I decided to ask ChatGPT a question I once had during a job interview before being hired on at my current company:

Tell me what to do as a cyber security professional working in an industrial control network when an HMI is compromised and human safety is possibly at risk

And its immediate response was to give me this answer:

If you’re a cybersecurity professional working in an industrial control network and you suspect that an HMI (Human Machine Interface) is compromised with potential risks to human safety, it’s crucial to take immediate and systematic steps to address the situation. Here’s a general guideline:

1. Isolate the Compromised System:
   • Identify the compromised HMI system and disconnect it from the network immediately to prevent further spread of the attack.
   • If possible, isolate the compromised system physically to ensure it cannot communicate with other networked devices.
2. Notify Relevant Personnel:
   • Alert the appropriate personnel, including operations, management, and IT security teams, about the compromise.
   • Activate the incident response team and emergency procedures as outlined in your organization’s cybersecurity and safety policies.

This has me quite pissed off.

The thing that ChatGPT did here was assume that industrial control security is handled no differently than enterprise or general computing; this is dead wrong.

Industrial control involves human safety and taking an HMI out of the equation can actually make matters worse. There have been documented situations where making arbitrary decisions such as the recommended “disconnect it from the network” can trigger cascading effects or outcomes that are undesired.

Unplugging an HMI from a PLC and a control network as a whole could cause a ripple effect that puts human lives in danger. An HMI is basically a computer (but built to withstand a rugged environment) and a PLC (programmable logic controller) is the interface the HMI interacts with to make machines do things. I am simplifying things greatly here, but the point is that they’re not regular computers.

ChatGPT correctly states to notify relevant personnel, but this both fails to put this at the start and doesn’t mention someone like a plant manager or similar role. You need people who are familiar with the equipment to do things like lockout, shutdown, et cetera–in my field we call them “subject matter experts” or “SMEs”.

If I am to hear of a compromised HMI, my instinct is to talk to the person overseeing the operations first and get them to help mitigate it before even dreaming of disconnecting anything unilaterally. I do not want to be responsible for or creating increased risk for human casualties.

This scares the fuck out of me.

Mt. Baker in Washington state

As we are now in the midst of the end of life for SkyTrain’s Mark I train sets, I want to make a small confession: I am not fond of them. Sure. They’re historically important to Metro Vancouver and have made a huge contribution to improving the quality of life within the region, but I just simply don’t like riding them.

My complaint is really petty: they’re technologically advanced at their debut, but when you look at the significant improvements the trains in later generations brought, I really have a hard time caring to ride them on the regular.

Despite their iconic sound that I do happen to enjoy, they’re otherwise loud and during the summer extremely uncomfortable due to a lack of air conditioning. They also do not have the smoothest ride at their top speed. I really lament seeing one of these trains show up when they arrive.

If this upsets you, I am sorry, but this is one woman’s opinion and you’re welcome to think she’s wrong. However, if you think that they’re the first generation of SkyTrain cars, I am going to tell you that you’re mistaken and that they’re technically the second.

Let me explain

The origin of the SkyTrain system starts in Ontario. The Urban Transportation Development Corporation (UTDC) developed the Intermediate Capacity Transit System (ICTS) and were looking to sell.

The government in charge in British Columbia at the time expressed interest and after watching them operate through the test track in Kingston, Ontario, they agreed to build a system with an initial test track of BC’s own extending from a station built at Terminal and Main in Vancouver to about Cattrell Street, just over a kilometre east.

Free rides were offered to the public from what eventually became Main Street-Science World Station to a dead-end towards the east with the trains travelling the tracks hovering over Terminal Ave to their very end and then backtracking (no pun intended). The point was to show the public the technology and get people onboard with having rail transit after it being absent for two and a half decades.

The thing about the trains used on these tracks is that while they were the first to arrive in Vancouver and were branded in the original BC Social Credit-style livery, they were not trains 001-002 as seen above. The current 001-002 set you see on the SkyTrain network today are actually the second set to be delivered to Vancouver.

So what happened to the original set then?

One thing that you may notice in the above photo is that its numbered as BC1 instead of 001. Another thing you can catch are a completely different indicator lights.

That is right. It’s a completely different train.

The BC1-BC2 set was only running on the SkyTrain track for the summer of 1983. Once the demonstration period was over, the train set was sent back to Ontario and all branding was removed. The delivery of what we would eventually call the Mark I came with different trains which featured different lights and seating arrangements.

This train set was used heavily in anything showing off the train and yet it wasn’t ever meant to be a permanent resident of the SkyTrain system.

However, it did not mean it was a goodbye when it left back to its home.

It is my understanding that one of the cars from the BC1-BC2 train set returned to Metro Vancouver as TV06. The car was lengthened, given an extra door, and was tested briefly on what is now the Expo Line around 1991.

