ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[tomh009]

February 17: Latest update from Bombardier... ION train headed for Sudbury later today.

Apparently it left the yard this morning, on today's train 420: en route to Sudbury now.

[Canard]

LRV 1 passed through Terrace Bay at 10:56am this morning!

[Bob_McBob]

Any idea of the details?

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/02...takes.html

There are also issues with the fleet of vehicles that Bombardier is building for Waterloo’s ION LRT line. The first vehicle of the $92.4-million, 14-car order was en route to Waterloo from Bombardier’s Thunder Bay, Ont. plant Friday, but Metrolinx CEO Bruce McCuaig alleged that it is “not yet in a state of completion.”

Thomas Schmidt, commissioner of transportation for Waterloo region, confirmed that the vehicle is not fully operational. He said that the region had not yet formally accepted the vehicle and would have to conduct more tests before it would do so.

The Metrolinx pilot was also supposed to be the test vehicle for the Waterloo line, but because of delays to the pilot, in order to open the LRT on time Waterloo has been compelled to skip the prototype phase and test production vehicles instead.

Schmidt said the situation wasn’t ideal, but it’s not unusual to have to modify vehicles after they’re delivered.

“Our plan would have been to have a vehicle that can run, that would have been ideal,” Schmidt said. He added that Bombardier has fully committed to making any changes that are required.

[The85]

Quick informal poll:  Should we create a separate thread for ION phase 2?  Or keep it all together?

I vote keep Phase 1 and 2 all together, because as mentioned, it is the same system.

This brings up another question - is the aBRT portion in Cambridge technically within this thread? Or is it in the GRT thread? Both?

[Pheidippides]

   

[Markster]

Quick informal poll:  Should we create a separate thread for ION phase 2?  Or keep it all together?

I was totally going to split it out.
I was even going to go back the last 10 pages and move the relevant posts!

[Markster]

Inside the Uptown worm

   

[Canard]

1/5 - Friday, February 17 & Saturday, February 18

Couldn't wait to hop on my bike today and get out to explore the line.  An easy 32 km ride over a couple of hours in this fantastic weather!

   
King Street Grade Separation work.

   

   

   

[Canard]

2/5 - Friday, February 17 & Saturday, February 18

   
Charles, looking South from Benton.  This shot really shows why I pushed so hard for PRIMOVE (the contactless power supply option from Bombardier).  All that overhead could have been eliminated!

   
Charles, looking South from Cameron.

   
Close-up of some of the new insulators which have been spliced in along the contact wire in this section. The white tubes in the centre are plastic (Delrin? UHMW?) sleeves which slip over two strong steel members, which take the tension between the two halves of the spliced contact wire, which are trying to pull it apart!

   
The little plate on the side with the angled slot can be slid laterally, to precicely adjust the interface height of the supply forks on the outside.

   
You can also see how the severed contact wire is bent up slightly, to ease the transition - and the overlap between the two outside supply forks is staggered, to maintain a continuous supply of current to the pantograph.

[Canard]

3/5 - Friday, February 17 & Saturday, February 18

   
More photos from along Charles.

   

   

   

   

[Canard]

4/5 - Friday, February 17 & Saturday, February 18

   
Some photos from the Mill/Ottawa area.

   

   

   
The future Mill platform.

   
The area at the OMSF where the first train will be unloaded.

[Canard]

5/5 - Friday, February 17 & Saturday, February 18

   
Northfield. I love the shadow patterns that the etchings make from the roof glass!

   
Conestoga terminus.

   
The aforementioned "worm"

[DHLawrence]

Quick informal poll:  Should we create a separate thread for ION phase 2?  Or keep it all together?

Together. We're part of the region too.

[ijmorlan]

Quick informal poll:  Should we create a separate thread for ION phase 2?  Or keep it all together?

Together. We're part of the region too.

Um, I don’t have a strong opinion on whether to split or not, but by your argument everything on this site should be in one thread. We have individual threads for single building projects, some of them not even very big, so it’s not at all unreasonable to put Phase 2, a separate project, in a separate thread.

On the other hand I kind of like the idea that the main LRT thread would have by far more pages than any other topic on the site.

[Canard]

I guess the risk in having it all in one thread is that when some event occurs (train delivery, testing, system startup, system opening) we're going to have an absolute flood of information - and any single (but potentially important) post about Phase 2 is going to get lost in it. Now I'm on the fence.

Minor update: Train 1 should be into MacTier, ON for a crew change between 10am and 2pm today. That's between Barrie and Parry Sound. Getting pretty close now!

Once it hits Toronto (maybe later today), it'll sit in the [absolutely massive] Agincourt yard for a while.