ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Spokes]

Oh man, that would be so amazing

[danbrotherston]

“They have created a safety hazard by not thinking about how humans will actually use the space. No one getting off the train and heading to KPL or Centre in the Square etc. is going to take a huge distance and time penalty (94m penalty for one-car train, 156m penalty for a two-car train) to walk back to King, cross the street, and walk back towards Duke.”

I totally agree. This is also why people who drive cars do not want to park in a garage 2 or 3 blocks from the market. It’s inconvenient!

Yes, and design in both cases should solve the problem, in the case of the LRT, either fix the entrance or make it invisible/inaccessible, in the case of parking, either increase parking substantially at enormous cost, or price parking such that market economics solves the problem.

The difference in my opinion, is that it makes sense for a transit station in the middle of downtown to provide good pedestrian connectivity, while spending extreme amounts of money to save all people who drive a 2 block walk in that same downtown, doesn't make quite as much sense.

[timc]

Meanwhile, the Rapid Transit team have captured the shot I dreamed about taking back when construction first started, but abandoned when I learned of how nearly impossible it is to fly a drone within the Region:

And, of course, there is a vehicle that is not a bus waiting to turn left from Caroline onto Erb.

[KevinL]

[danbrotherston]

Meanwhile, the Rapid Transit team have captured the shot I dreamed about taking back when construction first started, but abandoned when I learned of how nearly impossible it is to fly a drone within the Region:



More of this, please!!

Out of curiosity, can anyone who knows more about trains than I tell me why it was necessary to bend the LRT tracks away from the freight alignment, towards the buildings right in front of Coras before the merge back together?  It seems like it achieves nothing, it uses more space, but also decreases the radii of the track curve.

[ijmorlan]

Out of curiosity, can anyone who knows more about trains than I tell me why it was necessary to bend the LRT tracks away from the freight alignment, towards the buildings right in front of Coras before the merge back together?  It seems like it achieves nothing, it uses more space, but also decreases the radii of the track curve.

Remember they want the platform to be perfectly straight for 2 LRV-lengths, but they want the freight track to have large radius. The LRT track is the corner while the freight track is the surface of the caulk bead. If you can find the page in the RFP plans posted some time ago it will probably be clearer.

Having said that, I’m not convinced it couldn’t have been done better. In particular, a lot less space would have been used for tracks if the freight and LRT tracks formed a gauntlet in the station just like further north. The difference would be that at the south (east) end of the platform, the tracks would diverge with a frog rather than joining back up as at the other stations. I’m a bit concerned about track radii for the freight and the possibility of needing highly non-standard special work at the points (and maybe the frog too), so I’m not sure that my idea would really be better, taking into account all considerations. But if it had worked it would have left lots of space for a multi-use trail immediately north of the tracks; and if furthermore the tracks in the stations were done like the other stations (non-embedded), it would have eliminated improper motor vehicle access.

[ijmorlan]

Beating Canard to the punch on posting this, but I'm just as disappointed as he is. There will be people on the platforms during service, why bar them now?

Perfect examples of signage that people will and should ignore, and which should not have been posted. The really bad effect though is elsewhere, where people won’t believe a sign that is posted for a good reason unless it’s backed up by barriers. This makes it harder to have safe construction sites everywhere else.

[trainspotter139]

Meanwhile, the Rapid Transit team have captured the shot I dreamed about taking back when construction first started, but abandoned when I learned of how nearly impossible it is to fly a drone within the Region:



More of this, please!!

Out of curiosity, can anyone who knows more about trains than I tell me why it was necessary to bend the LRT tracks away from the freight alignment, towards the buildings right in front of Coras before the merge back together?  It seems like it achieves nothing, it uses more space, but also decreases the radii of the track curve.

It was the only way to get a station there. The freight needs more clearance from stations than LRVs and gauntlet tracks weren't a viable option there

[Canard]

Out of curiosity, can anyone who knows more about trains than I tell me why it was necessary to bend the LRT tracks away from the freight alignment, towards the buildings right in front of Coras before the merge back together?  It seems like it achieves nothing, it uses more space, but also decreases the radii of the track curve.

I believe this is caused by wanting to use as much off-the-shelf rail hardware as possible. Points (switches) probably come in "standard sizes" - so if you can plunk in one that is already available, you'll save a lot of money and headache over designing one from scratch with custom curves and so on.

Anyone who has played with model trains will immediately understand this.

[trainspotter139]

Out of curiosity, can anyone who knows more about trains than I tell me why it was necessary to bend the LRT tracks away from the freight alignment, towards the buildings right in front of Coras before the merge back together?  It seems like it achieves nothing, it uses more space, but also decreases the radii of the track curve.

I believe this is caused by wanting to use as much off-the-shelf rail hardware as possible.  Points (switches) probably come in "standard sizes" - so if you can plunk in one that is already available, you'll save a lot of money and headache over designing one from scratch with custom curves and so on.

Anyone who has played with model trains will immediately understand this.

this. That curve would have required a non-standard cast frog in the middle of the road which would have to be replaced quite regularly as it would get beat up by the freight and weather.

[Pheidippides]

[ijmorlan]

If there is any consolation about the Frederick St platform problem it is that regional staff will be one of the groups most inconvenienced by it when getting to work (assuming they take Ion from the south).

Regional staff won’t be inconvenienced — they’ll just ignore and walk past the signs like everybody else!

[Spokes]

That's what I'm thinking too

[KevinT]

Out of curiosity, can anyone who knows more about trains than I tell me why it was necessary to bend the LRT tracks away from the freight alignment, towards the buildings right in front of Coras before the merge back together?  It seems like it achieves nothing, it uses more space, but also decreases the radii of the track curve.

Part of it was likely wanting to use a standard switch as others have stated, but also that they'd want ION trains to get the straight path through it to minimize wear, since there will be far more ION transits through it than freight. It also increases passenger comfort not to be banging through the curved to straight transition part of the switch at speed. This is unavoidable at the end crossovers, but the speeds are lower there due to proximity to the platforms. Here the LRV is already a significant distance from the platform and accelerating into Waterloo Park.

[Spokes]

Final two Ion trains on their way to region

The final two Ion trains were loaded on trains Wednesday morning at Bombardier's Kingston plant for delivery to Waterloo Region.

Bombardier says the vehicles are expected to arrive in the region next week.

The manufacturer also said it's confident that the specialized on-board equipment will be installed in all 14 vehicles by the end of the year, as promised.

https://www.therecord.com/news-story/905...to-region/