ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[tomh009]

GrandLinq spokesperson Avril Fisken said in an email that it's believed the fire was primarily contained to building materials on the roof, and that approximately 30 to 40 per cent of the roof was affected.

Maybe the damage wasn't so bad -- let's hope for the best.  I was on the Expressway at the time, tons of black smoke.  Roofing materials would likely burn with this kind of black smoke.

[Canard]

I reached out to Grandlinq, and here's what they said:

A fire was observed on the roof of the Operations, Maintenance and Storage
Facility on Dutton Drive shortly before 5 PM. 911 was contacted immediately
and the Waterloo Fire Department arrived on site shortly after. The cause if
the fire is currently unknown and we are still assessing the damages. We
believe the fire was primarily contained to the building materials on the
roof. Luckily there were no injuries reported.

[KevinL]

Sounds like a recoverable situation - even if the full roof has to be replaced, hopefully the lower structure was undamaged and this will not be a major setback.

[JCnb]

A nice shot of the roof damage

[Markster]

Suddenly everything becomes clear.
They were actively doing roofing work, judging by those rolls of black material in the lower right of the photo.
It was likely being applied with a torch, similar to what's being done in this video.
Either there was an equipment malfunction, or the flame got away from one of the workers, and things got hot enough to combust the roofing material itself, and it became self-sustaining.

[white_brian]

At 4:30 this afternoon they were spraying water on the roof again from the WFD ladder unit, no smoke was observed so they may have been clearing debris to see burn patterns...

[KevinL]

Rubber buffers are on and green spacers in place on the Benton curve:



Some other utility work on Benton as well, near King:

[Canard]

That's great progress at Charles/Benton. With the steel ties in place and studs into the ground, the track is now in the final alignment, ready to begin the forms for the concrete pour.

CTV Kitchener has been great, here's another update video with some more information on the fire: http://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=731200

[KevinL]

The northbound Benton curve is having the rubber buffer installed as I type this.

[timio]

There have been no substantive updates on rideion.ca for a few weeks now. I guess things are slowing down as the end of the construction season nears.

[Canard]

I wouldn't say that, they still send out the highly detailed updates at regular intervals. There is an astonishing amount of work going along the entire route.

[Square]

What is the construction schedule for the winter? Do they still dig up the ground and put in new pipes? Do they pour concrete when it's cold?

Thank you.

[Pheidippides]

Can someone tell me the difference between these two ride Ion youtube accounts?

Ride ION
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9rMncc...qlH07IGGHQ
 
rideION
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtI8g0T...fPwgqHRn9g

[taylortbb]

Can someone tell me the difference between these two ride Ion youtube accounts?

Ride ION
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9rMncc...qlH07IGGHQ
 
rideION
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtI8g0T...fPwgqHRn9g

The second one appears to be from the region's rapid transit team, which I think has taken the lead on most of this community engagement communication. I suspect the first one was setup by Grandlinq at the same time they setup rideion.ca (which is run by Grandlinq, not the region) just to hold on to the name.

That's all purely my speculation though, I don't have any info on it.

[KevinL]

Ottawa was finally closed at Mill overnight (but Mill remains open). Not sure how far the closure goes at the other end.