The first of 205 new SkyTrain cars are now on the assembly line

The first Mark V cars for SkyTrain being assembled at Alstom's factory in Quebec, Summer 2022. (TransLink)

The start of a new era for SkyTrain is just around the corner — and we’re not talking about the future line extensions this decade to Arbutus and Langley, but rather the brand new train fleet coming online.

By 2028, the entire order of 205 new generation cars, known as the Mark V, will be operational on the Expo and Millennium lines.

This is the single largest order of SkyTrain cars in history, which will also mark the beginning of the end of the era of SkyTrain’s first cars — the retirement of the oldest of the 150 Mark I cars from the 1980s and early 1990s.

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A total of 95 new cars will allow for the phased retirement of the first generation Mark I cars from the 1980s, and the remaining 110 new cars will improve overall capacity on the Expo and Millennium lines, including new capacity on the Millennium Line specifically for the Broadway Extension to Arbutus, opening in 2025.

And now, the first of the cars are now on the assembly line at the manufacturing facility in Quebec. TransLink has shared new photos of the bodies of the first cars being built by French rail giant Alstom, which acquired longtime SkyTrain car builder Bombardier Transportation in 2021.

The first Mark V cars for SkyTrain being assembled at Alstom’s factory in Quebec, Summer 2022. (TransLink)

The first of the cars, as photographed on the assembly line, are scheduled to arrive in Metro Vancouver by late 2023. If the new cars pass extensive testing, they could go into service in 2024.

TransLink secured a $723 million deal with Bombardier Transportation in late 2020 for the 205 Mark V cars, which will be configured into 41 five-car interconnected trains — the longest trains on the region’s SkyTrain network to date. The future trains will be so long that they require TransLink to make some investments in slightly extending the length of some of the station platforms.

These Mark V trains will resemble enhanced versions of the existing Mark III trains, which were introduced to the system between 2016 and 2020. But the Mark III trains are shorter, configured as four-car interconnected trains.

TransLink previously explained to Daily Hive Urbanized that the Mark IV designation is not being skipped, as it is assigned to the name of Mark III trains with minor upgrades.

Mark V SkyTrain mockup (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Based on a mockup last year, the Mark V’s new features include the introduction of more perimeter side seating to improve accessibility and capacity, new flex and standing spaces with padded leaning rails, and new LED light indicators at doorways to assist passengers who may be hard of hearing or deaf.

Like other modern train systems, the space over doorways in the interior of the cars will see the installation of a wide LCD screen — replacing the wayfinding space currently used for print network maps on the older trains, and the LED dot maps on the more recent Mark II and Mark III trains.

The LCD displays could show the real-time train location and next station information on several alternating map interfaces to provide added clarity, including a map of the entire Expo and Millennium system, and a zoomed-up map narrowing the location of the train.

The use of such LCD screens will also enable the dynamic display of current time, service interruptions, transit alerts, and potentially even news and weather information.

Mark V SkyTrain mockup (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

To accommodate the new Mark V fleet of longer trains, TransLink is performing extensive upgrades to its existing SkyTrain operations, maintenance, and train storage facilities, and constructing a new additional facility just northwest of Braid Station in Coquitlam. The new facility, named OMC 4, will have an initial storage and maintenance capacity of 145 cars, which can be expanded to an ultimate capacity of 170 cars.

OMC 4 is currently under construction on a 27-acre industrial property, and it is expected to be operational by early 2026 when much of the new Mark V fleet is expected to have arrived. The facility is being built at a cost of about $300 million, not including $83 million in land acquisition costs.

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