ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[ijmorlan]

I hadn't really thought about it until today, but the design at the end of the tracks is totally different here from Conestoga.

At Conestoga, the tracks end at a giant "D"-shaped concrete flowerbed, which I had always assumed was sort of a "last resort" crash protection in case a train overran the bumping posts. Here, there's nothing like that - the bumping posts would just push right off the end of the rails. It's also interesting that the platform concrete slopes down flush with the track here, which means people are going to cut across the ends of the tracks, instead of walking around.


I love you so much, DIN 1451.  I love you so much that I spec you on all the Lamacoids on the machinery I design![/i]

I guess they want to be ready for Phase 2. Nothing to remove in order to construct the extension.

Although at Conestoga, it’s easy to imagine a future expansion back down King St. to Uptown, so I’m not sure I would have put something across the end of the tracks that would require removal when expanding the system.

Gold Coast did something interesting: at one end of the initial phase, as far as I can tell from video footage, they built both tracks through the station area, but then built a platform on top of one of the tracks so that the train can open doors on both sides for as long as it is a terminal. It looks as if they just poured concrete on top of the embedded tracks but I assume they put down a layer of something to allow the platform to be smoothly removed when the extension is opened.

[trainspotter139]

1/2 - Sunday, October 29, 2017

A couple of notes from today;

• The little orange light was blinking at Borden station today, on the OCS pole!  Does that mean the power is on?  It was blinking on for about 0.1 second, off for about 0.6-0.7 seconds (ie, a little faster than 1 Hz, maybe 1.4 Hz or so).
  

It probably does mean that. Though it would be a more useful indicator if it was a solid light or a frequently blinking one rather than 0.1 seconds on 0.6-0.7 seconds off.

[panamaniac]

Two giant birds?

[Canard]

By fences at Block Line, do you mean near the Block Line station?

It was about here, from memory (red line):

   

Giant ~1.5m ugly galvonized chain-link fencing.  Horrible.  Hostile!!!!

Also Hayward is weird — although they put in fences, last time I drove by (yesterday), I thought I saw that the parking lot entrances still have no crossing arms. So fences are “needed”, but not any sort of crossing protection? How does that make sense? Especially since just up the road at the intersection with Courtland there are crossing arms on the pedestrian crossing, the same one that connects to the sidewalk that is separated from the tracks by a fence.

I have no idea.  I'm still baffled that places like Hayward and that Grocery Store on Charles (with a ~10 car parking lot) get the big flashy giant "NO TURN/TRAIN!!!!!!!" signs, yet some residential streets that could have potentially much higher traffic on Caroline have absolutely nothing - except a blind corner that people are going to come shooting out of and get nailed by a train.

Oh yeah, and about crossing arms - I forgot to mention, there are now crossing arms finally installed at the GM Dealership on Courtland at Shelley.  The traffic lights are still not activated there.

It probably does mean that. Though it would be a more useful indicator if it was a solid light or a frequently blinking one rather than 0.1 seconds on 0.6-0.7 seconds off.

A blinking light is more obvious than a solid one - that's why we have flashing bike lights instead of solid ones, they're more likely to catch the attention of motorists or other road and trail users.  A lot of vehicles now actually blip their brake lights at some super-high frequency at the first application of brakes - because it instantly gets the attention of anyone glancing in that general direction - it's really brilliant.

I guess they want to be ready for Phase 2. Nothing to remove in order to construct the extension.

I guess!  Except the two giant birds.  Think of the two giant birds!!

Two giant birds?

I answered my own question; I guess they're not as giant as I thought (sadface!!) and they're going in the areas already landscaped:

   

[ijmorlan]

By fences at Block Line, do you mean near the Block Line station?

It was about here, from memory (red line):



Giant ~1.5m ugly galvonized chain-link fencing.  Horrible.  Hostile!!!!

I guess they want to be ready for Phase 2. Nothing to remove in order to construct the extension.

I guess!  Except the two giant birds.  Think of the two giant birds!!

Two giant birds?

I answered my own question; I guess they're not as giant as I thought (sadface!!) and they're going in the areas already landscaped:

Thanks for the fence location. That is weird … it’s like they don’t think at all about desire lines and where you need to strongly guide people and where you just need to keep toddlers from running into a dangerous situation. I can think of a lot of sidewalks running along roads that need fences separating them from roads before any sort of fence is needed to separate pedestrians from a track carrying just LRVs travelling slowly as they exit the station with nothing on the other side of the track.

On the other hand, if they try to maintain the Traynor area fence with no crossings, I hope and expect the local population is assertive enough that the authorities have to install a Berlin-wall style fence or give up on the no-crossing policy.

Thanks for the Fairview map, I understand better where the birds will be. I think they’ll look great, even if we hope they need relocation sooner rather than later.

[Pheidippides]

1.9m tall (2.5m including base) x 3.65m long x 1.3m wide is a pretty big bird to me.

[Pheidippides]

Interesting article about Denver’s extensions:

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/10/26/rtd...ommission/

I had no idea they were having so many technical issues with crossings. 18 months of delay because of crossing arms is alarming. I wonder how much testing, timing and signing-off will need to be done here - especially since our system is the first modern LRT system in Canada?

Edmonton has had problems with its new Metro line too because of signalling and that was a pretty modern LRT in Canada isn't it? Although that was a mix of old lines/signals and a new line; so not quite the same case as here.

They started testing in July of 2013 to open in early 2014, but only opened at reduced frequency in September of 2015, and the signalling is still not working as intended with a new expected completion date of end of 2017.

Hopefully the GrandLinq partners' experiences in Australia and other places will help spare us that trauma.

