Wednesday, October 18, 2006

The Expo-Express

With a forecast of 30 million visits (which was to become a reality of over 50 million visits), Expo 67 needed efficient on-site transportation.

While the Minirail gave visitors a slower, panoramic view of Expo, the Expo-Express quickly moved large crowds to the different exhibition areas. There were 4 Expo-Express stations: Cité du Havre, Île Sainte-Hélène, Île Notre-Dame, and La Ronde.

Unlike the Metro which ran entirely underground using rubber-tire technology, the Expo-Express operated above ground and on steel wheels. The train's route was 5.7 kilometres long, and waiting time was 5 minutes on average. There were 48 cars in total, 8 sets of 6 cars each. Each train had a capacity of 1000 passengers.

The Expo-Express was the first fully automated transit system in North America. To ease the fears of certain passengers that would not want to embark on a driverless train, personnel was hired and outfitted in nice uniforms, to sit in the front cabin and do nothing at all...!

images: (1) alamedainfo.com
(2) emdx.org

(3-4) library and archives Canada

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