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ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Printable Version

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RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Bob_McBob - 12-15-2022

(12-15-2022, 10:19 AM)ac3r Wrote: If you use the LRT over the next 24-48 hours, factor in extra time. My train had some trouble at around 6:30 this morning and the freezing rain is even worse now, so I suspect it'll be having some struggles.

The entire ION system is down now.

https://twitter.com/AlertsGRT/status/1603402588031959042

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Bytor - 12-15-2022

(12-15-2022, 10:19 AM)ac3r Wrote: If you use the LRT over the next 24-48 hours, factor in extra time. My train had some trouble at around 6:30 this morning and the freezing rain is even worse now, so I suspect it'll be having some struggles.


Why they are even having problems is beyond me.

Elsewhere on the planet where trams operate in winter weather the pantograph shoes just scrape off any accumulated ice on the on the catenary wires as the trams normally go about their schedule with no interruption.

But here, for some reason, even after four previous winters with the trams to learn how to deal with things like this, it is still a problem at least once a winter. Does all winter operational knowledge get baked out of their brains during the heat and humidity of the summer? Or is turn-over that bad at GrandLinq that there's nobody left come November with experience in the previous winter?

It reminds me of last winter when the snowplows dumped large amounts of ice and heavy, wet snow onto the tracks in multiple locations, preventing the trams from getting through. Apparently all because nobody thought to review snowplow procedures along the ION route and where plow operators push the snow from the roads onto.

I don't know whether it's individual incompetency or organisational incompetency that prevents them from planning ahead or learning from past experiences, but it's incompetency somewhere. I feel that these repeated issues with ION need to be addressed in a public council meeting with Regional services staff and GrandLinq staff answering some very uncomfortable questions.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Rainrider22 - 12-15-2022

It starts at the top. If the leaders don't take the time to ensure their managers are training people properly you will get the same result over and over. I was mind boggled too when I saw the trains were all taken out of service. Many people rely on that transportation.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - ZEBuilder - 12-15-2022

This morning I was on the last set of ION trains before they took them out of service, the train I was on got stuck on the hill on Ottawa right before Borden Station, at the switch before Mill Station the train started to lose power with the lights starting to flicker and the heaters cutting in and out, as the train went along Ottawa the pantograph was continously arcing with the overhead line and power was very obviously getting lost as the train was going at a snails pace. It seemed as if the heaters were being the main power draw because whenever the heaters turned off the train would be able to move completely fine but they kept them on so the train just had no power to move, so it seems as if it may be less of a problem with the system and more a problem with the trains.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - bravado - 12-15-2022

When you begrudgingly build something that clearly isn’t #1 priority, then I guess these are the results we deserve.

They’ll fix this right after they get back to advertised service frequency!

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - danbrotherston - 12-15-2022

My guess is that they are unable to run sufficient frequency to keep the catenary clear of ice. 6-8 minutes would probably operate fine but they’re probably pushing 12 minutes if they are struggling.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - ac3r - 12-15-2022

Interestingly, they're running all the operational LRTs at the moment in pairs to scrape ice off the wires and tracks.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - plam - 12-15-2022

(12-15-2022, 12:32 PM)Bytor Wrote: Elsewhere on the planet where trams operate in winter weather the pantograph shoes just scrape off any accumulated ice on the on the catenary wires as the trams normally go about their schedule with no interruption.

I wonder how Ottawa's doing.

The conditions have been getting worse in general due to climate change, but yes, I do expect operational excellence, which doesn't sound like what's going on here.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - nms - 12-20-2022

Assuming they need a higher frequency of operation to keep the ice clear, what are the provisions of the agreement to pay for that?

If the trains are running on 8 minute headways, would that mean that between 11 and 12 units would be heading northbound while another 11 or 12 are heading southbound? If the trains are on 6 minute headways, that would mean 15 units going in each direction. Since we only have 14 units in the entire fleet, would we have to wait for the Region to buy extra units fill the gap? Would GrandLinq then cover the staffing costs?

Or is my math wrong, and the better option would be 5-10 pickup trucks with railway wheels and pantographs to keep the ice clear in the interim?

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - taylortbb - 12-20-2022

(12-20-2022, 10:23 AM)nms Wrote: Assuming they need a higher frequency of operation to keep the ice clear, what are the provisions of the agreement to pay for that?

If the trains are running on 8 minute headways, would that mean that between 11 and 12 units would be heading northbound while another 11 or 12 are heading southbound? If the trains are on 6 minute headways, that would mean 15 units going in each direction.  Since we only have 14 units in the entire fleet, would we have to wait for the Region to buy extra units fill the gap? Would GrandLinq then cover the staffing costs?

Or is my math wrong, and the better option would be 5-10 pickup trucks with railway wheels and pantographs to keep the ice clear in the interim?

I think you've doubled the number of required vehicles. We currently have the vehicles required to run 7 minute headways, which is 13 + 2 maintenance spares.

AFAIK, under the contract the region sets the schedule, and is responsible for procuring enough vehicles to make the schedule possible (though I'm sure GrandLinq has maintenance obligations, can't just say they need absurd spare ratios). So I'd assume scheduling more frequently to avoid ice buildup would be the region's obligation.

That said, GrandLinq pays a penalty whenever the region has to substitute with buses. GrandLinq also has a ridership incentive payment. So there's definitely some amount of pressure on GrandLinq here to try to solve this better.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Bytor - 12-24-2022

(12-20-2022, 10:51 AM)taylortbb Wrote: That said, GrandLinq pays a penalty whenever the region has to substitute with buses. GrandLinq also has a ridership incentive payment. So there's definitely some amount of pressure on GrandLinq here to try to solve this better.

