ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Canard]

Those are fantastic shots, Pheidippides! For a moment I thought service had started.

[KevinL]

There's been a lot of grading work done at the Mill station too. 

Specifically, the curve where the northbound line eases up to Ottawa has been worked on very thoroughly. Things are coming together well for this spot.

[Waterlooer]

Rail on Borden

[Markster]

I'm hearing rumors that they're starting to lay rail in front of the Hospital.

[Canard]

The rubber pads are standard - all the spur line track has it too (between the rail and plate that sits on the concrete sleeper).

Track in front of the hospital already would be amazing! Where'd you hear that?

[ijmorlan]

I'm hearing rumors that they're starting to lay rail in front of the Hospital.

I was there today and don’t believe that is correct. What they have been doing is welding the delivered segments of rail into longer ones. It looks like they are nearly done with that. As a result there are now a number of long rail segments starting just North of the hospital and extending almost to Union. It’s possible part of the rail welding process looked like laying track to somebody who was not familiar with the procedure.

[Markster]

Then that's likely what it was; just the welding process.
The person was just an interested citizen, not a concerted railfan.

[Pheidippides]

Some pictures of King near William on Friday afternoon:

[Canard]

I notice that they are putting rubber sleeves on the tracks. It may be to dampen the sound for the residents across the street.

Sorry; I see what you mean now!  I stopped by Borden on my way back to Canada tonight.  Yeah, the rail is almost totally enveloped in a rubber casing.  Totally different construction technique than the spur track.

   

[JCnb]

I notice that they are putting rubber sleeves on the tracks. It may be to dampen the sound for the residents across the street.

Sorry; I see what you mean now!  I stopped by Borden on my way back to Canada tonight.  Yeah, the rail is almost totally enveloped in a rubber casing.  Totally different construction technique than the spur track.

The steel mesh pad leads me to believe they will encase the rails in concrete?

[Canard]

Yeah, this is embedded track after all - the green bars which span the rails right now are just for alignment/holding them at the right gauge until the concrete is poured. The mesh is like rebar basically. So they will come back and precisely align this track (not with the tamper of course!) by hand and then pour. I was led to believe that this section and the Hayward section were actually to be balasted track so I'm quite surprised to see it actually is embedded, unless I misunderstood the RT team. I wonder when they'll start pouring though, since they basically need to have the track complete out both ends to do that, and there's no sign of a date (AFAIK) for closing Courtland to do the crossing there.

[white_brian]

Would they be putting concrete along this stretch due to the pending redevelopment of the Schneider's land?

[GtwoK]

When they end up paving and doing the curbs on the remainder of Borden, it will be necessary to close the Courtland instersection. It would be smart if they did the crossing track then, to prevent yet another closure of the intersection after that.

What's the news about the Schneider's redevelopment? I don't remember hearing anything about that! Is there a thread for it?

[white_brian]

Sorry, "Eventual redevelopment"...

[Canard]

The Holland Mobile Welder is now back at the OMSF, and there's another big shipment of rails on flatbed cars there!