Expo Line (TransLink)

The Expo Line is a line of SkyTrain Vancouver, the transport system of the agglomeration Metro Vancouver in Canada. The standard gauge line is 28.9 km long and has 20 stations (two underground). It was opened on January 3, 1986 with regard to the World Expo 86 and connects Vancouver with Burnaby, New Westminster and Surrey. Operator and owner of the transport company Translink. Between the stations Waterfront and Columbia, it divides the line with the Millennium Line. The trains run automatically with linear motors.

Route

The line starts at Waterfront Station on the shores of Burrard Inlet, where connection to the SeaBus ferry and the suburban rail West Coast Express is ( as of 2009 with the Canada Line ). It follows the 1.4 km long Dunsmuir Tunnel, which formerly served as a liaison to the freight depot at False Creek. This stops short of the station stage - Chinatown.

Until New Westminster the track is elevated, except for brief walk- sections between Nanaimo and Joyce in East Vancouver and at the depot Edmonds in Burnaby. It is followed by a short tunnel with the underground station Columbia. Northeast of that is the branch of the Millennium Line. After crossing the route on the 616 meter long Skybridge the Fraser River. The remaining distance to the terminus King George in Surrey is elevated. The route runs approximately on one block and is used in this area as siding, but is constructed so that the route can be extended in the future.

From a point just west of the station to the station Nanaimo Westminster follows the Expo Line of the route of the former Central Park Line, on the 1890-1954 Inter Urban ( interurban trams ) of the British Columbia Electric Railway wrong.

History

The SkyTrain was at the beginning of a demonstration project to introduce the linear motor technology in Vancouver and other cities. This was around the system Advanced Rapid Transit ( ART), the Urban Transportation Development Corporation (now in Bombardier risen ). The construction of the test track began in 1981 and were completed in early 1983. The test track was a mile long and included a single station. This had then no name is, but today Main Street - Science World.

The test section consisted of a straight section of the east of the station via the Terminal Avenue. Be reinforced during the construction of the Millennium Line had this section in order to carry the heavier trains of type MK II can. This was done by adding additional reinforced concrete beam to the pillars which support the track.

After completion of the demonstrations, construction began on the rest of the track. The end of 1985 was taken a trial run between the stations Waterfront and New Westminster, which included free rides on weekends. The scheduled time of operation began on January 3, 1986, five months before the start of the Expo 86 During this World Exhibition additional shuttle trains operated by a third track in the station Stadium - Chinatown (where a connection to the monorail at the exhibition site was ) to Waterfront Station, not far from Canada Place, the Canadian pavilion.

In 1989, the Columbia station was opened on 16 March 1990 was followed by the section on the Skybridge to Scott Road in Surrey. Its current expansion reached the Expo Line on 28 March 1994 with the extension of the station King George.