About a month ago, TransLink launched its first four electric battery buses on a trial program on the #100 Marpole-22nd Street Station route. There are currently two bus models being trialed: New Flyer XE40, and the Novabus LFSe. These are actually not the first electric battery buses to be run on Vancouver roads. In 2017, TransLink had one demonstration bus from Build Your Dreams (BYD). I never got a chance to ride it though. Whereas the BYD had slow charging (overnight at the depot), the New Flyer and Novabus models here have fast charging at the termini. Two fast charging Continue Reading
Dennis
I am currently a software developer at A Thinking Ape Entertainment Ltd. I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a B.Sc. degree in Computer Science with the Software Engineering Option. I primarily speak Python and C# these days, but in the past I've also done Objective-C, Java and PHP.
Outside of work, I'm a volunteer on the youth ministry team at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, and also on the Canadian Ski Patrol team at Mount Seymour. I'm also an avid transit enthusiast/photographer.
SkyTrain OMC Tour
This past Wednesday I had an opportunity to tour the SkyTrain Operations and Maintenance Centre (OMC). I have been there once before back in 2010, and a lot has changed since then. First place we visited on the tour was the Control Room. The Control Room is in a restricted area on the top floor of the OMC overlooking the yard. At least eight people staff this room 24 hours a day, monitoring, responding to and resolving problems across the system. Unfortunately I wasn’t allowed to take any photos inside the room. But since the last time, most (not all) Continue Reading
Driving the Sea to Sky highway (southbound)
Last year, I uploaded a dashcam video of the Sea to Sky highway driving northbound. Here is now the video in the opposite direction on a nice summer evening.
Sea to Sky Gondola Lift Incident
On August 10, 2019 in the early morning, the haul rope on the Sea to Sky Gondola was discovered to have snapped. The gondola was not in operation at the time of the incident. I went to take some photos of the aftermath.
When making a turn, determine where you need to go
This car in front of me makes a left turn, but almost goes into the left turn lane of the opposing side. I’ve seen this happen commonly for drivers turning into roads with a lot of lanes or medians. Before initiating the turn, look where you are turning and ensure you know where you want to go.