ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[notmyfriends]

Some more LRT news, I like the bit about the substation.  I wonder how many more of the original planned substations will get moved?       http://www.kitchenerpost.ca/news-story/6...-the-list/

That's a pretty nice house they've switched to using now.  Any chance they can work these things into an old facade, or do they necessitate a tear down?  Asked another way, when they are located right on a visible property that is likely to be a developed main street area, are they bothering to make them fit into the streetscape?

[GtwoK]

As always, thanks for the photos Canard! I'm reaaallly hoping that this is just because of the telephoto lens you're using, but good lord, Borden looks like an absolute mess with those catenary poles up. The whole area just looks like a mess of poles and wires. I was hoping the LRT would help clean up these areas, but looks like it's just making it worse!

[mpd618]

Asked another way, when they are located right on a visible property that is likely to be a developed main street area, are they bothering to make them fit into the streetscape?

No.

[tomh009]

As always, thanks for the photos Canard! I'm reaaallly hoping that this is just because of the telephoto lens you're using, but good lord, Borden looks like an absolute mess with those  catenary poles up. The whole area just looks like a mess of poles and wires. I was hoping the LRT would help clean up these areas, but looks like it's just making it worse!

I do think it's the distance compression effect from the telephoto: look how close to each other the traffic cones appear to be.

[Canard]

By this late afternoon, they'd laid a few more strips of ribbon rail down across the culvert by Waterloo Park.

The wider concrete ties in the foreground are for the crossing of the Laurel Trail toward Father David Bauer drive.

   

These guys are drilling holes in the side of the old, used track to attach the fish plates on the side.  This is all just temporary stuff.

   

   

[Waterlooer]

Does anyone know when King between Wellington and the underpass will start? Nothing has happened here so far:

[KevinL]

I was also up on Borden this morning, like Canard. A bit further down from Courtland is the Iron Horse Trail crossing, which has a temporary routing:





Heated tarp enclosures are getting to be standard issue, but here's the Borden entries:

[KevinL]

But for something different, here's Kitchener Market station.

[Canard]

Up at Waterloo Park, by the Perimeter Institute, the Harsco Mk IV Tamper was hard at work, precisely aligning the track which was laid yesterday.

   

   

   

   

Sadly, some joggers felt that the rules didn't apply to them, and decided to run right behind the thing, while it was in motion - if I was closer, I would have yelled at them.  The construction workers just stood there with "WTF" looks on their faces.  Safety first, people! There are signs and fences everywhere saying "NO TRESSPASSING", "DANGER", "KEEP OUT", "HARDHATS REQUIRED IN THIS AREA", etc - and they just danced through as if the world was their oyster.

   

[timc]

That's a pretty nice house they've switched to using now.  Any chance they can work these things into an old facade, or do they necessitate a tear down?  Asked another way, when they are located right on a visible property that is likely to be a developed main street area, are they bothering to make them fit into the streetscape?

I recognize that house as Charles Belair's old studio. It's a nice old building. I wonder about keeping the facade as well.

[timc]

The King / Erb intersection officially will not need to be closer this year, thank god

Why would it? There's no track going in there.

This fits into the Uptown Streetscape project and some underground connections that need to be done at that intersection. Instead of having two separate closures, any part that GrandLinq was going to do in that project is now being taken off the table.

[Pheidippides]

Orange tenting snakes south on Charles today:
   

New tracks beside PI today:
   

I was also in Uptown Waterloo today:
-most of the pavement has been stripped and removed
-they have a number of large trenches
-hydro seems to be done their work right at King and William and moved east along William
-a number of temporary or new services seem to be being prepared for installation

[KevinL]

Orange tenting snakes south on Charles today:

That went up fast! It was still short of Gaukel when I came by this morning.

[TMKM94]

Does anyone know when Construction of the LRT track/ion stop will take place at Waterloo Town Square I find it odd that it was dug up in October and they haven't done anything in the past few Months. I read that underground utilities should have been done by now and track is supposed to be installed sometime this year. I wonder why they wouldn't have filled the hole back in for temporary parking until they were ready to build the track. I work at Valumart and I was told that sales are down at least 20% since Construction started.

[timio]

Does anyone know when Construction of the LRT track/ion stop will take place at Waterloo Town Square I find it odd that it was dug up in October and they haven't done anything in the past few Months. I read that underground utilities should have been done by now and track is supposed to be installed sometime this year. I wonder why they wouldn't have filled the hole back in for temporary parking until they were ready to build the track. I work at Valumart and I was told that sales are down at least 20% since Construction started.

That station is a bit more work than other stations because they need to completely realign the Spur through the area first, which includes changing the crossing at King and Erb simultaneously to ensure minimal downtime for the freight operations. Coming south, the freight will use the southbound track, crossover to the northbound track just west of Erb/Caroline, and then split off to a separate spur just east of Caroline that travels north of the LRT line through the parking lot.

The track work is dependent on a number of other projects being ready to go: complete utility relocation on King at the Spur Line, complete utility location at Erb/Caroline, complete the track work and crossover just west of Erb/Caroline. I would guess they did the utility relocations in the parking lot to ensure it's one less thing in the way of installing the new track once all the ducks line up in a row to get 'er done.