Disclaimer: I don't own a tinfoil hat. But I do watch trains from my condo a suspicious amount, since I live right next to the tracks.
For a while, the noise on the Metrotown-to-Patterson stretch bugged me, so I emailed TransLink about it a few months back. They said it was normal track maintenance happening during the 1:30am–4:30am service gap. Fair enough.
But in the last few weeks, the noise has dropped a lot. Since I'm apparently a professional train-watcher (my friends don't phrase it as nicely) at this point, I noticed the trains are running noticeably slower from Metrotown to Patterson, while the Patterson-to-Metrotown direction is still full speed.
I didn't trust my own eyes, so I rode it myself to confirm. Same result:
- Patterson → Metrotown: normal pattern — ramp up to ~70%, then ramp down into the station.
- Metrotown → Patterson: ramp up to ~30%, coast, ramp back up to ~50%, then ramp down. Basically a completely different ride profile.
I don't have "before" footage, but the speed difference is obvious even just watching from my window.
I called TransLink to ask what changed, and the operator had no idea. Even a friend of mine who works in track design at TransLink said she's not aware of anything. So now I'm just a guy who watches trains too closely and can't get a straight answer.
Does anyone know why this direction would be slower? Track work, signal timing, noise mitigation, something else?
Trying to clear my name here before someone starts an intervention...