Canadian Railroads > New West Subdivision in Vancouver

For obvious reasons, I'm unable to work my regularly scheduled Amtrak trains into and out of Vancouver these days. I was just curious if anyone around the area has an update on how construction is going between Piper and Still Creek regarding the CN adding new track and expanding the right-of-way. Thanks in advance! 

Amtk98 Wrote:
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> For obvious reasons, I'm unable to work my
> regularly scheduled Amtrak trains into and out of
> Vancouver these days. I was just curious if anyone
> around the area has an update on how construction
> is going between Piper and Still Creek regarding
> the CN adding new track and expanding the
> right-of-way. Thanks in advance! 

My last photos of the Piper to Sperling section were in early June and don't add to what's been posted here before, but I've attached one below.

Essentially, the work to date has involved clearing and preloading of the right-of-way on the compass south side of the RR West Track (using GN/BN terminology). This runs from the Piper signal bridges all the way compass west to Sperling.

In early September, while riding SkyTrain, I observed similar work in progress on the compass north side of the RR East track, beginning roughly beneath the Kensington road overpass and extending compass west toward the Douglas Highway grade crossing.

This suggests there will eventually be considerable rejigging of the track layout in the Sperling-Kensington area to facilitate transition of the additional track from the south to the north side.

The photo below was taken on June 7, looking compass west at the new right-of-way just beyond the Sperling control point. As described above, further right-of-way clearance and preloading has taken place on the other side of the tracks in the distance, just around the curve, beneath the Kensington overpass and SkyTrain guideway.

This project's objective is to provide a third track between Piper and Willingdon Junction for staging trains waiting to enter Thornton Tunnel to reach the north shore of Vancouver's harbour.  The project to double-track westward from Still Creek is separate from this, and I haven't seen any signs of work comparable to the above, although it's been a month since I was last in that area.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/09/20 23:29 by railsmith.

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Great! Thanks for the update. It'd be great to eventually have two mains from Still Creek to CN Jct. I belive that was in the plans too, given the extra traffic coming in and out of there now. It looked as though they were surveying and brush clearing in January-March.