[DHLawrence]

Edmonton has had problems with its new Metro line too because of signalling and that was a pretty modern LRT in Canada isn't it? Although that was a mix of old lines/signals and a new line; so not quite the same case as here.

Not till the Cambridge extension at least. Let's hope it happens while the technology is still more or less identical.

[KevinT]

1/2 - Sunday, October 29, 2017

A couple of notes from today;

• The little orange light was blinking at Borden station today, on the OCS pole!  Does that mean the power is on?  It was blinking on for about 0.1 second, off for about 0.6-0.7 seconds (ie, a little faster than 1 Hz, maybe 1.4 Hz or so).
  

It probably does mean that. Though it would be a more useful indicator if it was a solid light or a frequently blinking one rather than 0.1 seconds on 0.6-0.7 seconds off.

Making it blink is probably an easy way to handle the wide range of input voltages.

The nominal voltage of the OCS is 750V, but the max is 900V and under the heavy load of two accelerating double trains it's permitted to drop as low as 525V.  By using a relaxation oscillator (think of the whine of a charging camera flash) to build up X amount of charge and then dump it into the light for Y amount of time, X can vary with the voltage:  You get a slower blink at the lower voltage and a faster blink at the higher voltage, but the duration and brightness of the blink is always the same.

[KevinT]

Thanks for the fence location. That is weird … it’s like they don’t think at all about desire lines and where you need to strongly guide people and where you just need to keep toddlers from running into a dangerous situation. I can think of a lot of sidewalks running along roads that need fences separating them from roads before any sort of fence is needed to separate pedestrians from a track carrying just LRVs travelling slowly as they exit the station with nothing on the other side of the track.

The vehicle closest to the fence line will be slowly accelerating out of the station, the vehicle on the farther track will be decelerating into it, and still carrying a lot of speed/energy into any potential pedestrian collision beyond the station platform area.

[ijmorlan]

Thanks for the fence location. That is weird … it’s like they don’t think at all about desire lines and where you need to strongly guide people and where you just need to keep toddlers from running into a dangerous situation. I can think of a lot of sidewalks running along roads that need fences separating them from roads before any sort of fence is needed to separate pedestrians from a track carrying just LRVs travelling slowly as they exit the station with nothing on the other side of the track.

The vehicle closest to the fence line will be slowly accelerating out of the station, the vehicle on the farther track will be decelerating into it, and still carrying a lot of speed/energy into any potential pedestrian collision beyond the station platform area.

The point is not that it’s A-OK for a train to hit a pedestrian there, the point is that of all the places in the city where you need to put an ugly fence to keep people safe, that location is way, way down the list. There is no reason for pedestrians to want to cross there (no desire lines), so people won’t be deliberately crossing anyhow, and the train speed is lower there than many other places, including locations where the train is separated from pedestrians by nothing more than a regular curb. So all that can reasonably be justified is a small fence to keep people, especially toddlers, from accidentally stepping into the tracks. But small fences of that sort probably ought to line all our major streets. And toddlers won’t be getting to the further and more dangerous track anyhow, whether or not there is a fence there.

[Canard]

Hopefully the GrandLinq partners' experiences in Australia and other places will help spare us that trauma.

It's been a while since I've watched a full POV, but I don't recall any signal arms anywhere on G:Link.

The nominal voltage of the OCS is 750V, but the max is 900V and under the heavy load of two accelerating double trains it's permitted to drop as low as 525V.  By using a relaxation oscillator (think of the whine of a charging camera flash) to build up X amount of charge and then dump it into the light for Y amount of time, X can vary with the voltage:  You get a slower blink at the lower voltage and a faster blink at the higher voltage, but the duration and brightness of the blink is always the same.

I guess I had thought that the lamp that was blinking was probably a PLC-driven output, not something directly driven by the voltage on the line itself.  I guess what you're suggesting makes more sense, though - one less thing to go wrong or to fail.  Safety-related stuff like this probably has to be as simple as possible (ie, not subject to a bad rung of Ladder Logic resulting in someone getting fried because the light didn't come on!)

ijmorlan: As for the fence... while all you have typed up there may make sense, none of us (that I know of) have ever seen the "Rule book" from Transport Canada (or whoever) that decides why and where the fences are going up. There is probably some very strict and carefully guided calculation about how these locations are determined. It's impossible for us to speculate on why these things are going up where they are. You'll just exhaust yourself trying.

[Bob_McBob]

Hilarious commentary from the Woolwich Observer

Caption: "Some ghost stories have been with us for years, while others will certainly be haunting us all into the future"

[JoeKW]

I dunno, I think it's a ghost because we don't have them yet. Let's not get too fanatical about this

[Pheidippides]

ijmorlan:  As for the fence... while all you have typed up there may make sense, none of us (that I know of) have ever seen the "Rule book" from Transport Canada (or whoever) that decides why and where the fences are going up.  There is probably some very strict and carefully guided calculation about how these locations are determined.  It's impossible for us to speculate on why these things are going up where they are.  You'll just exhaust yourself trying.

I was under the impression that there was no rule book for modern light rail systems in Canada; and that is the problem - no one knows for sure what is and is not allowed.

I think by law all rail that shares track or crosses provincial/federal boundaries (maybe even all rail?) is considered to be a federal (Transport Canada) jurisdiction, but federal legislation and regulations are so out of date (rail regulations in Canada still use the British imperial measurements) that rules have not been developed or adapted or modernized for application to municipal light rail systems.

Transport Canada is just not currently set-up/organized to oversee these modern municipal-level rail systems I think that is why the Ottawa LRT was allowed to write its own rule book.


It is too bad modernizing transportation regulations across all modes is not more of a priority for the different levels of government. Pretty low-level/unglamorous and likely dry material, but essential to making the most out of all these major infrastructure projects.