SkyTrain Vancouver
The Vancouver SkyTrain is a driverless, rail-bound mass transit system in the Greater Vancouver region . The first route was opened on January 3, 1986 with a view to the world exhibition Expo 86 . The name (translated sky train ) refers to the construction of the SkyTrain network, which is predominantly an elevated railway . With 48 stations and a length of 68.8 kilometers, the SkyTrain was the longest automatic transport system in the world until the Dubai Metro reached a greater length on September 9, 2011. In addition to the city center, the Expo Line and Millennium Line also provide access to the eastern suburbs of Burnaby , New Westminster and Surrey . Canada Line , which opened in 2009 with a view to the 2010 Winter Olympics , runs south from the city center to Richmond and Vancouver International Airport . The trains of the Expo Line and the Millennium Line are powered by linear motors, while trains run on the newer Canada Line with conventional drives.
Line network
| line | route | opening | length |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expo Line | Waterfront ↔ King George | 1986 | 28.6 km |
| Millennium Line | Waterfront ↔ VCC-Clark | 2002 | 22.0 km |
| Canada Line | Waterfront ↔ Richmond / YVR Airport | 2009 | 19.2 km |
The Expo Line connects Waterfront , the former Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) station, with King George Station in Surrey. In the city center, the route runs underground through the Dunsmuir Tunnel , which used to connect the CPR transcontinental railroad with the freight yard on False Creek . From the Stadium-Chinatown station , the route is elevated with the exception of short sections at ground level. After New Westminster there is a short tunnel to Columbia station . The route then crosses the Fraser River via the skybridge and reaches Surrey. There the Expo Line runs again raised to the end station. Between the stations of Nanaimo and New Westminster , the Expo Line uses the old route of the Interurban (regional tram) of the British Columbia Electric Railway, which was closed in 1954 .
The Millennium Line is a quasi-ring line. Together with the Expo Line, it travels the section between the Waterfront and Columbia . There it branches off to the north and leads to Lougheed Town Center . There it makes a big swing to the west and opens up the northern districts of Burnaby. It then crosses the trunk line at the Commercial Drive station and ends at the VCC – Clark station . The section that is not used jointly with the Expo Line is almost completely elevated.
The Canada Line begins at the Waterfront station and first runs through the tunnel to Marine Drive ; the rest of the route is elevated or at ground level, as the ground in this area is unsuitable for tunneling. After crossing the Fraser River, the route branches off at Bridgeport station . One branch leads to downtown Richmond and the other to the airport.
history
The first electric trams operated in Vancouver as early as 1890, and the route network subsequently expanded into the suburbs. From the mid-1950s, however, this was completely discontinued and replaced by diesel and trolleybuses . The last tram perverse 1958. As part of the urban development project Project 58 , the architect designed Wells Coates , the monorail mono chip Twin-Ride system . Although this draft was not implemented, it was taken up again in the 1980s. In 1971 the "Kelly Report" was published, a traffic study for the Metro Vancouver region , which among other things recommended the construction of a local rail system. The fundamental decision to build a rail-bound means of transport was made in 1975.
Vancouver was awarded the contract to host the world exhibition Expo 86 in 1980 . This accelerated the planning and construction work, as the system had to be operational by 1986. The British Columbia Rapid Transit Company (BC Transit) was based heavily on existing systems on the European continent. Among other things, design features and procedures of the Vienna subway were adopted. For example, the entrance building and the platform of the Burrard station were designed by the Austrian architectural group U-Bahn.
The Expo Line was ready in time for the World's Fair and was put into operation on January 3, 1986 between Waterfront Station and New Westminster Station . In July of the same year, work began on an extension from New Westminster to Scotts Road , which had already been decided in May 1984 . This extension, consisting of a 0.3 km long tunnel section and a viaduct stretch 2.2 km long, is used by the Skybridge , a cable-stayed bridge over the Fraser River . The extension went into operation on March 16, 1990. In the same year, construction work began on a further extension of the Expo Line. A four-kilometer stretch with three stations from Scott Road to King George was opened to traffic on March 28, 1994.
