ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Canard]

I'm a bit sad the walls have gone up on the washer, to be honest - makes it hard (impossible) to see the infield tracks/yard from the parking lots on Parkside. They'll now only be visible from the bridge on Weber.

[KevinL]

Made another visit to Mill and Ottawa.

The house on the corner has been demolished:


The corridor to the south is mainly unchanged:


North of Mill, though, has seen significant work:

[jamincan]

I'm quite pleased with how the Laurel Creek crossing has turned out. It looks more like a bridge than a culvert, to be honest.

[tomh009]

I'm quite pleased with how the Laurel Creek crossing has turned out. It looks more like a bridge than a culvert, to be honest.

Indeed.
http://precast.org/2013/04/use-box-culve...placement/

[Markster]

I'm quite pleased with how the Laurel Creek crossing has turned out. It looks more like a bridge than a culvert, to be honest.

Agreed. I was pretty pessimistic at first, but it looks pretty good.

[numberguy]

[

As a CEO, you don't cut the parts that would endanger positive cash flow.  The rail division has positive cash flow -- and cutting into manufacturing operations (as opposed to constraining future product development, for example, would endanger the money they can get from the rail division IPO. 

For the IPO, it would make more sense to add some incremental resources to the rail division to make sure there are no further delivery delays.  For example, temporarily adding 100 people to troubleshoot and resolve problems with deliveries would increase payroll costs by only 0.3% but could have a far greater impact on the IPO proceeds.

Bombardier's rail division is being divested, at least in part. Clearly, their senior management team disagrees with you. What you are suggesting is rational. However, Bombardier's dual class share structure makes rational corporate governance problematic.

Bombardier's shares are dual class, the Beaudoin family has made their interest clear to remain in aviation. Nothing any class B shareholder can do or vote for will change that. Bombardier will burn cash to the tune of hundreds of millions (>$800 million last quarter) in order to launch their new line of jets.

The proof will be in the pudding. We shall see if Bombardier invests additional resources (as you say above) to mitigate rail division issues and deliver on time. Or if they will (as my analyst feed says) take the $5 million penalty on the TTC contract and just proceed to deliver late, as they continue to focus on aviation.

[tomh009]

They are indeed divesting (part of) the rail division. But the IPO price will be impacted by the division performance.

They might have to pay the TTC penalty anyway, but what they need to do is correct the problems so that the delays are not endemic and the division can start delivering on schedule again.

P.S. Strictly speaking, the proof of the pudding is in the eating ...

[Pheidippides]

Get ready to pile detours upon detours upon detours.  Park street at the CN rail crossing closes next week for up to 6 weeks.

No official detour route announced yet.

How will the track be raised without affecting the neighbouring GO yard tracks?

[timio]

How will the track be raised without affecting the neighbouring GO yard tracks?

My guess is they'll be creating an entrance to the yard from the west end, near Park street, hence the upcoming closure. Once that's been relocated, they can get to work raising the tracks across King.

[KevinL]

How will the track be raised without affecting the neighbouring GO yard tracks?

My guess is they'll be creating an entrance to the yard from the west end, near Park street, hence the upcoming closure.  Once that's been relocated, they can get to work raising the tracks across King.

Exactly. The final layout will be the two-track GO yard will have its entrance at the west end by Park, and no access on its east end by King.

[Pheidippides]

How will the track be raised without affecting the neighbouring GO yard tracks?

My guess is they'll be creating an entrance to the yard from the west end, near Park street, hence the upcoming closure.  Once that's been relocated, they can get to work raising the tracks across King.

Thank-you, but I was referring to the actual tracks, not the vehicle entrance to the yard.

If they are raising the main track 2-3m won't they need to also raise the GO sidings/stubs as well? Otherwise where the three tracks meet will vary in height too much. Plus, even if they do not have to change the GO tracks the small distance between the tracks will make if difficult to change one track (add material) without affecting the other tracks.

[ijmorlan]

My guess is they'll be creating an entrance to the yard from the west end, near Park street, hence the upcoming closure.  Once that's been relocated, they can get to work raising the tracks across King.

Thank-you, but I was referring to the actual tracks, not the vehicle entrance to the yard.

If they are raising the main track 2-3m won't they need to also raise the GO sidings/stubs as well? Otherwise where the three tracks meet will vary in height too much. Plus, even if they do not have to change the GO tracks the small distance between the tracks will make if difficult to change one track (add material) without affecting the other tracks.

He was referring to the tracks also. The trains will enter and leave the GO sidings from the West end. This is unfortunate because they will have to perform an awkward reverse in order to move to and from the terminal station but it avoids the problem with the grade difference. Trains from the new GO storage facility off Shirley Ave. won’t have to reverse to get to the station, but will have to reverse in order to start their revenue runs.

I have to note that I think they’ve messed up the logistics on this. The work on Park St. should have been done before King St. was closed, or at least before King St. was closed to pedestrian traffic. The West track connection to the yard could have been built anytime in the last year or more.

[Canard]

Well, not if they're doing a grade change at Park too... which I suspect they are.

[ijmorlan]

Well, not if they're doing a grade change at Park too... which I suspect they are.

That could be a fair point, however Drawing C-PP-401 seems to suggest that there will be no grade change at Park St.

[Canard]

The tracks go sharply uphill west of King right now, so raising the tracks at king actually shallows the whole thing out. I talked to engineers about this a few years ago at the public meetings and they said that it would make things a lot easier for the Freight trains which have a really hard time with that hill right now.

I went to check out the rails behind Schnieders but they seemed like they were in a restricted area... So I didn't go in... Didn't feel right.