superelevation
Active Member
Calling it light rail is really bad, given light rail in the Canadian context is something completely different. It's lead to light rail being a super diluted term.
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Montréal Transit Developments
- Thread starter Ansem
- Start date
nfitz
Superstar
Based on what's reported so far, this new Montreal light rail line to the northeast is for a lot shorter trains than you see for typical Canadian examples of light rail in Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, or Line 5 Eglinton in Toronto. While I agree it's not a great term for the central portion of the REM - this is not that. And what can you do if that's how the Caisse are branding it on their own website!
p_xavier
Active Member
Call it Canada Line like.
nfitz
Superstar
I didn't get the impression that they were looking at 3-metre wide heavy-rail trains underground.
NoahB
Active Member
Canada Line: Fully Automated, 2-car 40m trains, branched in suburbs, ~47% underground, rest is elevated, 2-minute headway, replaced a tram plan.
REM East: Fully Automated, 2-car 40m trains, branched in suburbs, ~30% underground, rest is elevated, 2-minute headway, replaced a tram plan.
The only differences are that the REM East is expected to run with thinner trains and that the downtown segment is elevated, while the Canada Line is underground in the inner suburbs/downtown and uses 3m wide trains.
I fail to see how you can't describe REM East as Canada Line-like.
drum118
Superstar
40 m trains are not the run of the mill for LRV in NA nor as a pair outside of Ottawa and Edmonton. My questions is can the stations be expanded to handle 3 40m cars trains down the road if not longer? This will be a killer if you cannot get service down to 70-90 seconds at end terminals using 2 cars system.
If the Canada Line and REM East are using the same system and equipment regardless what % is underground, its one or the other name wise for both lines, not 2. From my point of view, both lines are the same regardless of car width.
If the Canada Line and REM East are using the same system and equipment regardless what % is underground, its one or the other name wise for both lines, not 2. From my point of view, both lines are the same regardless of car width.
NoahB
Active Member
I can almost guarantee they will not be making provisions for 120m trains in REM East. I heard that the REM1 is built with provisions for a 5th car in the underground stations for future expansion. That totals about 95m. REM East probably will not have larger station boxes than REM 1.
p_xavier
Active Member
Bellechasse Bus Depot construction has started as excavation was finished about a week ago.
nfitz
Superstar
Personally, I've never observed the Canada Line at every 2-minute frequencies. I feel I've waited far long than that for a train at the airport.
Hang on - REM East is 30% underground? Somehow I'd missed that. Where?
SFO-YYZ
Active Member
Sorry, you mean the depot is completed now? Can't really tell from the pictures.
Also, on a side note, I think the Bellechasse depot is a much better use of land than TTC's new McNicoll bus depot, which just looks like a giant warehouse surrounded by an even bigger parking lot and wide boulevards. Bellechasse feels much more human scale and integrated into the neighbourhood.
KhalilHeron
Active Member
Only a branch of the Canada line goes the the airport so the frequencies there are lower from what I understand. Rem is underground through downtown and under mount royale, though it uses existing tunnels not new ones
SFO-YYZ
Active Member
REM-B stations are designed to be extended in the future for 2 train sets (4 cars). But definitely not 120 m 6-car trains.
For the purposes that it's serving, I think that's plenty, especially given that REM-B will offer redundant service parallel to parts of Orange, Blue, and Green Metro lines. Not really comparable to Canada Line given that there is very little redundancy in the Skytrain system. If Canada Line goes down, the connection to Richmond and a large part of Vancouver city core is severed. Where as if there are issues on the future REM-B, parts of Orange/Green/Blue metro lines, plus the North South Pie-IX BRT, can easily take some of that load.
Also, not sure why some keep calling it a light rail or LRT - seems really disingenuous. The designer of REM-A's Alstom Metropolis trains simply calls REM "le metro" in French. CDPQi calls it "metro leger" (light metro). Most Montrealers simply call it "le REM". Only in anglophone media do you sometimes hear the word "LRT" or "light rail" used to describe le REM.
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nfitz
Superstar
The connection to Trudeau airport is in the west, as it the tunnel to TMR. The discussion was about the proposed not-under-construction REM line to the east, that doesn't connect to the line currently being built. Which is the 30% of that that is underground?
Because the official website uses the term Light Rail - see https://rem.info/en
So it's not only the English media!
Given both "light" and "rail" are not French words, I can imagine there's a very good reason that non-English media are not using either the words "light" or "rail"!
Personally, I'm surprised the Caisse has officially branded this as "Light Rail" - but I'm also surprised that the Caisse thinks its acceptable to build an elevated railway downtown in this day and age!
KhalilHeron
Active Member
DirectionNorth
Active Member
What's wrong with elevated railroads? They can be done well (I realize they often aren't), and they're much cheaper than building underground, especially on a ROW like Rene Levesque - when I visit Montreal, I'm always surprised at how wide Rene Levesque is.