Heads up! As mentioned in the November 2012 Buzzer, SkyBridge will be closed for maintenance from start of service until early afternoon 9:30 am on Sunday, November 18, 2012,.

SkyBridge connects Columbia Station in New Westminster with Scott Road Station in Surrey, so please plan for 10-15 minutes extra travel time to go between theses stations! During repairs, we’ll provide shuttle buses between these stations instead. Impact to the rest of the system will be very minimal.

What’s being repaired? Well, the work is taking SkyBridge to new heights. Crews will use a hydraulic jack to lift the SkyTrain track structure­—which weighs about the same as 180 vehicles—about one to 1.5cm above the columns so they can replace two bearings.

Bearings transfer weight and movement between the track and the columns beneath it. The bearings are original to SkyBridge (installed in 1992) and need to be replaced. Each new bearing is 3×3 feet in diameter and weighs about 300 pounds!

Here’s a few photos of the bearings below! Click each photo for larger versions.

The blue arrow points to the where the work is happening. There is a bearing on each side of the cross beam.

The actual bearings.