Well, this is their fifth winter running at least some trams, and the fourth one (19-20, 20-21, 21-22, 22-23) running at service levels, so why haven't they figured this particular issue out yet? Keolis is tha GrandLinq partner doing the actual tram operations and they are an international company with lots of experience running trams, so why did they not draw on that to solve this problem after the first time it shut down service in the 2019/20 winter?

When I asked the Region why the ION LRT was shut down on that day, the response I got was

"We will immediately work with our operator to do a full root cause analysis of the disruption and the multiple factors that contributed to the breakdown of the LRT service, so we can adequately prepare for similar winter storm events in the future."

I'm still waiting for a response asking if root cause analyses were not done in the past and that's why it was allowed to happen for the fourth year in a row.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Bytor - 12-24-2022

(12-20-2022, 10:23 AM)nms Wrote: If the trains are running on 8 minute headways, would that mean that between 11 and 12 units would be heading northbound while another 11 or 12 are heading southbound? If the trains are on 6 minute headways, that would mean 15 units going in each direction.  Since we only have 14 units in the entire fleet, would we have to wait for the Region to buy extra units fill the gap? Would GrandLinq then cover the staffing costs?

Just divide the time required to do one full loop by the desired headway. 12 trams running in both directions would be a headway of 3 minutes and 50 seconds.

(12-20-2022, 10:23 AM)nms Wrote: Or is my math wrong, and the better option would be 5-10 pickup trucks with railway wheels and pantographs to keep the ice clear in the interim?

Other cities with similar climatic conditions that run LRTs just use the trams themselves to keep things clear and normal operation is sufficient to do so.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - taylortbb - 12-24-2022

(12-24-2022, 02:36 PM)Bytor Wrote:
(12-20-2022, 10:51 AM)taylortbb Wrote: That said, GrandLinq pays a penalty whenever the region has to substitute with buses. GrandLinq also has a ridership incentive payment. So there's definitely some amount of pressure on GrandLinq here to try to solve this better.

Well, this is their fifth winter running at least some trams, and the fourth one (19-20, 20-21, 21-22, 22-23) running at service levels, so why haven't they figured this particular issue out yet? Keolis is tha GrandLinq partner doing the actual tram operations and they are an international company with lots of experience running trams, so why did they not draw on that to solve this problem after the first time it shut down service in the 2019/20 winter?

I did say "some amount of pressure", the "some" qualifier is important. It's also possible they've determined that the fix costs more than the penalty they pay for making GRT substitute with buses, so they've decided they have no interest in fixing the issue.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Bytor - 01-06-2023

So I finally got this expanded response from Mathieu Goetzke about the ION not working on that day of freezing rain after a bit of poking and prodding:

Quote:The LRT system should perform adequately in winter weather and Keolis, the system operator, has not met its contractual requirements in the latest weather event. Root cause analyses are performed every time there is a service incident, and operator practices are corrected. Those corrections did not help in this incident.

Multiple catenary scraper devices were acquired to help remove any ice build-up on the catenaries. Recent vehicle availability issues, including 3 LRVs under repair due to vandalism a week before the storm, hampered the operator’s ability to deploy the scrapers at the required time/ frequency. We are pressuring GrandLinq/Keolis to make further improvements and meet the requirements of the Project Agreement.

However, for me that begs more questions.

Did they only acquire these special "catenary scraper devices" for some of the trams instead of all? Or is Goetzke saying that a tram every 10 minutes wasn't enough to keep the catenaries clear?

Also, 3 trams out of service means there are still 12 available, but 10 minute headways only needs 10 trams so there were 2 others sitting unused. Why couldn't they have been pressed into service to scrape? Or is he saying that even 12 trams scraping away wasn't enough?

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - danbrotherston - 01-06-2023

(01-06-2023, 01:16 PM)Bytor Wrote: So I finally got this expanded response from Mathieu Goetzke about the ION not working on that day of freezing rain after a bit of poking and prodding:

Quote:The LRT system should perform adequately in winter weather and Keolis, the system operator, has not met its contractual requirements in the latest weather event. Root cause analyses are performed every time there is a service incident, and operator practices are corrected. Those corrections did not help in this incident.

Multiple catenary scraper devices were acquired to help remove any ice build-up on the catenaries. Recent vehicle availability issues, including 3 LRVs under repair due to vandalism a week before the storm, hampered the operator’s ability to deploy the scrapers at the required time/ frequency. We are pressuring GrandLinq/Keolis to make further improvements and meet the requirements of the Project Agreement.

However, for me that begs more questions.

Did they only acquire these special "catenary scraper devices" for some of the trams instead of all? Or is Goetzke saying that a tram every 10 minutes wasn't enough to keep the catenaries clear?

Also, 3 trams out of service means there are still 12 available, but 10 minute headways only needs 10 trams so there were 2 others sitting unused. Why couldn't they have been pressed into service to scrape? Or is he saying that even 12 trams scraping away wasn't enough?

What is remarkable to me is that every. single. storm. this happens.

It's not like it's been operating fine in extreme weather and we've just had a couple of failures.

These are supposed to be experts...they should know about this before hand.

But worse their corrections still haven't resulted in successful service.

But at least we're not Ottawa, last I saw there was a picture of a snapped catenary wire.