would be overkill. 30 minute peak direction headways seem to suffice currently, off peak I don't see why you would have to do it more often than every hour. I think you could pull that off with a minimal amount of capital investment and end up providing a very valuable, attractive and dependable service.

Positive train control really should be in place by now in Canada, but once it is, inserting passenger trains onto freight tracks will be much easier while not taking much freight time away.

[BCPhil]

Originally Posted by fredinno

The line to White Rock is even more windy than SRY and is isolated from the population centers in North Delta and Surrey by industry, bogs, Freeways, and a hillside. It’s actually probably one of the worst corridors for Commuter Rail. Skytrain is actually probably faster <CALC?>.
Even a line going from Marpole/Marine Dr.-YVR-Steveston-GMB/Ladner-Tsawwassen is better. And there’s not even any rails on the route, only a ROW.

Well, the Amtrak does it in fairly decent time. The train travels from Pacific Central to Bellingham in 1:56 minutes, the Greyhound coach does it in 2:20 minutes. Bolt bus goes to a different part of Bellingham (a closer part) in 2 hours.

During the 2010 Olympic Torch relay, the Royal Hudson went to White Rock. The next day, it returned from the White Rock pier to the Rocky Mountaineer station. I took pictures of it leaving White Rock, hopped in my car and raced to Crescent beach to take more, but I just saw the last car go by when I pulled up to where it crosses Crescent.

So off to Commercial Drive so I could get a snap of it passing through the cut.

I beat it, a steam train, by only 15 minutes in the middle of the day with minor traffic. If there was any rush hour traffic, it would have beat me into Pacific Central easily. A STEAM TRAIN!

But anyway, I have taken pictures of the Amtrak that departs Pacific Central at 5:45pm, as early as 6:55 in White Rock. So it takes the train 70 minutes at rush hour to get to THE White Rock with existing infrastructure. The same drive will take that on a good day, but up to 1:40 on a bad one.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by fredinno

3. Yes. The SRY corridor that Zweisystem will never stop yelling about. Come on guys, it's not THAT windy.

The SRY corridor should allow for only building 1 new rail (with passing rails) and still get frequencies to 15 minutes. It's not the most used railway in SOF- the mainline is CN, so even 10 minutes may be feasible.

Eh, windy enough to take an extra half-hour to Langley over the Fraser extension, despite being touted as faster.

15 minutes and 10-car trains should theoretically bring capacity up to Canada Line levels, but would the ridership match that? The FVX isn't even maxed out yet.

Originally Posted by fredinno

Not yet. There are plans to get to Dupont, and it’s not that for from there to Olympia. Seattle actually has a ton of RT plans in way.

It’s not wasteful- it would connect Cloverdale T. Center and take pressure off the Expo (which has similar expected lifespan to the Canada Line due to ridership growth- and less if you can’t hit the crucial 75s headway.

Sure. The point then was that it's not a race, and that we're not lagging behind... and swimmer was referring to twinning the Waterfront-Coquitlam stretch, by buying properties or reclaiming land if need be; all that for one track would definitely be wasteful, especially since the Evergreen makes that part a redundancy.

Originally Posted by fredinno

Mission has a 30% commute to Metro-Van ratio- compared to Abbotsford’s ~10%. The only explanation is Commuter Rail.

So, yes, it would help solve the housing crisis by actually making helping Abbotsford a viable suburb to Metro Van- if you can hit the speeds necessary.

Development DOES occur near WCE. Coq and PoCoq Central got a head-start with tower construction due to the WCE, and even Port Haney gets Medium Density. Otherwise, there would be no towers in Coq Central right now, without RT to support them. (OK, Evergreen Line, but few of those are actually finished- Look at Burquitlam. That's what Coq. Central would be like today without WCE)

No offense, but please be careful when talking about suburban stuff. It's a gaping hole in your perspective.

30% commuting into the metro, or 30% using transit? The first has a bit too many variables (Highway 7, for example) to attribute the result to one peak-hour commuter train.

I acknowledge the hole, while observing that it's the Tri-City "downtowns" that got the overhaul, not the WCE stations; one could just as easily point to the former 97 B-Line, or the Regional Centre plan. Port Haney has three or four townhouses by the station, which is good, but does not TOD make.

Already stated my support for an Abbotsford extension and Coq-Mission twinning... once the priority projects like UBC/Langley/Hastings/North Van are finished (or if it can be done as a side project). Given the relative distances, growth of Langley, and the apparent slowness of getting even SFH rezoning, I will remain skeptical about the commuter suburb part.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by BCPhil

I beat it, a steam train, by only 15 minutes in the middle of the day with minor traffic. If there was any rush hour traffic, it would have beat me into Pacific Central easily. A STEAM TRAIN!

