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
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