ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Canard]

Glad they are finally finishing off the crossing at Seagram! It's very difficult to get into the park lot there right now. Exciting to see the gauntlet track come together with the crossing too since this will be a tricky one.

[Canard]

Track installation has now begun on the "other" side of Courtland, on Borden:

   

   

   

[Canard]

So, something had been bothering me ever since track started going in on Borden. In embedded track systems I've seen elsewhere, it's used Girder/Grooved Rail (see here and here), which had a little "cup" extruded into the flange side of the rail, flush with the top so that when the concrete is poured in, it leaves a nice clear area for the flange of the running wheels. The embedded track we've seen now along the ion route uses regular T-Rail, with other techniques to install a temporary filler strip to keep the concrete out of the flange way.

Someone on Twitter replied to some photos of mine, and gave this as the answer: http://reconnectingamerica.org/news-cent...ca-issues/

[Markster]

There's a concrete pump on site at the station outside of Charles St Terminal (Victoria Park).
I suspect that the station platform is going to be poured today.

[GtwoK]

There's a concrete pump on site at the station outside of Charles St Terminal (Victoria Park).
I suspect that the station platform is going to be poured today.

Gaukel is also supposed to be closed today for the final water main connections. I would assume curbs would also be going in over the next day or so, as well!

An aside: I'm sure by this point that if someone were to make a word cloud of every post I've made here, "curbs" would be the most prominent word.

[KevinL]

There's a concrete pump on site at the station outside of Charles St Terminal (Victoria Park).
I suspect that the station platform is going to be poured today.

Can confirm concrete pouring is under way at Victoria Park station! Gaukel is still open just now, however.

[timio]

West tracks through UWaterloo.

Looking north from E5 bridge:


   

Looking south from E5 bridge:

   

[tomh009]

Can confirm concrete pouring is under way at Victoria Park station! Gaukel is still open just now, however.

Confirmed!  (Apologies for poor picture quality ...)

[GtwoK]

Hmm. Doesn't appear to be any track in there, it seems. Are they laying a pad first, then doin the embedded track, maybe?

[Markster]

No track at all.

It would be inconvenient if the LRT were to run over the people waiting on the platform.

[Canard]

LOL, classic.

(The concrete pour here is for the actual station platform, not embedded track)

[GtwoK]

D'oh, definitely wasn't thinking clearly there, haha. I was just thinking proximity-wise, the cat poles seemed to be too far out from the track if the track was next to the platform. I suppose not.

[Canard]

http://www.therecord.com/news-story/6034...kitchener/

I did a little drive-around tonight;

-Rails are now piled up all along Caroline, so wow - the article might be right and maybe tracks will go down in Caroline as soon as this week
-Seagram is now closed and track ties are about halfway across. As I predicted, the switch for the gauntlet is North of Seagram and (6) rails total will pass through the crossing.

[GtwoK]

Noticed that Borden is now paved to Nyberg, and they're making the final duct connections between cat poles near charles, so that should all be done soon.

Also some late evening Bell work going on at Benton / Charles. If the intersection is reopening next week, I'd assume they'd have to start poring the embedded track tomorrow, probably!

Victoria Park station is completely poured, walked by and lifted the tarp to check.

Cedar is closed for the final watermain connection, it appears.

Charles in front of the tannery is torn up now, as is between Borden and Ottawa

King from John to William is very nicely flattened out (and super wide!) before the final curbs are out in, presumably in a few days.

Caroline is ready for tracks, rebar sheets should be going down tomorrow I would think.

[Canard]

Seagram Crossing as of 7pm tonight: