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Vancouver Transit Lines Trips Part 2 2/7/2010

We returned to the Canada Line Olympic Village station, where there are airline boarding pass machines to make it easier for anyone going to the Vancouver International Airport. We boarded the next train to Waterfront station, stopping at Vancouver Civic Center before running to the Canada Line Waterfront station.

Our train at the Canada Line Waterfront station.

Also there was an out-of-service train. We walked upstairs into the old Canadian Pacific station and out onto the bridge to the water taxi to North Vancouver for some pictures.

Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern passenger cars across from the West Coast Express station.

Canadian Pacific knows how to throw a party in Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

We walked down to the Skytain Waterfront station and waited for a train to arrive and pick us up.

The Expo Line is the oldest line of the SkyTrain rapid transit system in the Greater Vancouver region of British Columbia. The line is owned and operated by BC Rapid Transit Company, a subsidiary of TransLink, and links the cities of Vancouver, Burnaby, New Westminster and Surrey. The Expo Line travels underground from Waterfront to Stadium-Chinatown station, mainly through the Dunsmuir Tunnel, a tunnel that had been used by the Canadian Pacific Railway to connect its mainline tracks along Burrard Inlet to its former yard on False Creek. The line is elevated from Stadium- Chinatown to New Westminster stations, except for short at-grade sections between Nanaimo and Joyce-Collingwood stations in East Vancouver, and around the SkyTrain yards at Edmonds station in Burnaby. The line travels underground for a short stretch between New Westminster and Columbia stations. Just east of Columbia is a junction where the line splits. One branch crosses the Fraser River, via the SkyBridge, and is elevated for the rest of its run through Surrey, with King George as its terminus station. The other branch continues through New Westminster, first through a tunnel and then elevated until it terminates at Production Way-University in Burnaby. From just west of Nanaimo station all the way to New Westminster station, the Expo Line follows B.C. Electric's former Central Park Line, which carried interurbans between Vancouver and New Westminster from 1890 to the early 1950's.

The Millennium Line is the second line of the SkyTrain and links the cities of Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam and Port Moody. The line was opened in 2002 and was named in recognition of the new millennium. The Millennium Line operates from VCC-Clark station in Vancouver to Lafarge Lake-Douglas station in Coquitlam. The line is elevated to Burquitlam station, where it then goes through a 1.2 mile bored tunnel to the City of Port Moody. In Port Moody, the line runs at grade level, rising to cross railway tracks. From Coquitlam Central station, the line is elevated to the terminus at Lafarge Lake-Douglas station.

We boarded this Skytrain at the Waterfront station and soon were off on the Expo Line. Underground, we stopped at Burrard and Granville, where there is a connection with the Canada Line. We entered daylight at the Stadium/Chinatown station.

The Vancouver skyline.

Science World before we stopped at Main Street/Science World station. After seeing the new Rocky Mountaineer station off to the south, we made our way to Commercial/Broadway station.

We detrained at Commercial/Broadway and walked to the connection to the Millennium Line.

We boarded the next westbound train taking one stop to the end of the line at the VCC-Clark Station and I started my new mileage on the way there.

A LED route map.

Our next station is lit up on this LED display.

Our eastbound Millennium Line train at the west end of the route at VCC-Clark station.

View along our route.

Coming back into the Commercial/Broadway station.

All the stations are lit on this LED display.

The tent-like structure is designed to keep people off the tracks at bridges.

Renfrew station.

Rupert station.

A westbound Skytrain.

Gilmore station.

A crossover.

Brentwood Town Center.

A westbound Skytrain.

View along the Millennium Line.

Holdom station.

View along the Millennium Line.

Another westbound Skytrain.

Sperling-Burnaby Lake station.

View along the Millennium Line.

A westbound Skytrain at West City Lake station.

Production Way/University station.

We passed another westbound Skytrain.

Lougheed Town Center station, the end of my new mileage for today.

Another Skytrain heading our way.

A westbound Skytrain.

Canadian Pacific interchange yard with the BNSF.

Passenger cars belonging to the British Columbia Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society.

Braid station.

BNSF and Norfolk Southern power at BNSF's New Westminster station.

Sapperton station.

The three bridges across the Fraser River at New Westminster.

A BNSF freight heads out onto the Fraser River bridge.

The junction of the Millennium and Expo Lines.

Our train at the Columbia Skytrain station. From here we walked down and back up to catch a train to King George.

Our train to King George arrived, we boarded and crossed the Fraser River on the sky bridge before making stops at Scott Road, Gateway, Surrey Central and then King George. We walked down to the ground, then back up the stairs to the westbound platform for the next train to New Westminster and dinner.

Our train at King George Skytrain station before we returned to New Westminster.

Our train crossed the impressive Skytrain bridge over the Fraser River, after which we detrained at New Westminster and walked half a block to where we would be having dinner this evening.

The old Canadian Pacific station in New Westminster is now a Keg Restaurant, one of my all-time favorite steak houses. I had the Keg Sirloin which was excellent. Soon Bob, Elizabeth and I were walking back to the Skytrain station to return to the hotel.

An outbound train at the New Westminster station.

Our train arrived and took us back to the Waterfront Station.

We returned through the old downtown Canadian Pacific station in order to reach the Canada Line, which we took two stops back to the Yaletown/Roundhouse Station where we detrained. We returned to the Quality Inn for the night and I worked on this story before calling it a night. Tomorrow, a trip behind the Royal Hudson.

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