ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Coke6pk]

Can someone make a video of a walk-around and walk-through of the ION LRV on Saturday? Sadly I'm out of town.

I would appreciate the same... travelling back from Ottawa on Saturday, and I'll miss the event.  

Coke

[timio]

An early preview of the new chimes (as the doors close) has been released! Hear it for yourself here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BSgh7_IDpnf/

The notes are a descending triad of "G"--"E"--"C"

"... sweeping the clouds away."

[panamaniac]

I'm disappointed by the chime. In my heart of hearts, I never gave up hope that they'd use the first seven notes of "The Chicken Dance".

[KevinL]

[Chicopee]

An early preview of the new chimes (as the doors close) has been released! Hear it for yourself here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BSgh7_IDpnf/

The notes are a descending triad of "G"--"E"--"C"

Interestingly, this is also the warning bell at Toyota advising team members that they better get to the line within one minute, otherwise they'll be fired.

[danbrotherston]

I feel like the last part is a bit misleading.  Those are transit signals, and they aren't just for ION LRT, they (or at least very similar ones) are also used for buses in other parts of the region.

[Markster]

I feel like the last part is a bit misleading.  Those are transit signals, and they aren't just for ION LRT, they (or at least very similar ones) are also used for buses in other parts of the region.

In the local context, it's as much information as is necessary.
"When driving around trains, you can expect X"

[Canard]

Looks like there were some minor hiccups in a Waterloo earlier this week:

http://www.570news.com/2017/04/04/malfun...recaution/

Good to see the detailed technical info on what happened, and why.

[KevinT]

Looks like there were some minor hiccups in a Waterloo earlier this week:

http://www.570news.com/2017/04/04/malfun...recaution/

Good to see the detailed technical info on what happened, and why.

I can't believe that they still haven't got those signal houses connected to the grid yet!  Wonder if I'll remember to ask about that at the open house?

[Canard]

Can someone make a video of a walk-around and walk-through of the ION LRV on Saturday? Sadly I'm out of town.

I would appreciate the same... travelling back from Ottawa on Saturday, and I'll miss the event.  

Absolutely!

I'm disappointed by the chime.  In my heart of hearts, I never gave up hope that they'd use the first seven notes of "The Chicken Dance".  

I had hoped for something unique, or at least this, which is my favourite of any system, anywhere:

Sounds like the chime they use on the new streetcars (appropriate since they come from the same place).

Yep - because it's actually not the "TTC Chime", it's the UTDC Chime:

The TTC chime is actually the UTDC chime; it was first introduced on the Scarborough RT (ICTS) in 1985, and has since been rolled out on many other ex-UTDC/Bombardier products, like GO's Bi-Level coaches.

But agreed that it's likely what we'll get, especially since our order is piggybacked on Metrolinx' order for the Eglinton Crosstown which is surely going to have the 3-tone chime. I was just hoping for something a bit more unique to us.

I have a bit more information I can share about the trains:

• The first two FLEXITY Freedom trains are "Pilot Trains" that Bombardier is building for Metrolinx.  Those two trains are in production, and will go to Millhaven (Kingston) for high-speed testing as I've mentioned before along the MOVIA test line on the North side of the site, where the Toronto Rocket (TR) trains were tested.
  
• FLEXITY Freedom train 3 is for Waterloo Region, and comes straight from Thunder Bay to Waterloo.
  
• When that happens, it'll run on the "test track" section of our line, from just South of Northfield, down to just North of the Erb/Caroline intersection.  GrandLinq is on track to have this finished in June.
  
• Train 3 (our first) has a burn-in period where it will run for quite a while, back and forth, along the spur (!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
  
• Colours: Rendering is accurate, but the grey is a little lighter.  Doors on the inside are the same blue as the outside, and seats are light blue with grey accents.
  
• Chime will be "TTC Chime" (3-tone) as Metrolinx wants a uniform, consistent look and feel to all trains on all projects going forward.
  
• Voice will be the same Text-to-Speech system on the FLEXITY Outlook LRV's (streetcars) that Toronto is taking delivery of right now.  Voice may be slightly different but tech module is the same (Yay!).
  

[Markster]

Where Canard means this video:



(But he copied the "edit video" url accidentally)

[plam]

Depends what you mean. Operation and maintenance of ION is contracted out, along with the construction. But as far as riders will be concerned, it will be a single integrated system with one fare. If GRT contracted out the operation of each bus route to a separate company you would not then say that our transit system consisted of 20 (or however many) separate entities, even if that many organizations were involved in running it.

That is very Swiss. There are dozens of companies providing public transit in Switzerland (and even in the same city) but ticketing is highly integrated and they work it out somehow. You just get a ticket from the ticket provider, from point X to point Y or else within zone Z. Magically, I guess, the transit providers get paid.

[jwilliamson]

Transport for London operates their buses in a similar fashion. Each route is franchised out, and TfL pays the franchisee based on service provided.

[Canard]

So does much of Japan.  Just tap your Suica or Passmo - done.  Seamless!

Scaffolding is going up on the Anchor Wall at the Borden station. Looking forward to seeing the ceramic tiles on this one!

[KevinL]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">First logos have been applied to the ION train. <a href="https://t.co/6VjE3ij1I0">pic.twitter.com/6VjE3ij1I0</a></p>&mdash; ION (@rideIONrt) <a href="https://twitter.com/rideIONrt/status/850361708178788352">April 7, 2017</a></blockquote>