How the 'ding dang dong' of Vancouver's SkyTrain became its signature sound

During its heyday, Vancouver's Little Mountain Sound Studios was a hit factory, a place where rock acts like AC/DC, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi and Bryan Adams recorded songs that helped define '80s music.  

It was also the birthplace of a small piece of music that has had as much staying power as those '80s stalwarts: the SkyTrain chime, a three-note signal that tells passengers the train doors are about to close. 

According to Ian Fisher, manager of operations planning at B.C. Rapid Transit Company, the chime was the product of a jam session of sorts between Ian Graham, his predecessor in the job, and Little Mountain sound engineer Murray Price back in 1985. 

"They went through a whole bunch of different sound options," Fisher said. "They wanted something that sounded a little bit natural but also modern to take advantage of the digital playback technology that was new at the time, so you could have something that sounded a bit more realistic than say a buzzer or some other mechanical sound on the train."

The final result was a sequence of three ascending notes played on a Yamaha DX7, the digital synthesizer that was ubiquitous in the '80s.

According to Fisher, Price said he tried to make the chime sound like the opening notes of composer Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man.

Nearly four decades later, the chime has become inextricably linked to the region's transit system, so much so that TransLink trademarked it. "SkyTrain Door Closing Chimes" is in the Canadian Trademarks Database, including a graphic that describes the sound as "ding dang dong."

Chime waits for no one

The chime is part of a sound infrastructure that tries to have passengers board and leave the driverless trains as smoothly as possible.  

Around 25 to 30 seconds before a train arrives at a station, a single chime sounds followed by the voice of Laureen Regan announcing the name of the next station. 

Train doors are open anywhere from 12 to 35 seconds, depending on the station and the time of day. The three-note chime sounds when the doors are about to close. 

"On the older trains, the door starts closing at the same moment that the chime starts pretty much," Fisher said. "The newer trains we've got a bit of a delay in there. So once all the trains are replaced ... we'll see a bit more of a warning there."

SkyTrain construction began 40 years ago

Construction of the SkyTrain system began 40 years ago on March 1, 1982. Premier Bill Bennett donned a hardhat at a ground-breaking ceremony on Main Street and Terminal Avenue, the current site of the Main Street–Science World station. 

SkyTrain welcomed its first passengers late in 1985, ahead of the opening of Expo 86. It remains the world's oldest driverless rapid transit system.

Mike Richard, vice-president of operations with the B.C. Rapid Transit Company, said riding SkyTrain today is a better, safer experience that it was back in the '80s. 

"Our automatic train control that is used to drive the system, it's advanced in so many ways and it's so much more reliable today than it was then," he said. 

While the system has evolved over the years, the chime has remained the same. 

Fisher said the same recording from the '80s is still used. A digital master was made a few years before the original cassette tape wore out. 

When he first got the job about eight years ago, Fisher toyed with the idea of changing the chime, thinking the three ascending notes can create a bit of "tension," which is less than ideal for passengers getting off and on trains.

The idea proved to be short-lived.

"People just love it," he said of the signature sound. "They identify it with the system. It's used on our buses as well so I think it would be very hard to change at this stage."