Stephen Rees's blog

The following report was written by Ian Smith and sent yesterday to RailsNorthWest a Yahoo newsgroup. He also writes for Branchline and The Sandhouse. He was kind enough to provide two photos and rewrote part of the story to be more accurate. Please note that he retains the copyright on the written material and the pictures and they should not be copied without his written permission. 

The Canada Line cars were unveiled this morning at a news conference at the OMC in Richmond.

The first surprise is that the cars do not wear the livery shown on the project billboards and publicity material.

The basic carbody is finished in brushed stainless steel, with a vinyl wrap at the outer ends. The colours take their cue from the current Canucks uniform — green and blue, with some white flashes. Quite attractive, in my opinion.

The official in charge of engineering for the operator told me this was done consciously because the cars will carry advertising wraps, which will adhere better to a flat-textured surface rather than a shiny painted one. Given that the cars are owned by the private-sector operator, InTransitBC, it should be no surprise that maximizing revenue will take priority over appearance. That said, the corporate branding on the car ends is visually very strong (whereas SkyTrain does not use the car ends for branding purposes).

There were no fleet numbers on the two cars on display, but they carried the logos of the many parties involved – the Canadian and B.C. governments, YVR, and the cities of Vancouver and Richmond.

Among the features are illuminated LED signs both outside (for the ultimate destination) and inside (for the next stop).

The larger dimensions of the cars were apparent and various people, including Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan, were quoted as saying how much better they are than SkyTrain vehicles. B.C. transport minister Kevin Falcon went on at some length about this, and it was duly picked up in the TV news reports. In Sullivan’s case, the comments came from the perspective of someone who is wheelchair-bound, and there certainly seemed to be a lot of open space for wheelchairs, bicycles and luggage.

A two-car set seats 88 but can hold 394, which gives some idea of the standing space.

The seats are upholstered in dark blue vinyl and are adequately padded.

At the “cab” ends, the seating arrangement is different from the Mark II SkyTrain cars. There is no “driver’s” seat. Instead, there is a small retractable T-shaped perch on a single leg that can be pulled down to serve as a “hostler’s” seat, and this is concealed when the lockable cover is closed over the manual control panel.

Facing the control panel and windshield, there is a double passenger seat on either side of the aisle. The passengers in the aisle seats will have a fine forward view through the large windshield, but those next to them in the seats up against the side wall will be staring directly into the bulkhead that forms the corners of the car end — and they don’t have a side window either, as this is where the front surface wraps around to join the side panels. Claustrophobes beware!

While the cars were fit for unveiling, they had not had their onboard control system fully installed, and can only be operated manually at present. The pair on display were expected to have this system installed in the coming week.

Unlike the SkyTrain cars, the Canada Line cars use conventional traction motors and will operate on a third-rail power collection system (unlike the fourth-rail system used on SkyTrain). It will be interesting to see if the Canada Line acquires a public identity of its own. Most laymen I know think of it simply as the third SkyTrain line, but perhaps the car’s larger dimensions and more spacious ambience will overcome that.

In addition the official Canada Line website has three press releases on the new cars and logo, and News1130 has small pictures including one of the car interior.

Canada Line rolling stock ii Richmond BC 2007_1129, originally uploaded by Stephen Rees.

I tried to get some pictures of the newly delivered rolling stock. The only way to do this at present is to stick a lens through the chain link fence. It looked like there are four, two-car sets at the operations and maintenance centre (River Road and Van Horne Way). I suppose I could have walked across the Oak Street Bridge, but trains wrapped up in plastic really do not make much of a subject.

According to one of the construction workers the wraps will stay on for a week or so but some kind of public event may occur before Christmas. At the time of writing nothing appears on the official web page, although usually reliable sources inform me that there will be a media event in mdi-December after the livery is applied

UPDATE Saturday December 15

There is a (very poor quality) image of the train in its new livery at the Richmond Review web page, and three press releases at the Canada Line web site which includes a cut out drawing of the new trains and a blurb on the new logo.