I’ve just had a fairly lengthy conversation with one of the customer service representatives for West Coast Express (WCE). That’s one of the people who are in that office that’s tucked away on the 2nd floor of Waterfront Station that so many people aren’t really aware of, as opposed to someone at TransLink itself. The conversation was about the numerous delays there have been on the service for the past couple of weeks, pretty much all caused by Canadian Pacific (CP) freight traffic.
Just to illustrate, this is how many times that I’ve been affected (WB = westbound into downtown Vancouver, EB = eastbound towards Mission):
- Nov 17 (Thu) EB Train 1
- Nov 18 (Fri) EB Train 1
- Nov 21 (Mon) EB Train 1
- Nov 22 (Tue) EB Train 1
- Nov 23 (Wed) WB Train 2
- Nov 23 (Wed) EB Train 1
- Nov 24 (Thu) EB Train 1
- Nov 28 (Mon) EB Train 1
All the above delays have been in the region of 25-35 minutes late. This is the worst level of service that has been seen since the few months leading up to May 2015.
The recent delays all have been related to freight traffic on the track where the commuter service runs. Freight trains run a lot slower than the commuter rail, so if a commuter service gets stuck behind freight a track section or two ahead, a significant delay can build up.
So, what are the reasons for these recent delays? Some people on Twitter have speculated it’s the result of another contract negotiation between TransLink and CP Rail. That isn’t the case apparently, as the contract signed in November 2015 is a multi-year deal and we’re barely a year past that.
It seems that it may be a couple of things. We’re approaching Christmas, and there are a lot of container ships waiting in English Bay for their chance to get into the Port of Vancouver to unload their cargo – which is then mostly transferred onto rail cars to be sent back east across Canada. The other reason is to do with grain shipments – apparently a good harvest – which needs to be shipped out of the Port of Vancouver before a certain date. Both of these issues results in more freight trains vying for track time.
There’s another little wrinkle which was let slip in this conversation. In the previous contract, WCE was guaranteed a two hour clear window of track time where nothing should be sent by CP onto the track being used. In the new contract, it doesn’t sound like this provision is in place anymore. In other words, there is no more margin for error if there is a freight problem before and during the times the commuter rail service operates.
One of the biggest complaints there has been during these recent delays is the lack of timely communication from TransLink. Even when I’ve tweeted about problems happening at a particular moment on a train, because I’m on that train and relaying what the conductor has just said over the PA system, it takes TransLink a long time to acknowledge there’s a problem and send out a confirming tweet or an email/SMS update. Something to understand is that the WCE office is nowhere near the TransLink office, and isn’t really even connected with it. If you file a customer service issue on TransLink’s website, it doesn’t go straight to somewhere the WCE staff can see it – TransLink has to forward it over to them. The same seems to be true for communication on service issues. The people handling service notifications at TransLink need to get updates of what is going on in order to push them out. The people at WCE do have screens that show the rail traffic between downtown Vancouver and Mission, so can see very clearly what traffic might impact the commuter service. They do also contact CP if they see something that might to find out if it will or not. But it seems that there is some kind of communication problem between WCE and TransLink – specifically where, I could not say.
The last thing to mention is the issue of compensation for all the recent delays. Back in May 2015, prior to the Compass system fully being rolled out, this was possible; you could go into the WCE customer service office and they would re-issue a 28 day pass with a few extra days on it. Now that Compass is in place, this is no longer possible due to all the passes now being calendar month based. That method of doing monthly passes really is one of the greatest ways to screw the passenger by no longer making it possible to add extra days to a pass. Apparently, due to complaints from WCE riders who didn’t quite understand the 28 day pass, this was factored into the reasoning to no longer provide that option once Compass came in. The best I managed to get for ‘compensation’ was a travel mug and a few vouchers for free beverages from the coffee service on the Waterfront platform and on the trains.
So what can we, as commuters, do? Filing service complaints with TransLink only goes so far. Another option that was suggested was to contact my city’s (in my case, Maple Ridge) council or mayor’s office and register complaints with them. That way CP aren’t just getting complaints from TransLink, but also the cities, and potentially even the Mayors’ Council.