For whatever reason, TV06 never materialised as a model for the 1996 order of sets, but the 2001 order of the Mark II trains made that irrelevant anyway.

If you go out to Alstom’s (formerly Bombardier, formerly UTDC) plant in Kingston, Ontario, you can still see TV06 and the original BC1 train in a different livery floating about the test track.

Fortunately when the SkyTrain did launch, the media used photos of actual trains the system were to use, but somehow still mixed up “ALRT” and “SkyTrain” when referring to it. One day I should look into and talk about how these terms were used interchangeably.

Yesterday, I found myself outside in the -8 C cold walking with a friend through John Hendry Park, home to a Vancouver-favourite, Trout Lake.

John Hendry was a British Columbian lumber magnate who set up a mill at Trout Lake. In 1926, the land was donated to the Vancouver Park Board by his daughter, stipulating that the new park be named after his father. Good or bad, very few locals refer to it by its official name and call it “Trout Lake” due to the park’s notable feature.

So what does this have to do with the BC Electric Railway?

Today, the park sits near the Expo Line between Commercial-Broadway and Nanaimo stations. This of course means it was once served by the Central Park Line of the old BCER by way of Lakeview Station, located at where SkyTrain meets with Victoria Drive.

Lakeview is not an unremarkable station as it found itself the site of one of the worst transit disasters seen in Vancouver history.

On November 10th, 1909, BCER interurban train “Sumas” collided with a flatcar containing logs destined for an iron foundry located not far uphill at Nanaimo and 24th Avenue. The collision instantly killed 14 passengers and only spared 9.

Interestingly, the BCER did restore the car in 1910. However, when the interurbans were retired in the 1950s, Sumas was not spared.

With the interurbans being scrapped in the 1950s and the expansion of suburbia into the neighbourhood surrounding the park, the railway ceased to become active, with regular freight service terminating at what is now Joyce-Collingwood Station.

However, in 1985, SkyTrain took over that right of way and Trout Lake found itself connected via rail once again.

Recently, I learnt that train pairs 133-134 and 143-144 were sent to the scrap yard during the autumn of 2023–the first pair were retired in 2020. These trains mark the beginning of the retirement of the original Mark I SkyTrain vehicles to be replaced by the Mark V, which are presently being delivered through into 2027.

The interesting part of the retirement of these trains is that they were not part of the original 1985 sets. Trains 133-134 were delivered as part of the 1991 order and 143-144 as part of the 1996 set.

I read that the reason 133-134 were retired was due to them being in a state of irreparability, meaning that it wasn’t economical to continue the operation of these trains. Neither of these sets received a new splash of paint or upgrades as part of the fleet overhaul from a few years ago.

If you’re wondering, some of these trains did have names. 133-134 had the names “Spirit of Peace River” and “Spirt of Zeballos” respectively. The other set did not as none in that order never received any. At some point I should write about the topic of names behind some of the SkyTrain vehicles..

However, while we are retiring these trains in favour of new ones, I want to touch on a subject about when we did retire trains to the scrapyard with nothing in kind or better to take their place.

As I have written about before, the BC Electric Company retired its interurban and tram lines during the 1950s. This was part of its rail to rubber initiative to replace all rail service operated by the BCER with either diesel or electric trolley buses.

So what became of the retired trains?

Unfortunately many of the trains were scrapped in the most environmentally-sound way possible for the 1950s; stack them atop of each other under the Burrard Street Bridge and set them ablaze. Some did not suffer this fate but were repurposed into housing and storage. The tiny home craze started in the 1950s, not the 2010s.

Of the trams and interurbans which were scrapped, only so many were saved.

Three of the trams survived with one of them going to a museum in North Vancouver, another to a tramway society in Nelson (located in the British Columbian interior), and a third one is in Gastown at a factory that serves spaghetti.

The interurbans themselves were a bit more lucky as seven survived. Most of them were scattered about in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, with one of them sent to a museum in Ottawa. The odd time they still roam the original Fraser Valley Line albeit with a diesel generator behind them.

In addition to the trains being scrapped, a handful of stations survived. Both the New Westminster and Downtown Vancouver barns were spared but are no longer in use as anything resembling rail infrastructure, but the station in Chilliwack did not share that fate. Some of the intermediate stations were spared and were given to museums, but most were scrapped or left abandoned.

Vorce Station is probably the most pristine example of an intermediate station, which was rescued from the Burnaby Lake Line and is now on display at the Burnaby Village Museum.

Coming back to the present and the remaining Mark I trains, it’s hard to know what is being planned for these trains especially in light of two sets having been unceremoniously scrapped. Some really interesting ideas have been thrown about on what to do with them and one in particular I like is the idea of repurposing them into mini cafes.

If you think my idea of a coffee shop called the “Expresso Line” in honour of the Expo Line is interesting, let me know if you want to halvesies on this golden opportunity.