A couple of interesting SkyTrain ads! Photo by Alan M.
SkyTrain’s 25th anniversary celebration continues online!
After providing such a wonderful flashback to SkyTrain in 1986, Alan M has sent along some more photos of SkyTrain in its early years.
Alan’s captioned each one so as before, I will just let his words and photos speak for themselves :) Enjoy!
Just want to point out something I got a while back: a 1929 Buzzer! It actually describes the discovery of an old document showing the state of Vancouver in 1898, which the Buzzer considered hilarious ancient history. Download a PDF of the full Buzzer here to read all the details!
For background: Bob Hassan kindly sent this Buzzer along to me—it was part of his father’s collection, which Bob received when his father passed away.
I asked Bob if he could tell us a bit about his father, and Bob said that his dad was named Harold Hassan, and was born in Brandon, Manitoba in 1906. He moved to Vancouver in 1910, and spent the rest of his life here. He was interested in everything, loved to save things, and had a fantastic memory: eventually he was president of the BC Pioneers historic association. And because Harold could never drive a car because of his eyesight, that’s why he had transit items in his collection.
Bob also sent along a couple of transit tickets his father had saved: here they are!
Thanks again to Bob for sending this along! If anyone else happens to find an old Buzzer in their holdings and you don’t know what do with it, please do send it in to TransLink: just write to the attention of the Buzzer editor, 1600 – 4720 Kingsway, Burnaby, BC V5H 4N2. We love collecting this sort of thing in our archives!
Princess Diana and Prince Charles at Patterson Station. Photo dated May 6, 1986. Click for a much larger version!
Prince Charles and Princess Diana with SkyTrain car 014. Click for a much larger version!
Again, as it’s SkyTrain’s 25th anniversary this year, I’ve assembled some historic photo treats to share with you today!
We’ll kick it off with photos of Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales on the SkyTrain, as a couple of people have asked after these. Charles and Diana visited Expo in May of 1986, and rode the brand new SkyTrain from Waterfront to Patterson Station. (Then I assume they went back to Waterfront, although our records are silent on the return leg. Edit: Thomas explains in the comments that they went back to Stadium Station and disembarked there. Thanks!)
I found the photo above in the TransLink offices: Diana is walking at Patterson Station, with Prince Charles just behind her. The one at right was from the Buzzer’s Jan 20, 2006 issue, and the one below was sent in by Jennifer Siddon at SkyTrain. Also, Global Edmonton has this photo of Charles and Diana apparently heading to Waterfront Station (or does that look like a different station to you?).
Notice that car 014 is the one Diana and Charles rode in! I’m not certain there is a plaque inside it for them, but car 014 does have one for the prince and princess of Belgium, and the princess of Thailand.
I’m not sure why car 014 got to be the bearer of such prestigious guests, but next time you ride it, know that you’ve shared the same space as countless royals!
Prince Charles and Princess Diana at Patterson Station. Click for a much larger version!
The certificate given out for riding the prebuild, Main Street SkyTrain demonstration line! Scan kindly provided by Rob Chew.
SkyTrain tickets from 1983, 1986, and 1996! Scans courtesy of Rob Chew.
While I do have more video and photos lurking around, I don’t want to overlook sharing these memorabilia tidbits from the launch of SkyTrain 25 years ago!
Transit fan Rob Chew kindly shared these items with me a while back, and I think you’ll quite enjoy them.
Above, Rob scanned in the first rider’s certificate from the Main Street demonstration track. Staff also received an appreciation certificate that looks virtually identical: see the certificate here!
And of course, here are some classic tickets!
Rob sent along scans from the 1983 demonstration line, the 1986 first year of service, and the 1996 10-year anniversary. Boy, how times and prices have changed—just think of how much a movie cost way back then too!
(Also, if you’re so inclined, you can grab larger sized images of each ticket here — 1983, 1986, and 1996.)
At the end of December 2010, I posted the fantastic Going To Town 1985 SkyTrain documentary—well, since then, more classic SkyTrain video has come out of the woodwork!
My colleague Bill Knight, who you may know from the TransLink in film and TV posts, dropped by my office bearing VHS videotapes with even more tantalizing archival SkyTrain footage.
So SkyTrain’s 25th anniversary festivities continue with one of those goodies today: On Track, a video from 1983 highlighting the early development of SkyTrain! Similar to Going To Town, this video showcases the early stages of the project and the building of the early Main Street demonstration test track, which opened in 1982. And like Going to Town, the music is both amazing and epic :)
You’ll note that virtually all of the footage of the train in motion is filmed in Kingston, Ontario, where they were manufactured by the Urban Transportation Development Corporation. As well, just like Going to Town, nobody mentions the word “SkyTrain” at all: that name didn’t show up until 1985, and before that, people just called it the Vancouver Regional Rapid Transit project, or ALRT, Advanced Light Rapid Transit.
