Flashback to 1986: Join the SkyTrain team!
March 22, 2010
|In History
Flashback to 1986: Join the SkyTrain team!
March 22, 2010
|In History
A colleague at TransLink has shared some fantastic old SkyTrain brochures with me, so I’ve scanned them to share with you over the next little while—yay!
Download this first brochure in PDF form: it’s called Join the SkyTrain team!
If you can imagine, back in 1986, nobody was really familiar with how to ride SkyTrain: so “Join the SkyTrain team” was produced to show everyone how to ride the train. You’ll be familiar with most of the instructions, but man, just check out those awesome SkyTrain attendant outfits!
Whoa, are there any pics of the button that people had to press to open the doors back then?
Not in my archives! Does anyone else have a photo of the button?
the button is still om the doors of all the Mark I cars
Where is it exactly? Is it plated over now?
Where exactly is the button? And is it the same as the one used in Edmonton’s LRT system?
When SkyTrain first came out, these buttons were used to open the doors on request when the train was at a station, just like Tim said. They were on the inside and outside of the car. If nobody wanted on or off a certain car, the doors would just stay closed. I guess they took them out as the system got busier and required full automation of the doors.
That’s the first I’ve heard of pushing a button to open the doors – that’s must not have lasted too long. It’s still used in Edmonton and Calgary, but makes sense give it is either really cold outside or really hot.
I love the way the little girl is not standing behind the yellow line – in fact, she is standing too close to the platform edge.
Ah ha, I found them! The external button is that little off-white translucent thing on the door at around chest level – the plate’s around 1.5″x4″, with the button in the center still depressable!
The internal buttons have been removed, but I think they are what are now metal plates fastened on the 4 poles that are closest the doors. No other poles in the train cars have those metal plates, so I’m guessing they cover up the button mechanism that got removed. It is interesting to note that the buttons are also there on the second batch of Mk.1 cars that were ordered for the Skytrain expansion in the early 90s.
If all the doors opened at once. It meant the trains could stay on schedule better. Wouldn’t it be nice to have all pedestrians cross at once so the bus could turn. But no there is always a pedestrian who likes to cross at the last moment. The same applied to when the doors opened.
Also I remember the buttons got unreliable very easily.
And actually, upon looking closer at the “While you’re on SkyTrain” pic in the brochure, you can see a grey bulge on the pole closest to the camera at the very bottom right of the picture. That looks like the button mechanism!
Yep. It’s not much different than the request stop button on today’s buses. Only they were white.
@Tim Choi
You are correct. That was one of the buttons on the inside. There was of course 2 per door one on either pole on either side of the door.
You can still see where the internal buttons were today. There is a metal plate covering a hole at that exact spot.
Could you imagine having to push a button today. LOL.
That brochure is awesome. I like how on the map there is no Columbia Station even though they’ve marked the future Scott Road Station. (I remember once when the Skybridge was still under construction and the trains were terminating at Columbia, I was waiting for a train at Main Station and this drunk dude points at the destination sign above us reading “4-car train to Columbia”, and he asks me, “Does this train go to South America?!”)
Also, does anyone else remember way back then certain confused SkyTrain passengers pressing the yellow emergency strip when they wanted to get off the train at the next station because they thought it was like ringing the bell on the bus? Good times. :)
The interior door buttons would illuminate when pressed.
Actually, if I remember correctly (and I was told this a loooooong time ago during a trip to the control centre, like 1996), the buttons were put in as a test during the early ’90s.
I can’t recall the reason why the buttons were put in place, but I know they didn’t last too long as passengers were easily frustrated by them. Many weren’t used to the fact that now the trains had these buttons you had to press to open the doors and others were stuck in the trains because they couldn’t reach the button in time, seeing as the buttons only opened the door they were located at.
Check out this video where you can see the switches in the background and what options are available to you when the doors don’t work….
The buttons on the Mark Is are still there. When i pressed it, it doesn’t do anything.
The brochure tells you not to ask strangers if you didn’t know how to get somewhere…
Not related, but another video from youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G8epBFeRh8&feature=channel
Frederick et al:
I asked SkyTrain to confirm when the door buttons were in the Mark I cars, and it seems they were part of the original set of cars, and not installed during the 1990s.