The first considerations for the Millennium Line came in 1996 in “GVRD's Livable Region Strategic Plan”, which stated that there are significant traffic flows in the Lougheed - Broadway corridor that could not be completely absorbed by diesel or trolleybuses . Only one more line of the SkyTrain could handle this volume of traffic. The competition announced in 1998 by the government of the province of British Columbia was won by a subsidiary of the SkyTrain operator TransLink , Rapid Transit Project 2000 Ltd (RTP 2000), which was founded especially for this purpose . The construction of the line also included the procurement of 60 new MK II trains from Bombardier .
Construction work on the Millennium Line began on October 14, 1999. The first section between Columbia and Braid opened on January 5, 2002 after some delays. A little more than six months later, on August 31, 2002, the section between Braid and Commercial Drive went into operation. On January 6, 2006, the extension between Commercial Drive and VCC-Clark followed .
In 1995 planning began for a third route, the Canada Line . The final decision to build the line was made at the end of 2004; construction work began in October 2005. Initially, the opening was planned for November 30, 2009, but this date could be brought forward to August 17, 2009.
Expansion and planning
The 10.9 km long Evergreen Line was completed in December 2016 . It runs from Lougheed Town Center station in Burnaby via Port Moody to Coquitlam . Contrary to the initial plans, which provided for the line to be designed as a light rail system, it was then used as an advanced rapid transit system, i.e. H. built with the same technology as the Millennium and Expo lines.
vehicles
Originally, only the 12-meter-long MK I / Mark I ( Intermediate Capacity Transit System ) ICTS cars were used on the Expo Line . These are similar to those vehicles of the Advanced Rapid Transit system used on the Scarborough Line in Toronto and the Detroit People Mover in Detroit . For the Millennium Line, Bombardier Transportation built new 18-meter articulated trains of the type MK II / Mark II , identical in construction to those of the local transport system in Kuala Lumpur .
The trains of both models run as double multiple units (i.e. either two MK I cars or one MK II unit are permanently coupled together). There are also additional intermediate cars for the MK II model, but these are only used very rarely. As a rule, the SkyTrain runs with trains made up of two double multiple units each, making a total of four cars. The trains of the different series are not operated mixed. In off-peak short two-car trains come to rush hours or at events and units of six cars used. The MK I cars are currently used primarily as amplifiers at peak times. There are currently a total of 150 MK-I and 60 MK-II vehicles.
In November 2006 the operator Translink ordered 34 MK-II vehicles with a contract volume of around 77 million euros and in May 2008 exercised an option for 14 additional vehicles. Production was taken over by the Bombardier plants in Ciudad Sahagún , Mexico and Thunder Bay in Ontario. In 2009 the 48 MK-II vehicles were delivered.
Train type MK II in the Waterfront station
MK III near the Nanaimo station of the Expo Line
MK I passenger compartment
Interior of an articulated vehicle MK II
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literature
- Bob Egby: SkyTrain, a catalyst for development . BC Transit, 1989
- WJ Hinkel, K. Driver, G. Valenta and H. Liebsch: yesterday-today-tomorrow. U-Bahn from 1863 to 2010. Schmid-Verlag, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-900607-44-3 (chapter "Vancouver")
- Tom Parkinson: SkyTrain high technology rapid transit in Vancouver (SAE) . Society of Automotive Engineers, 1989
Web links
- Official website of the operator (English)
- Vancouver SkyTrain at Urbanrail.net (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Canada Line Opens In November 2009 . In: Railway Gazette International 162. (2006 Jul.): 47. Associates Programs Source Plus , December 15, 2011.
- ↑ http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/evergreen_line Evergreen Line
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated June 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ALRT Technology Recommended for Evergreen Line
- ↑ a b Blickpunkt Tram , Issue 1/2007, p. 132
- ↑ Bombardier Advanced Rapid Transit (ART) Rail Technology Hits Major Milestone , press release on bombardier.com, May 13, 2008, accessed May 1, 2012
- ↑ TransLink: Request for Expression of Interest ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , February 10, 2012, accessed May 1, 2012
