Vancouver, one of the two big Cascadia cities with functioning mass-transit systems, has a new tourist sight: its trains.

The city’s SkyTrain is selling automated guided tours for the light rail line. For C$24 riders can rent headsets that provide commentary of the train’s route and walking tours in several neighborhoods along the way — in six languages.

Apparently 16 percent of the train’s 200,000 daily riders are tourists, so the transit system figured it makes sense to turn them into an additional revenue source.

Meanwhile in Seattle, where the first beleagered train line is three years away from opening, a local columnist piled on last week by suggesting that urban trains really are just for tourists. Maybe Vancouver’s example will force such critics to come up with more creative rationale to slow progress.