PS: Just curious — does anyone have any actual photos of the button, besides the tiny glimpse in the first photo on this post?
whoa, i almost forgot the ticketing machines looked like that
i was always amazed by the lights and sounds it made when i was young
Ahh, the buttons! I remember those. And the ugly carpeting too. Always got really gross, really quick.
SkyTrain was fun back then.
@ Frank: Yeah, the carpeting! I’d totally forgotten about that. I think by the first year the carpet consisted of at least 50% chewing gum.
@ Reva: Yup, wasn’t it charming? Even when SkyTrain was a puppy, we all were wondering why the heck they did that to public transit.
Remember when the trains ran in twos?
LOL… Remember when the platform signs would state the length of the approaching train? “2-CAR TRAIN TO: NEW WESTMINSTER”… I can’t imagine any time of day that a 2-car train on the Expo line would be sufficient today!
Cool! Looking forward to the other brochures in the series.
Interesting that the “walk left, stand right” direction on escalators is not there, unless that was instituted later. Which leads me to ask: Will those signs be posted on escalators at Millennium and Canada Line stations?
@Reva: I can still remember two-car trains operating as late as 1991. Good luck running those again, even late at night!
When were the carpets removed from the classic Mark 1 trains and replaced with the vinyl flooring seen on them now? When I first started riding skytrain back in 1995, the Mark 1 trains already had the vinyl flooring.
Reva, Eric, two car trains are still in use. I saw two of them at the main street science world station during the olympics. However, there are only 2 of them on the system and they are Mark 11 trains.
@Ric
The carpets went out when SkyTrain opened to Scott Road in 1990… they couldn’t survive any further.. too impractical and filthy… and weren’t being installed on the second batch of Mark I trains..
Also, Mark 1 trains running in single pairs I think still existed up until SkyTrain went to King George, then they were only running late at night.. on weekends. Now the only time they occur is if train sets have to be broken up for repair.
@Ric
I saw the same 2 car Mark II trains running during the olympics. Once near Broadway, the other time as it crossed over Clark.
I’m guessing they were using those 2 car trains between Waterfront and Broadway.
Where does the act of linking together the trainsets happen? In the yard or somewhere in the middle of the system?
A friend of mine swears he saw a 2 car MK-I train during the Olympics…. could be, I’m sure I saw many more than six 6 car trains go by while lining up for the Sask Pavillion… more than the six that are supposedly in service now.
Jhenifer, good luck finding a photo of the old door switches; back in the olden days of film cameras we were much more choosy of the things we took pictures of. I googled the Detroit People Mover in hopes of finding some, but it looks like their MK-1 cars never had them. I pass this photo along anyway. http://info.detnews.com/pix/sports/2006/superbowl/saturday_scenes/7.jpg
more re the Detroit People Mover: zoom in on the trains, as the line snakes through below the skyscrapers the cars have advertising on the roofs. Many videos on YouTube as well…
http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Detroit+MI&sll=49.27016,-123.001595&sspn=0.007897,0.01929&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Detroit,+Wayne,+Michigan,+United+States&ll=42.332884,-83.046641&spn=0.008946,0.01929&t=k&z=16
@Andrew.
Train yard.
@ Ric — the two car mark ones look really cool on their own.. ah, alas.. long ago was the day when skytrain was a really quiet simple system.
Someone needs to create a SkyTrain historical website.. with the old 1983 test train, construction pictures in the 80s, audio samples of the old voice.. Karen I think her name was. So few Vancouverites were raised here or lived here during the infancy of the old SkyTrain.. and its odd to see all the changes over the years for us.. where as most people here don’t know about the goodies like door buttons, wool carpets, two car trains and sunday hours…
hint hint!
Wooaah! Flashbacks dudes! Rugs..? I remember those.
What about the orange seabus?
@Ric: Reva and I were referring to a trainset of two Mark I cars, which, if Frank is right, could have run late nights into the mid-1990s, after SkyTrain extended to King George.
Now that you bring it up, I haven’t seen a two-car Mark II train in a while…
@Eric, thankfully the 2 car MK-II trains seem to be a thing of the past, other than the Broadway short turns…. They were real sardine cans on the AM westbound M line trains.
