ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[tomh009]

LOTS of work on Charles this morning - concrete was poured west from Benton, and the final track welds were finished between Queen and Ontario. Queen might be fully open by early next week.

Concrete now poured between Queen and Ontario as well!  (Early-evening shadows, sorry about the poor photos.)

Queen towards Ontario:
   

Queen towards Benton:
   

[KevinL]

LOTS of work on Charles this morning - concrete was poured west from Benton, and the final track welds were finished between Queen and Ontario. Queen might be fully open by early next week.

Concrete now poured between Queen and Ontario as well!

Not quite all the way to Ontario - they stopped at the Full Circle parking entrance, which I discovered tonight still has an unconnected bit of rail:


A bunch of welds were just finished this morning!


Reverse view:


Then, down at Gaukel, I was a bit surprised at the size of this new signal crossbar! Intriguing.

[tomh009]

Concrete now poured between Queen and Ontario as well!

Not quite all the way to Ontario - they stopped at the Full Circle parking entrance, which I discovered tonight still has an unconnected bit of rail:

Yes, it's true.  But I think there is a good chance that it'll get completed on Monday, if not on the weekend.  Still missing some other concrete now (including some bits of the curbs) but the current 07 July target may be achievable yet.

[KevinL]

Oh, that will be easily met. And Queen can open very soon indeed.

[panamaniac]

Oh, that will be easily met. And Queen can open very soon indeed.

From your lips.....

[Markster]

Some welds between Ontario and Queen:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Track is fully welded between Ontario and<br>Queen. Just need rebar and concrete now. <a href="https://t.co/46BwPCpmuk">pic.twitter.com/46BwPCpmuk</a></p>&mdash; Mark Jackson-Brown (@Markster3000) <a href="https://twitter.com/Markster3000/status/748893491858640896">July 1, 2016</a></blockquote>
Though apparently I didn't see that there is another weld still to be done nearby?


Curb cuts for the parking access to the plaza and Queen/Charles:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Curb cuts belie the new parking access for this retail strip at Queen/Charles. cc: <a href="https://twitter.com/biggianthead">@biggianthead</a> <a href="https://t.co/x5UJmtUI0l">pic.twitter.com/x5UJmtUI0l</a></p>&mdash; Mark Jackson-Brown (@Markster3000) <a href="https://twitter.com/Markster3000/status/748892981390876674">July 1, 2016</a></blockquote>

[Canard]

Lubricator at Charles/Ontario still a problem:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/transitfok">@transitfok</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/rideIONrt">@rideIONrt</a> Yikes, still looks the same! What's the story? No room for wheel flange. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/wrLRT?src=hash">#wrLRT</a> <a href="https://t.co/kipuUL7qLl">pic.twitter.com/kipuUL7qLl</a></p>&mdash; iain (@Canardiain) <a href="https://twitter.com/Canardiain/status/748898395822104576">July 1, 2016</a></blockquote>

My guess: They halted installation and boxed in the "outer" portions in wood, knowing it was put in wrong, way back months ago, and are going to have to jackhammer this all out and re-do it at some future date. As I mentioned a while back, it's pretty obvious what happened here: Whoever put the boxes in, did the one on the "right" rail first... which is up against a piece of restraining rail, and then went to do the left one and didn't look at the drawing, and just made it flush up against the rail (instead of leaving a flange gap).

[timio]

There was still a weld to be done between Francis and Water on Wednesday.

[KevinL]

This is a bit of an issue - the recently laid asphalt on Queen is, at least as originally put, a few inches higher than the concrete bed around the tracks. I think it shouldn't be too hard to correct, but they'll probably have to cut away more asphalt and re-lay it at a different slope.

[Canard]

Probably anticipated and known about - when they temporarily paved it before, they'd have just done it at some arbitrary height knowing that the track placement/alignment takes president and the pavement would have to mate it up to it afterward.

[GtwoK]

But what about the curb height? The flat part of the curbs should be flush with the asphalt. Would those have to be redone then, too?

[Canard]

Kevin's photos make the curb look like it blends in perfectly.

[tomh009]

Yes, I think the curbs are OK. The asphalt is not.

[KevinL]

My second photo illustrates it well, I think - the asphalt slopes down toward the intersection but then levels off. It seems they set the wrong point for the leveling-off so that it's a bit too high. If they cut the asphalt back to that point and let it slope a bit longer, all should be well.

[Canard]

The TPSS at Columbia has been tagged.