TransLink West Coast Express

By Yi -
The West Coast Express is a single-directional commuter train and train-bus service operated by TranLink of Metro Vancouver and the Canadian Pacific Railway.  It links Mission, Downtown Vancouver, and 6 intermediate stations with an overall transit time of 73 minutes from Mission to CP Waterfront Station.  There are 5 trains and 2 buses westbound to Vancouver in the morning, 5 buses and 5 trains eastbound throughout the afternoon and evening to Mission on weekdays.  On weekends, West Coast Express runs 3 buses each direction on Saturdays and 2 buses each direction on Sundays.  You can click on the following hyper links to see train and train-bus schedules.  Like other conventional commuter trains in North America, the West Coast Express operates in push-pull mode with locomotive(s) on one end and a cab car on the other end.


West Coast Express with an EMD F59PHI

The West Coast Express uses the same bi-level passenger coaches manufactured by Bombardier as the Metrolinx GO Transit of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.  However, unlike the GO Trains, the West Coast Express features a cappuccino bar on board.  The rail fleet of the West Coast Express consists of 37 bi-level coaches with seating capacity of 144 passengers each, 5 Electro Motive F59PHI (also used by Amtrak California, Agence métropolitaine de transport of Montréal, and etc.) and 1 MotivePower MP36PH-3C (also used by Metrolink of Los Angeles, CalTrain of San Francisco, and etc.) diesel-electric locomotives.  The rail fleet of West Coast Express is maintained by Via Rail Canada.  A virtual tour of the West Coast Express carriages can be found here.


Cab car of the WCE, with an MPI MP36PH-3C on the other end

Next week we can take a slightly more detailed look at the "big brother" of the MP36PH-3C locomotive, the MP40PH-3C of the GO Transit operated by Metrolinx.

Comments

Renae said…
Tres cool! I liked the link to the virtual tour. Makes me want to fly out to visit my brother in Vancouver and then take the train to Mission!
Jan 29, 2010, 5:18:00 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Briefly on the AAR Coupler Part 2

By -
Image
Last week, we've identified the Janney coupler and briefly looked at its elegant design. This week, let's, again, very briefly, look at the different types of Janney coupler that are widely used today. I will only talk about the head of the coupler, and ignore anything that the general public may need to trespass onto railroad property and get in a unsafe situation in order to have a good look at. As far as coupler heads are concerned, there are 3 types in used today. Type E, F, and H. Types E and F are used on freight, and H used on passenger equipment. Since the withdrawal of passenger service in North America by private railroads, the Type H standard is no longer maintained by the Association of American Railroads, a trade group formed of major freight railroads, but is under the control of the APTA, the American Public Transportation Association. Now let me introduce another term, slack. Slack is an allowed gap between two coupled up couplers. In other words, when most
Read more

Amtrak NPCU

By -
Image
The NPCU or Non-powered Control Units are control cars used by Amtrak that are modified from surplus EMD F40PH locomotives. A control car is a generic term for a non-powered railroad vehicle that can control operation of a train from the end opposite to the position of the locomotive. They can be used with diesel or electric motive power, allowing push-pull operation without the use of an additional locomotive. Control cars first appeared in the USA and France in 1960s. Trains operating with a locomotive at one end and a control car at the other do not require the locomotive to run around to the opposite end of the train when reversing direction. In the United States, most control cars are modified from retired locomotives by removing tractive equipment and adding side baggage doors and have been used on several passenger railroads. The control cars are connected through the consist of the train by standard AAR 27-wire multiple unit jumper cables. The NPCUs at Amtrak are a
Read more

SD70ACu

By Yi -
Image
After the post on the shiny rebuilt GE road power, it's only fair to have a look into what Progress Rail has to offer on their side of the table. I'm using the company's recently-changed, formal name of course. For those who are not up-to-date on the current state of North American railroading affairs, Progress Rail is the company (owned by Caterpillar) that purchased EMD a few years ago. The SD90MAC was arguably the biggest gong show in EMD's recent memory. It happened at a time when they were comfortably resting on their laurels, unaware the fateful changes that were about to occur in the locomotive market in the not-so-distant future (they got beaten badly by GE). What was supposed to be one of the most remarkable locomotives whose presence is to grace the mainlines in modern history, turned out to be an utter disaster (I'll redirect further readings to Wikipedia). As a result, today, the number of SD90s still in operation on a Class 1 Railroad is, if not id
Read more