@Don Orange Seabus http://members.shaw.ca/dave_too2/bus/Seabus.jpg
Does anyone remember doing the demonstration train in 83?
@Frank, somewhere I have the souvenir ticket…. I do have this http://members.shaw.ca/dave_too2/bus/1983_1.jpg
I do…. the tracks were worn down so much that when operation started in 1986….the trains actually ran smoother and quieter. To get the same effect throughout the line, the entire Expo line had track grinders working through the night. Track noise barriers were added later to further reduce noise to nearby residents.
I still insist on a SkyTrain historical website for us 80s people.
Google SkyTrain up and there is literally nothing from the early years in terms of photographs.. no 2 cars, no red seats, nothing… not even what Vancouver looked like when they were building it..
I have a dream!
Thank god I no longer see those 2 car Mark IIs. The 2 car Mark IIs used to be as full as a can of sardines.
It’s unclear to me how Translink assigns Skytrain service levels. Do they just count the riders that pass their Edmonds location?
As mentioned another thread… Perhaps we can short-turn high capacity trains at Broadway or Metrotown. That’s where service usually jam up with the mall and/or Millenium line. Ridership thins out East of Metrotown and can be serviced by shorter trains.
@ Frank: A SkyTrain historical website would be AWESOME. Heck, a Vancouver transit system historical website would be awesome. I have a large list of favourite sites I regularly comb for “new” old photos and other tidbits… would be great to have it all in one place! And yeah, there are very few photos out there to be found of SkyTrain in its infancy, I wonder why that is?
To add to ;-)’s comment on high capacity trains short-turning, it always seems like a waste to have coupled pairs of Mark II trains running on the Millennium line, the line never seems to need that much capacity on a single train.
It’d be neat to see 4-car Mark II/6-car Mark I trains running the Expo line and 2-car Mark II running the Millennium line, it also IMO would fit ridership better.
They need the two car mark I trains at night. They are perfect. Quaint, small, they fit the midnight ridership beautifully, and it would put less stress on the coupled 4 car pairs..
When SkyTrain was built, we had no one living here.. I kind of miss it the way it was.
@Meraki
The problem with your idea is that the trains that run on the Millennium line also run on the Expo Line in the interlined section.
So people are down at Granville in the afternoon rush hour waiting for the next train and suddenly this 2 car MK II shows up because it just happens to headed to VCC-Clark.
Meanwhile most of the people one the platform can’t get on this train. Even though most of them might only be heading to Broadway or Metrotown.
[…] to help people get used to SkyTrain — only the Flight Plan is much more in depth than the ‘Join the SkyTrain team’ leaflet from last […]
Also, the 2 car MK-II’s on the M line were insanely crowded during the peaks; leading to passups.
Frank:
I’m with you on an archive. Give me time :)
Dave2:
I’ve just realized the door buttons are clearly visible in photos inside the SkyTrain Flight Plan leaflet!
thank you jhenifer!
Hi Jhenifer, thank you for clarifying!
When were the red seats removed from the the mark 1 trains?
Why were they removed?
One more thing: How many more years can the original mark 1 trains last?
@Ric
The red seats were removed in the late 1990s, early 2000s.. due to an over amount of vandalism. They had to be replaced twice as often as the blue seats because people could take things like black markers and have a fun time doodling on the seats..
I asked someone who worked for SkyTrain and they intend on running the Mark I trains for at least 30 more years.
Ric:
The answer’s been a long time coming, but I’m told the carpet was pulled out in 1992!
Is there an answer as to what happened to the original test trains? We don’t see them on the guideway at all.. nor are they at edmons. Were they destroyed?
Look for Mk1 trains 001 and 002. I believe they were the test trains.
Don:
Long time coming for this answer too, but here it is.
What happened to the paint job on the front of the old Mark I trains? Around the lights and the front step used to be white, and then it was painted over in red… like the rest of the front of the trains.. what happened?
When did SkyTrain STOP using two-car mark I trains for revenue service?
Are Mark 1 trains still in production?
How many more years can the original mark 1 trains last? I wish that they will stay in service forever as classics must stay.
Carl:
It seems that 1988 was when we stopped using 2-car Mark I trains. For a history of Skytrain lengths, see this comment in an earlier post.
what about the skytrain paint job… the old trains no longer have their happy faces.. :(
Ric:
Here is the answer from SkyTrain.