Don't underestimate the performance of a steam engine. They didn't disappear because they were slow, they disappeared because they were expensive to run and maintain.

[Trainguy]

Super-Fast Future Trains Could Get You from Portland to Vancouver in Under Three Hours

Vancouver British Columbia - Imagine 2040.

Travelers between Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, zip along in ultrafast trains, as a newly finished trans-national system unites a vast "megaregion."

That's the vision in a new study released by the Washington State Department of Transportation.

Big-picture argument, fast trains good.

Details?

This super-preliminary study alone weighs in at 400 pages.

Some of its standout numbers:

250 MPH

Potential top speeds for trains linking the "Cascadian megaregion's" major cities.

60-90

Approximate travel time, in minutes, between Portland and Seattle on a high-speed system.

160K

New jobs high-speed rail could generate, directly and indirectly.

6M

Metric tons of CO2 emissions that could be avoided over 40 years.

3.1M

Estimated annual riders.

US$24-US$42B

Estimated system construction costs.

ALMOST ALL

Intercity air travel high-speed rail could replace in the region.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by Trainguy

Super-Fast Future Trains Could Get You from Portland to Vancouver in Under Three Hours

Vancouver British Columbia - Imagine 2040.

Travelers between Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, zip along in ultrafast trains, as a newly finished trans-national system unites a vast "megaregion."
Some of its standout numbers:

250 MPH

Potential top speeds for trains linking the "Cascadian megaregion's" major cities.

60-90

Thank you for posting this. My questions are perhaps a personal interpretation handicap, nevertheless: If it will travel at 250 mp/h, how can the top speed be 60-90? (is this in mp/h?)
Again, excuse me, I just find the numbers 'out of sync' and hard to interpret, or perhaps I've made a mistake. It sounds a wonderful concept, though, I must say.

[Migrant_Coconut]

60-90 is the travel time. An hour plus from Seattle to Portland.

[Bdawe]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Come to think of it, anybody know why the BCER decided on such a windy route? A Fraser Highway-like ROW would be a sure win today.

It's some time before 1910 and you're planning a new electric railway into the hinterland. You expect to move people, but also the goods that a city in the early-20th century inhales and exhales on a daily basis from it's immediate hinterland - vegetables, milk, fresh fruit, mail, building materials.

Now your have competition, but it's not cars and trucks, not quite yet. Those are still new and still limited. Rather, your competition is people on foot, animal haulage, and steam-trains. These have different disadvantages versus electric railways that are quite different from the fast, everywhere to everywhere transportation we expect to today from motorized road vehicles.

Obvious, electric railways are faster than human or animal power over any sustained distance. Wagaon haulage was wildly expensive, labour intensive, required expensive draft animals that require enormous amounts of food every day, and the roads are terrible. Railroads of all kinds are generally cheaper for all but the lowest volumes.

Steam railroads have some key disadvantages to electrics though. For one, they have very high operating costs, especially on the margin. An electric railway need only send one car, a steam railway has to send at least an entire steam locomotive and cars, with 4 or more workers vs 1-2 on an electric railway, hauling heavy fuel and hand-shoveling it into incredibly inefficient engines. Steam engines are slow to accelerate, and so can't stop frequently. They long and heavy and don't take curves well. And they can't climb hills for anything.

So if you're planning an electric railroad into the Fraser Valley in 1910, you could have built a straight route with limited stops and run a high speed railroad for it's time that would be wildly, wildly faster than anything that anyone had any hope of doing otherwise, serving only a narrow slice of the Fraser Valley and requiring more expensive branch lines to service key traffic sources that didn't happen to be on the mainline, and requiring heavy engineering to keep the line straight. (And they could have done it with the technology of the time. The president of the Pacific Electric in Los Angeles used to race down to Long Beach at 100 mph in his private trolley making the hour trip in 15 minutes)

Or, you could, not perceiving the imminence of the automobile, make use of the natural advantages of the electric railway (fast acceleration, low marginal operating costs, better speed on curves and better hill-climbing) to serve an undulating swath of the valley with faster, cheaper, more local, and more frequent service than anyone else could offer with the technology of the time, and you could save a bundle on engineering by just going up steep hills and around ravines and swamps while doing so. To the early 20th Century decision maker, constrained by private financing, this was the logical choice.

(that said, it is a modern advantage that the Central Park (Expo) Line was built a generation earlier, when electric railway engineers didn't know as much what they were doing, and when Vancouver was still sufficiently remote that economizing on imported wiring and rails was more of a priority while splurging on cheap local timber and earth trestles to gap the topography of a straight route was relatively more attractive)