ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[KevinL]

LOTS of work on Charles this morning - concrete was poured west from Benton, and the final track welds were finished between Queen and Ontario. Queen might be fully open by early next week.

[Pheidippides]

   
   
   

[Canard]

A while back, somebody posted this historic photo looking down King Street, from somewhere between Allen and Union, toward Kitchener:

   

For fun, I'd been waiting until tracks were installed here, so its as at about the same stage...

   

[Canard]

1/2 - Sunday, June 26

   
The future Cedar stop, on Charles. Just beyond here, there's still one big section without track (~100 m), and another shorter one, just in front of Cameron Heights. Once those are in, that's it for track installation on Charles.

   
The station at Borden & Charles, right by the Tim Hortons. Track on the Northbound side is embedded up to the platform; Southbound side still needs a pour.

   
Looking West on Ottawa, from near City Cafe.

   
Looking West on Ottawa, from just past Courtland.

   
Mill/Ottawa intersection. Lots of work has already gone on here, but lots still to do.

[Canard]

2/2 - Sunday, June 26

   
Ottawa/Mill area, looking over toward where the Southbound track will be coming from, off Borden. Still nothing really going on here. I'm anxious to see how the track will slope here, down toward Borden.

   
Looking back up Ottawa.

   
Close-up of an attachment point on an OCS/Catpole on Borden. A little while ago, someone had commented that they thought these were rusting already. I didn't see any rust on any of them, but they're plated with a colour that might have been confused with rust, I suppose.

   
The platform edge at the Willis Way stop on Caroline has been fixed up for a while now, but I hadn't gotten around to taking a shot of it. There you go - all fixed up.

Wednesday, June 29

   
In just a few days, almost all of the main switches to the yard track have gone in at the OMSF. I can't keep up.

[tomh009]

LOTS of work on Charles this morning - concrete was poured west from Benton, and the final track welds were finished between Queen and Ontario. Queen might be fully open by early next week.

Concrete now poured between Queen and Ontario as well!  (Early-evening shadows, sorry about the poor photos.)

Queen towards Ontario:
   

Queen towards Benton:
   

[KevinL]

LOTS of work on Charles this morning - concrete was poured west from Benton, and the final track welds were finished between Queen and Ontario. Queen might be fully open by early next week.

Concrete now poured between Queen and Ontario as well!

Not quite all the way to Ontario - they stopped at the Full Circle parking entrance, which I discovered tonight still has an unconnected bit of rail:


A bunch of welds were just finished this morning!


Reverse view:


Then, down at Gaukel, I was a bit surprised at the size of this new signal crossbar! Intriguing.

[tomh009]

Concrete now poured between Queen and Ontario as well!

Not quite all the way to Ontario - they stopped at the Full Circle parking entrance, which I discovered tonight still has an unconnected bit of rail:

Yes, it's true.  But I think there is a good chance that it'll get completed on Monday, if not on the weekend.  Still missing some other concrete now (including some bits of the curbs) but the current 07 July target may be achievable yet.

[KevinL]

Oh, that will be easily met. And Queen can open very soon indeed.

[panamaniac]

Oh, that will be easily met. And Queen can open very soon indeed.

From your lips.....

[Markster]

Some welds between Ontario and Queen:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Track is fully welded between Ontario and<br>Queen. Just need rebar and concrete now. <a href="https://t.co/46BwPCpmuk">pic.twitter.com/46BwPCpmuk</a></p>&mdash; Mark Jackson-Brown (@Markster3000) <a href="https://twitter.com/Markster3000/status/748893491858640896">July 1, 2016</a></blockquote>
Though apparently I didn't see that there is another weld still to be done nearby?


Curb cuts for the parking access to the plaza and Queen/Charles:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Curb cuts belie the new parking access for this retail strip at Queen/Charles. cc: <a href="https://twitter.com/biggianthead">@biggianthead</a> <a href="https://t.co/x5UJmtUI0l">pic.twitter.com/x5UJmtUI0l</a></p>&mdash; Mark Jackson-Brown (@Markster3000) <a href="https://twitter.com/Markster3000/status/748892981390876674">July 1, 2016</a></blockquote>

[Canard]

Lubricator at Charles/Ontario still a problem:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/transitfok">@transitfok</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/rideIONrt">@rideIONrt</a> Yikes, still looks the same! What's the story? No room for wheel flange. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/wrLRT?src=hash">#wrLRT</a> <a href="https://t.co/kipuUL7qLl">pic.twitter.com/kipuUL7qLl</a></p>&mdash; iain (@Canardiain) <a href="https://twitter.com/Canardiain/status/748898395822104576">July 1, 2016</a></blockquote>

My guess: They halted installation and boxed in the "outer" portions in wood, knowing it was put in wrong, way back months ago, and are going to have to jackhammer this all out and re-do it at some future date. As I mentioned a while back, it's pretty obvious what happened here: Whoever put the boxes in, did the one on the "right" rail first... which is up against a piece of restraining rail, and then went to do the left one and didn't look at the drawing, and just made it flush up against the rail (instead of leaving a flange gap).

[timio]

There was still a weld to be done between Francis and Water on Wednesday.

[KevinL]

This is a bit of an issue - the recently laid asphalt on Queen is, at least as originally put, a few inches higher than the concrete bed around the tracks. I think it shouldn't be too hard to correct, but they'll probably have to cut away more asphalt and re-lay it at a different slope.

[Canard]

Probably anticipated and known about - when they temporarily paved it before, they'd have just done it at some arbitrary height knowing that the track placement/alignment takes president and the pavement would have to mate it up to it afterward.