ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Canard]

Caught this guy cruising by the office yesterday....

My dream situation for the last several years has been being able to bike alongside the LRV's in this section. Every time I go out on my ride, I go by here and fantasize about it...

Now if they would just extend testing into after-hours or weekends, so I could actually live the dream!

Great catch.

[KevinL]

I think the drivers on those roads will have different opinions than yours, but thanks for the details!

Sorry, what?

Drivers will likely have some degree of frustration due to barriers that lower with no train behind them.

[KevinT]

Had a good lunchtime scouting mission today.

First I spotted 503 hiding near the back of the yard with its panto down:



Then caught 504 running north on the southbound track through Bearinger Rd, past Quiet Place, and through the Weber St crossover:


The crew at Quiet Place said that it was continued signals testing today.  The signals at Bearinger Rd worked perfectly but the ones at the Quiet Pl and Old Albert St pedestrian crossings still clearly needed some tuning.

[nms]

504 was passing north at UW around 11:00-11:30 today at a very slow pace. Unfortunately the passage through the UW station happened just as class was changing. There was some confusion about whether barriers should be obeyed even though the vehicle was clearly traveling in the opposite direction. Generally, the barriers were obeyed. In one case, pedestrians were about 1/3 of the way across when the signals went off and they had to dash back to their starting point (and somewhat under the descending barrier).

On a related note, what's the time between when the barriers start activating (eg the equivalent of a flashing hand or amber light) and when the crossing is fully protected? From what I saw, the time was very short. This could cause problems if pedestrians happen to be particularly slow (eg children, seniors, disabled).

[trainspotter139]

504 was passing north at UW around 11:00-11:30 today at a very slow pace.  Unfortunately the passage through the UW station happened just as class was changing.  There was some confusion about whether barriers should be obeyed even though the vehicle was clearly traveling in the opposite direction. Generally, the barriers were obeyed.  In one case, pedestrians were about 1/3 of the way across when the signals went off and they had to dash back to their starting point (and somewhat under the descending barrier).

On a related note, what's the time between when the barriers start activating (eg the equivalent of a flashing hand or amber light) and when the crossing is fully protected?  From what I saw, the time was very short.  This could cause problems if pedestrians happen to be particularly slow (eg children, seniors, disabled).

5 seconds from lights flashing to the beginning of gate deployment. 15 seconds to full gate deployment

[ijmorlan]

On other LRT systems I have been on, what happens in a situation like NB at Seagram is this:

-Train approaches station at speed. Arms come down, bells/lights on.
-Once the train stops at the platform, arms go up, bells/lights off.
-When the train is ready to depart, arms go down, bells/lights come on.
-Once train clears intersection, arms go up, bells/lights off.

The reason for this is presumably so if the train blows through the station, people don’t die.

I cannot wait to see intersections like Erb/Caroline and Block Line/Courtland once things get cranking. Up down up down up down. Hahaha

At Seagram that might be OK as a practical matter simply because the traffic level on Seagram is low but I can see it potentially being a significant problem in a different situation (Ottawa St.?).

Given that the LRT has a signalling system, they should be able to put a red signal for the LRT at the station to force the vehicle to stop at the platform if the crossing protection is not active. So when the vehicle is ready to leave, it would indicate so, which would cause the crossing protection to activate and then the signal to clear to green. Of course this could and would only happen if the signal would be allowed to be green according to the usual railway block rules.

Similarly, I saw both the Seagram crossing and the pedestrian crossing at the south end of the platform both active at the same time. But only the one “in front” of the LRV should be active (which direction is “in front” naturally depending on which cab is active, if any). Of course this may be related to the fact that they’re still testing.

Having said that, as long as we don’t have the ridiculously long activation periods they apparently have on some British railway crossings, we’ll be OK. If I understand correctly, the gates sometimes come down multiple minutes before the train goes through, which has the obvious consequences on respect for the signals that have been discussed here before.