Also, here’s one bonus video: it’s b-roll footage of SkyTrain construction and the Vancouver region that was eventually shown in Going To Town! There’s no sound, but there are some amazing aerial shots of the Vancouver region in the 1980s. Enjoy!
Remember, you can check out the entire Transit History category for other posts on SkyTrain’s history and more. Happy 25th, SkyTrain!
The Going To Town article in the fall 1985 Vancouver Regional Rapid Transit Quarterly magazine. Click the picture to download the magazine PDF!
Note: I’m still on holiday until Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2011! This is a scheduled post. (Visit this post for a list of alternate TransLink contacts if you need it.)
Just in time for Christmas, here’s a huge, huge video treat for SkyTrain’s 25th anniversary!
This is Going to Town, a 30-minute documentary shot by JEM Productions for B.C. Transit in 1985. It lovingly details the construction of the line, the 1984 Main Street demonstration, and the final finished product. You can see the Expo/Millennium Line control room in all its original glory, among many other things!
The SkyTrain coverage just scratches the tip of the iceberg, however: the video has some amazing shots of Metro Vancouver in the 1980s, of people boarding the line to reach their destinations, and a guest appearance from James “Quick” Parker of the B.C. Lions.
Plus there’s a killer sax-filled soundtrack, and so many awesome fashions and haircuts that it brings tears to the eyes!
Trivia tidbit: you’ll note that nobody actually ever says “SkyTrain” in the video. The line was officially known as the “Vancouver Regional Rapid Transit Project” until December 11, 1985, when Grace McCarthy, the provincial minister responsible for B.C. Transit, announced the new SkyTrain name. Apparently months of searching by ad agencies, the government, and the public took place to find the name! For more, check out this 1985 Province article about the new name.
As well, here is the fall 1985 Vancouver Regional Rapid Transit Quarterly magazine, which has an article about Going To Town on page 12, not to mention the design philosophy behind the SkyTrain stations, a description of the guideway intrusion detectors, and construction notes on the B.C. Parkway.
It turns out there were six film crews documenting the SkyTrain during the summer! Here’s the quote.
Other productions include Running Man starring Christopher Reeve of Superman fame, Danger Bay, a half-hour weekly adventure series produced locally by the CBC for Canadian TV and the U.S. Disney channel, segments for a North American and European markets Tourism Canada series by Boardwalk Productions, and an Independent Productions Ltd. film covering transportation in British Columbia for showing at the BC Pavilion during Expo 86.
Danger Bay and SkyTrain! Two Canadian icons, together at last :)
A huge thank you to Ian Graham at SkyTrain for transferring this wondrous video to DVD for us all to enjoy! Happy holidays, everyone!
SkyTrain racing through the Expo 86 grounds. Photo by Alan M.
Note: I’m still on holiday until Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2011! This is a scheduled post. (Visit this post for a list of alternate TransLink contacts if you need it.)
In honour of SkyTrain’s 25th anniversary in December 2010/January 2011, Alan M kindly sent along some lovely photos of SkyTrain in 1986! He provided some great background on several of them so I’ve captioned them with his words—no need for me to dress them up any further :)
Our old and new trolleybuses at an event in 2007 --- you can clearly see their differing bus numbers!
For this Friday fun post, Michael Taylor-Noonan, the editor of the Transit Museum Society‘s newsletter has kindly contributed a piece on the history of bus numbering! Read on for a deep dive into the numbers we see today.
For this first guest blog, I’ve decided to write about bus numbers – not the ones on the front that tell you where your bus is headed, but the ones on the side, back and front that distinguish one bus from hundreds of identical vehicles. For years this was known as a ‘unit’ number, but now it can be called an asset number, fleet number, or bus number, depending on who you are talking to.
Another item in our 25th anniversary flashback series! Here’s a quick clip of SkyTrain zooming through the Expo 86 grounds, courtesy of the City of Vancouver Archives!
It’s a quick look at the SkyTrain during its launch year, plus about a minute of footage of the Expo grounds, including the monorail :)
This clip is an excerpt from “Expo Views” by Yaletown Productions, a video production firm whose footage was recently acquired by the City of Vancouver Archives. The item number is accession 2010-035, and the Archives currently hopes to have the full footage available online sometime in 2011.
SkyTrain bursts through a banner on its very first day in service: Dec 11, 1985!
The caption from the Quarterly magazine: Premier Bill Bennett and his wife Audrey were at the centre of throngs turning out in Vancouver, Burnaby, and New Westminster for SkyTrain launch. Photo by Ric Ernst. (Click for a much larger version!)
SkyTrain reaches a huge milestone on December 11, 2010: on this day 25 years ago, the system launched into service!
To be specific, December 11, 1985 actually marks the first day that SkyTrain entered free service—the system was launched with huge fanfare and eight non-consecutive days of free rides, before officially going into paid service on January 3, 1986.
