SOUTH KOREAN rolling stock builder Rotem has won the contract to supply trainsets for the Richmond - Airport - Vancouver automated metro, which has been named the Canada Line to mark Vancouver's role as a gateway between North America and Asia.
The 19 km line with 16 stations is being built by the InTransitBC consortium, headed by SNC-Lavalin, under a fixed-price DBOM contract awarded by TransLink's Ravco subsidiary at the end of July (RG 9.05 p523). The C$1·9bn project is scheduled for completion towards the end of 2009, ahead of Vancouver hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics.
The 20 two-car trainsets will be similar in appearance to the Bombardier MkII SkyTrain vehicles used on TransLink's Millennium Line. Each set will be 41m long and 3000mm wide, weighing 76 tonnes; top speed will be 80 km/h. A two-car set will carry 334 passengers plus four wheelchairs and two bicycles.
Services are expected to run at peak headways of 5min, with the line carrying 100000 passengers per day. Around 3·7 million passengers are expected to use the airport stations each year.
