ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Bob_McBob]

At 3am there were still 4 trains left stranded on the tracks, 6 1/2 hours after the system went down. They tried running ION service this morning and shut it down again within a couple hours. A train lost power crossing Northfield and blocked eastbound traffic during rush hour, apparently for hours. There were still trains out this afternoon when I posted earlier, but many were having issues. 503 and 513 are currently coupled trying to get to Northfield Station and just lost power.

[Bob_McBob]

513 and 503 are still sloooooowly maneuvering around the line 3 hours later.

[nms]

Sample radio chatter, I think you get the idea what a clusterfuck this all is:

23:02 506 stuck nearby, operator will also need a bathroom break soon. Control tells them to lock their LRVs and meet up to find a bathroom.

23:37 506 operator back from bathroom break. Line voltage 830V. Attempting to get to Willis Way.

That's a long bathroom break! Probably got frustrated and just wanted to sod off for a bit.

I guess if they had planned ahead and put public bathrooms at each station, if an operator could get close to there, they could use those. I wonder too, if they have an option where if an operator needs a break, whether security is allowed to be there as an alternate in case there are members of the public on board?

[Bob_McBob]

513 (I think) is now heading for "recovery" of 506 from near Willis Way after finally decoupling from 503. 514 just went into service, running between Laurier-Waterloo Park and Northfield Station. I think this is the first train in service since the system shut down again this morning.

[KevinL]

Hopefully it's all back up tomorrow morning, I'm planning to run some errands using it.

[Bob_McBob]

511 currently being rescued by the shunter.

[danbrotherston]

That's a long bathroom break! Probably got frustrated and just wanted to sod off for a bit.

I guess if they had planned ahead and put public bathrooms at each station, if an operator could get close to there, they could use those.  I wonder too, if they have an option where if an operator needs a break, whether security is allowed to be there as an alternate in case there are members of the public on board?

The LRV is stuck "somewhere nearby"...it doesn't seem like a "long bathroom break" for them to shut down and lock up their LRV walk to a washroom that could easily be 10 minutes away on foot especially in bad weather, use the facilities, walk back unlock and startup their LRV?

I dunno, seems pretty reasonable to me, they might have been in the washroom for only a few minutes.

[Bob_McBob]

Over 40 hours later there is still no service between Mill and Fairway and Conestoga and Northfield. Has there ever been an outage this bad before?

[danbrotherston]

Over 40 hours later there is still no service between Mill and Fairway and Conestoga and Northfield. Has there ever been an outage this bad before?

No...not unless you include the O-Train.

[ac3r]

At around 3PM they managed to get service back on the entire line. Then just a little while ago they cancelled the 5:40PM train from Conestoga to Fairway was cancelled. Then they cancelled the 6:35PM train from Fairway to Market and Market to Fairway. What a shit show.

They also had some trains running in pairs throughout the day to attempt to dislodge the ice because they were too stupid or cheap to invest in separate equipment that could drive along the route to scrape ice or simply apply anti-ice chemical to the wires which the TTC actually does. Why wouldn't they do that here? Just buy a truck or two like this that has the proper equipment and run it along the tracks prior to any storm to apply anti-ice chemicals and then have another couple trucks equipped with some sort of scrapers that could scrape both the tracks and have a tool that can attach to the wires and scrape them.

Picture from Reddit:

[Acitta]

Michael Drucker points out on Twitter that the project agreement specifically requires the ION being able to run during a freezing rain event.
https://twitter.com/m_druker/status/1626985780861186053

   

[cherrypark]

A lot of rough takes floating out there about the freezing rain issue. Michael raising the correct point that this is more a question of operations and enforcing the contract than it is glib shots at $1B not being enough to run in the freezing rain, or others seeming to point the criticism and defence arguments around a referendum on LRT and not P3s doing P3 things.

[tomh009]

Michael Drucker points out on Twitter that the project agreement specifically requires the ION being able to run during a freezing rain event.
https://twitter.com/m_druker/status/1626985780861186053

Thanks! Let's hope the region enforces this.

[tomh009]

Not in Waterloo Region, but the LRT impact is very similar. This is in Tampere, Finland -- a similar-sized city -- and shows multi-residential construction completed near their LRT lane since the decision to build the line was approved in 2016. (I would argue that 2017 buildings were started well before the decision but I'm picking nits.) An estimated 13,000 people in the new buildings.

   

The first phase was 16 km, roughly similar to the ION. The dashed portion of the line is phase 2, currently under construction.

[nms]

With another freezing rain event scheduled tomorrow evening, should we start a pool for how long the system persists before it quits again?