But a launch is a launch, and December 11 is when Premier Bill Bennett cut the ribbons and declared SkyTrain open, so here we are celebrating 25 years of SkyTrain today :)
To celebrate on the blog, I have a download of the Winter 1986 edition of Vancouver Regional Rapid Transit Project Quarterly for you! It’s a glossy publication that chronicled all the stages of SkyTrain’s construction, and this edition is all about the December 11 launch and service during Expo. Grab it here:
There’s some great photos of the SkyTrain, and some fantastic facts. Did you know there was a SkyTrain time capsule at New Westminster Station, to be opened in 1985 2085? Or that SkyTrain only offered six hours of service on Sundays when it started? Plus here’s a great description of the opening days:
During eight “free-ride” days, people flocked from far and wide to ride the 22 kilometre automated rapid transit linking Vancouver, Burnaby and New Westminster. Trains were filled to beyond design capacity with people trying out the new system. Lineups, sometimes three blocks long, were seen at some stations. During these special days, the fledgling service carried 60,000 people during a nine-hour day.
We’re up to over 240,000 rides during weekdays today—how far we’ve come!
Rest assured, I’ve got more historical items to share over the upcoming weeks to celebrate 25 years of SkyTrain. But I’d love for you all to join in!
If you have any old SkyTrain items, photographs or memories to share, please send me a note at thebuzzer@translink.ca. I’d be happy to showcase them on the blog and in the print Buzzer. Don’t be shy—send in your stuff, no matter how bad your hair might look in the 80s :)
And to inspire you, here are a few past posts with more SkyTrain historical treats:
Vancouver transit ads from 1958, found at the Vancouver Archives. (Item #CVA387-4, photographed by Graphic Industries Ltd for B.C. Electric.)
I recently visited the delightful City of Vancouver Archives and with the help of the wonderful research staff, I looked through some vintage B.C. Electric pamphlets and photographs that aren’t available through their online catalogue (or at least as far as I know). I thought you’d enjoy seeing these classic ads I found—well, the ad may be classic, but the message isn’t! Aren’t the drawings fantastic, by the way?
From 1974: the rules about how to transfer between buses in Vancouver!
Michael Taylor-Noonan, editor of the Transit Museum Society newsletter, passed along this interesting tidbit from a route map published in April 1974. It describes a set of complicated rules around transferring buses!
It seems the ticket system in the 1970s allowed you to travel in one-direction only, which made for specific rules about how one could transfer without violating the one-way policy. Michael wasn’t aware of the exact details about how the system worked, but provided this basic description:
Some major cities allowed transfers only when the routes intersected, but because of the layout of Vancouver’s downtown with buses operating on parallel streets, the restrictions allowed transfers to nearby buses. Of course you couldn’t start to walk if you missed the bus, because the transfer would no longer be valid when the next bus came along.
So, over to you: can anyone shed a bit more light on the transfer system of the 1970s and how it worked, exactly? A few kind folks have provided a nice explanation of the 1990s transfer system in the past—is it similar?
People in the lineup wave while waiting at Lansdowne Station. Taken August 17, 2009.
As mentioned, in honour of Canada Line’s one-year anniversary on August 17, I’ve dug up some little-seen photos from opening day. It turns out we have a lot of photos, so I’ve posted them in four installments over the week!
This is part four, with pictures from the Lansdowne, Richmond-Brighouse, and YVR Airport Stations. (Here’s part 1, part 2, and part 3 in this series.)
Again, this is just a small sample of many: see the full gallery of photos in this Flickr set!
The lineup at Oakridge-41st for the Canada Line opening. Taken August 17, 2009.
As I’ve mentioned, in honour of Canada Line’s one-year anniversary on August 17, I’ve dug up some little-seen photos from opening day. It turns out we have a lot of photos, so I’ll be posting them in four installments over the week!
This is part three, with pictures from Oakridge-41st, Langara-49th, and Bridgeport Stations. (Here’s part 1, part 2, and part 4 in this series.)
Again, this is just a small sample of many: see the full gallery of photos in this Flickr set!
Mayor Gregor Robertson cuts the ribbon opening Broadway-City Hall Station. Taken August 17, 2009.
As mentioned yesterday, in honour of Canada Line’s one-year anniversary on August 17, I’ve dug up some little-seen photos from opening day. It turns out we have a lot of photos, so I’ll be posting them in four installments over the week!
This is part two, with pictures from the Broadway-City Hall opening ceremony, and snaps from Yaletown-Roundhouse and King Edward. (Here’s part 1, part 3, and part 4 in this series.)
As you might recall, Broadway-City Hall Station had its own opening ceremony on opening day: Vancouver city council opened the station at 12:05 p.m. that day. (Here’s the schedule and activity map from opening day!)
Again, this is just a small sample of many: see the full gallery of photos in this Flickr set!
SkyTrain is 25 years old this year! We're celebrating with classic photos, video, and more: feel free to send yours in too!
Watch Going to Town, a 1985 SkyTrain documentary
Watch On Track, a 1984 project documentary
