This is what SkyTrain's new operations and maintenance centre will look like

Artistic rendering of SkyTrain's OMC4 in Coquitlam. (Charter PDI/TransLink)

For the next two years, until early 2026, SkyTrain passengers travelling through the Expo Line’s segment between Production Way-University Station and Braid Station will experience some changes that reduce service levels.

The reduced frequency pattern was originally scheduled to begin on February 10, 2024, but its start was delayed until this past weekend.

Expo Line frequencies at the three stations of Production Way-University, Lougheed Town Centre, and Braid Station are now every 12 minutes — down from every six to 10 minutes. As well, some Expo Line trains that currently terminate at Production Way-University Station will instead terminate early at Braid Station, where they will reverse direction to Waterfront Station.

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All of these years-long temporary service changes are being carried out to accommodate the major construction work for building OMC4 — SkyTrain’s new additional operations and maintenance centre, located just northwest of Braid Station in Coquitlam.

Construction is well underway at the 27-acre former industrial property at 225 North Road, and the temporary Expo Line service changes now in effect specifically accommodate the construction of flyover tracks that link OMC4 with the Expo Line’s elevated guideway. This flyover track will be built above the Canadian National railyard, which separates the Expo Line’s elevated guideway from the OMC4 site.

General layout of SkyTrain’s OMC 4 at 225 North Road, Coquitlam. (TransLink)

Artistic rendering of SkyTrain’s OMC4 in Coquitlam. (Charter PDI/TransLink)

OMC4 will consist of maintenance and repair shops, inspection spaces, train cleaning spaces, offices, and various other supporting facilities. But a significant portion of the site will be used for storing SkyTrain cars, particularly the arriving order of new generation, five-car-long Mark V trains.

This is a critical facility for accommodating the Mark V trains, with a total of 205 cars — 41 five-car-long trains — arriving through 2028. These will be the longest trains yet on the SkyTrain network, and they will be used to fully replace the old Mark I cars, provide added capacity on the Millennium Line in time for the Broadway Extension’s opening, and increase overall network capacity on the Expo Line and Millennium Line.

By its opening in 2027, OMC4 will have an initial storage and maintenance capacity of about 145 cars, which can be significantly expanded in the future.

The facility’s completion is highly timely as there will soon be a steady flow of Mark V train deliveries from Alstom’s plant in Ontario. The first new train arrived in Metro Vancouver in December 2023.

TransLink previously pegged the project cost of OMC4 to be $300 million.

Site of SkyTrain’s OMC4 at 225 North Road, Coquitlam. (Google Maps)

SkyTrain OMC4 at 225 North Road Coquitlam February 2024 construction

February 2024 construction progress on SkyTrain’s OMC4, as seen from the Expo Line. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Not including the Canada Line’s separate operations and maintenance facility near Bridgeport Station, the Expo Line and Millennium Line systems under TransLink subsidiary BC Rapid Transit Company (BCRTC) currently have three OMC facilities, and the Coquitlam project of OMC4 will provide a fourth facility.

OMC4 will be comparable to the size of the OMC1 yard just east of Edmonds Station in Burnaby. OMC2, located immediately east of OMC1, is currently the construction site of a $110-million new state-of-the-art control centre building for the Expo Line and Millennium Line.

OMC3 is a small train storage facility as part of the Evergreen Extension on the Millennium Line, located in Coquitlam just east of Inlet Centre Station.

There could be a second additional major facility South of the Fraser later this decade: OMC5. It will be built near the Langley terminus of SkyTrain Expo Line’s Surrey-Langley extension, but it will not be part of the $4-billion SkyTrain extension project. Previous estimates peg the cost of OMC5 at roughly $500 million.

OMC5 is necessary to serve both the Surrey-Langley extension and long-term overall capacity needs.

Summer 2022 construction progress on the new SkyTrain control centre building at OMC2 (left) and upgrades on OMC1 (right) to handle the future Mark V cars. (TransLink)

sany zein skytrain omc1 edmonds maintenance centre

Inside the Expo and Millennium lines’ maintenance facilities at SkyTrain’s OMC1 in Edmonds. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Moreover, both OMC4 and OMC5 will enable quicker and more cost-efficient deployment of trains, as it reduces the distance that trains have to travel to/from the trainyards.

“This points to the evolution of BCRTC from being a single-node company — the node is here at OMC1 in Edmonds — to being a multi-node company. This is one of our big transformations with the future OMC4 in Coquitlam and OMC5 in the south of the Fraser. We’ll begin to have different centres of operations where we can be much more nimble in our response to any issues that show up on the line,” Sany Zein, president and general manager of BCRTC, told Daily Hive Urbanized in a previous interview.

“OMC4 and OMC5 will more or less be the size of the original OMC1 in Edmonds. OMC4 is our catch-up depot. That’s the one we should’ve had when we previously grew the Expo Line and opened the Millennium Line and its Evergreen Extension.”

As well, at the westernmost end of the future Millennium Line extension reaching the University of British Columbia (UBC), TransLink envisions the need for a significantly sized UBC Station, not just for the expected high ridership but also for side storage tail tracks to allow for up to five trains (25 cars) to be stored overnight.

This is due to the distance of UBC Station from the nearest train storage yards at SkyTrain’s operations and maintenance centres in Coquitlam. Given the significant space required, an underground configuration for the final segment of the SkyTrain extension reaching the university appears preferable based on the preliminary planning work to date.

skytrain mark v train arrival burnaby december 2023

New Mark V SkyTrain cars arrive at TransLink’s Edmonds facility in Burnaby, December 2023. (TransLink)

skytrain mark v train arrival burnaby december 2023 3

New Mark V SkyTrain cars arrive at TransLink’s Edmonds facility in Burnaby, December 2023. (TransLink)

mark v skytrain translink test alstom kingston ontario august 2023

The first Mark V SkyTrain train being tested at Alstom’s facility in Kingston, Ontario, August 2023. (TransLink)

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