ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[ijmorlan]

umm...... 512 or 513?

EDIT: I'm also pretty sure that image was take here too.

Do we know for sure that the most recent delivery was 512? Maybe it was 513…or maybe it’s just an off-by-one typo.

[KevinT]

[KevinT]

umm...... 512 or 513?

EDIT: I'm also pretty sure that image was take here too.

Do we know for sure that the most recent delivery was 512? Maybe it was 513…or maybe it’s just an off-by-one typo.

I tried to zoom in on the paperwork, but my phone doesn't have an optical zoom so the results were inconclusive:



I think that said Metrolinx 14, but zooming in on the already grainy zoomed in photo doesn't help. The photo of the front paperwork was even worse:

]

I liked it when 511 had a big blue duct tape '13' on the front corner.

[Bob_McBob]

I have a relative who works for OTIP and it's neat seeing all the trains powered up out in the yard at night. She told me the other day they were running some sort of track cleaning equipment up the line and backed up traffic on Northfield pretty badly.

[Pheidippides]

[danbrotherston]

[Canard]

Hi everyone, can confirm that the vehicle which was delivered a few days ago was 512. Hope this helps!

[KevinL]

[Spokes]

I saw that too. Here's hoping she's right.

[Canard]

There is no hidden message or news in her tweet - she’s repeating what she’s been told at Council.

[urbd]

There is no hidden message or news in her tweet - she’s repeating what she’s been told at Council.

So you happen to have insider knowledge that suggests otherwise? or just an educated guess? You seem adamant that service will not start in December.

[timc]

There is one of these signs was also added in front of the uptown parkade where the NB track curves in to the public square reminding people not to stop on the tracks and to stop BHEIND the stop line.

Oh that's good, but I have much more faith in it working at Caroline.  On King, it's usually congestion which pushes cars back, there's rarely a day when I walk past that I don't see someone stopped on the tracks while walking by.

I often see cars stopped too near the tracks on Columbia as well. I hope that this will diminish once ion is in service and trains are going past every 5-10 minutes.

[Bob_McBob]

How long are the signals and arms going to be stopping traffic when a train goes through a level crossing, or traffic lights at an intersection? What is the legal minimum and what is typical?

[ijmorlan]

How long are the signals and arms going to be stopping traffic when a train goes through a level crossing, or traffic lights at an intersection? What is the legal minimum and what is typical?

Longer than necessary if what we’ve seen so far is any indication. In particular, after the train has cleared the crossing the protection should stop immediately — there is no need to wait for the train to make any distance. The trailing coupler could literally still be overhanging the sidewalk and it wouldn’t be a problem.

On the other end, it’s harder to say — sometimes the gates seem to be down for an awfully long time before the train finally arrives, but they may still be driving slowly during testing and evaluating the safety of different timings is non-trivial. Although I will say that I saw a video which appeared to show a crossing in Britain where the protection was enabled for literally 5 minutes before the train came, which is obviously absurd and had the predictable effect of people trying to beat it, or even climbing over the gates to run across. Ours are definitely not that bad.

[KevinT]

How long are the signals and arms going to be stopping traffic when a train goes through a level crossing, or traffic lights at an intersection? What is the legal minimum and what is typical?

I don't know what's legally mandated by Transport Canada, but when I was listening to the ION radio during timing tests over the summer they seemed to be averaging around 25 seconds in advance, and 5 seconds after.  They were still tweaking things during that process (some were WAY more or less initially), so without waiting around at all the gates with a stopwatch I can't say what they eventually dialed in to.

Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_cros...Technology, the detection circuits consider both the train's position and speed in order to estimate its arrival time.