Arnold:
Here at last is the answer from SkyTrain to your question, as well!
Sorry to contribute to the interesting geekiness on here… but when did Main Street Station add the Science World part to its name? Are the rest of the stations on the old line going to get a signage upgrade like you see at Waterfront, Broadway.. and I think.. umm, Columbia?
Also.. whatever happened to the idea of Woodlands Station? I am kind of curious, I stumbled upon it being proposed as a future station on some of the old maps…
Jhen, if it will cost less to overhaul the mark 1 trains than replace them with new ones, why don’t they just overhaul them?
Jhen, the previous comment was posted by me. Sorry that I forgot to put in my name.
Ric: it all comes down to money. We may know how much it costs, but if we don’t have the money to cover it, we can’t actually do the work!
Ellie:
Main Street Station was renamed to Main Street-Science World in 1990 — here’s the Sept 21, 1990 Buzzer announcing the name change.
The new wayfinding signage at the downtown Vancouver stations and some of the Richmond stations is eventually planned for the whole system. However, getting this done requires funding, and we are a bit stretched at the moment!
and woodlands station? I think its still an idea.. right?
Woodlands Station was a proposed Millennium Line Station, but didn’t get built because an adjoining development never came to fruition.
I guess theoretically we could put it in for the future, but I haven’t heard any rumblings at all about that happening!
You can find a bit more information about Woodlands in this blog post at WhattheHelvetica as well.
I would like the idea of the woodland station skytrains-123
Man, I love those attendant outfits. I remember them. When were they changed? They are so.. actually, quite classy. SkyTrain in its early years looked so professional.
Someone needs to overhaul SkyTrain’s official website… the gallery doesn’t work, nor does half of the rest of the website.. its not very functional at all.
Anonymous: I seem to recall seeing a 1990 Buzzer saying that the SkyTrain outfits have changed. You may want to check our Buzzer PDF archive to research it out a bit more.
Gotta love the hair back then! Hard to believe its been almost a full quarter century since Expo, and SkyTrain is actually still running. Those computers have to be pretty vintage by now eh?
[…] Flashback to 1986: Join the SkyTrain team! […]
[…] can catch a glimpse of the old uniforms and interiors in this old SkyTrain riders’ pamphlet […]
Jhenifer…
When was the seating arrangement in the old trains reconfigured? If you look at photos of the trains around Expo, there seems to be more seats and less handle bars/ceiling railings in the trains than there are now.. why was this done, and when?
It’s been discussed a few times now….
Seating arrangements on the original trains never changed. Seating arrangements have evolved on the newer trains. Handle bars were double near the doors to allow for more standing in 1.5. Bench seats were replaced by doubles for more privacy in Mark 2. Mark 2.5 has more single seats to bring back more capacity for standee’s. Canada Line trains are designed wider for more standee’s.
I hope that if they buy more cars for the Canada Line, then they will make them all have no seats. I’m under the impression that they will buy middle cars, to make 3 car trains. Since those cars will probably be smaller, they might as well not have any seats except near the accordions. Also, once the Canada Line is filled to capacity, then that will be it for the Canada Line. They might as well “jam” as many people in as possible.
I hope that they will do likewise for any middle cars on the other lines.
I prefer what they did on Expo line… More trains at higher frequency. The Richmond segment is brutal after 6pm when every second train detours to the airport.
Re: ;-)
No, they have changed. On the left hand side of the ends of each train, there used to be double seating on both sides and no upper handle bar. They removed seats and added handle bars at the top.
Ooops, OK I see what you’re referring to with the picture at top.
The Canada Line station announcement system should be better done! It gives NO transfer information when it terminates at Waterfront Station, 41st Ave and 49th Ave Stations are missing the “Avenue” part, there is no chime before the station is announced… people seem to tune in more carefully when a chime is there.. or they miss their stop, I’ve heard this a few times from fellow passengers… and the voice is a tad too cheery… not calm, it sounds like she’s in a rush.
Please, whoever is in charge, have the announcements either re-done or fine tuned…
Hey any idea if those souvenir tickets they gave out pre expo are worth anything??