[danbrotherston]

There is no "forcing" physics. A red signal tells a train to stop but on the extremely rare case where a platform is overrun, nothing can stop the train from moving onto the road. Whether that rare tiny risk is worth the traffic disruption is a reasonable question but in our "don't think just follow the regs" region, that isn't something that was discussed.

[Bob_McBob]

It's unfortunate we aren't seeing any of these videos of LRVs moving under their own power in the media. The day of the pulled test to Conestoga Mall, a relative who works beside the OMSF told me everyone in her office though it was broken, even after seeing CTV's coverage ?

[ijmorlan]

There is no "forcing" physics.  A red signal tells a train to stop but on the extremely rare case where a platform is overrun, nothing can stop the train from moving onto the road.  Whether that rare tiny risk is worth the traffic disruption is a reasonable question but in our "don't think just follow the regs" region, that isn't something that was discussed.

That’s a good point. Although with modern train control systems, it should be possible to set speed limit triggers as well so that the emergency brake will be engaged before the red signal if it is travelling too fast.

I’m not actually worried about the traffic impacts at Seagram station, but I do wonder about Northfield, Ottawa, and Block Line. Also I’ll be interested to see how Northfield works: the LRT should only trigger the eastbound crossing protection, not the westbound. During tow testing I think sometimes both were triggered but I think somebody said that was manual.

Agreed with whoever mentioned the media. They absolutely should by now have run one or two short items about the powered testing. Doesn’t have to take long, just a brief clip and a couple of sentences about what is happening.

[Canard]

-Train approaches station at speed. Arms come down, bells/lights on.
-Once the train stops at the platform, arms go up, bells/lights off.
-When the train is ready to depart, arms go down, bells/lights come on.
-Once train clears intersection, arms go up, bells/lights off.

At Seagram that might be OK as a practical matter simply because the traffic level on Seagram is low but I can see it potentially being a significant problem in a different situation (Ottawa St.?).

There are no railway signals at Ottawa.

My description is only for railway signals (bells/lights/arms), not traffic signals. In urban sections there will be no drama.

[Canard]

The signals at Bearinger Rd worked perfectly but the ones at the Quiet Pl and Old Albert St pedestrian crossings still clearly needed some tuning.

I generally very much appreciate that "things are hard", and am usually the first to hold up my hand and stop people from being negative toward crews and so on. I work in automation, and design complex, million+ dollar systems for cleanrooms with 20+ servos and hundreds of sensors.

...but I absolutely cannot fathom why it is so hard to get railway signals to work properly. Why is this so hard?!!?! IT'S ONE INPUT.

[ijmorlan]

At Seagram that might be OK as a practical matter simply because the traffic level on Seagram is low but I can see it potentially being a significant problem in a different situation (Ottawa St.?).

There are no railway signals at Ottawa.

My description is only for railway signals (bells/lights/arms), not traffic signals.  In urban sections there will be no drama.

The (southbound track) LRT crossing of Ottawa is entirely handled by regular traffic signals? I could have sworn I saw railway crossing lights and arms there. Or are they only for the freight line (which of course will not normally be stopping there at all)?

The locations I gave were the ones I could think of that have a platform followed by a crossing, with the crossing (to my recollection) being guarded by gates.

[Canard]

You're talking about Ottawa and Courtland, right?  I am severely handicapped when it comes to directions and geography so it is entirely conceivable I'm thinking of a totally different area than you are.

   

Courtland and Block Line have full-blown railway signals, which I fully expect will deploy as a Southbound LRV approaches the station.

   

[Canard]

...or did you mean Ottawa/Mill?  If you did, my mind is blown, because I only just now realized that the SB track has full-on railway guarding, but the NB track doesn't.  Our system just gets weirder and weirder.

   

   

[KevinL]

Ottawa and mill won't have the problem described because the platform is south of the intersection and, as you just noted, only the southbound track is barriered. Northbound trains would cause the double-barrier-drop if there were any barriers, but there aren't...