ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[ijmorlan]

I saw a worker cleaning out one yesterday.  Probably clogged and grease not coming out?

Yes, I also heard lots of screeching on my travels yesterday.

I saw some workers examining the poorly-placed one in Waterloo Town Square parking lot. I hope they were considering ways to correct its location.

[Acitta]

Op-ed in the Record by Kurtis McBride, the chief executive officer of Miovision

Vehicle-centric planning won’t lead to more efficient travel

I don't know if there is a more general forum appropriate for this post.

[jeffster]

Op-ed in the Record by Kurtis McBride, the chief executive officer of Miovision

Vehicle-centric planning won’t lead to more efficient travel

I don't know if there is a more general forum appropriate for this post.

General Roads and Highway Discussion? Not sure if that's a better fit.

[Bob_McBob]

I didn't realize the CN freight train can cause significant delays in ION service while it shares the track. Someone on Reddit says they were held at Waterloo Public Square station for 15 minutes while the freight train passed through last night. For some reason I assumed it would be a little more optimized than that.

[taylortbb]

I didn't realize the CN freight train can cause significant delays in ION service while it shares the track. Someone on Reddit says they were held at Waterloo Public Square station for 15 minutes while the freight train passed through last night. For some reason I assumed it would be a little more optimized than that.

The original plan was for ION service to be every 30mins after about 10pm weekdays/6pm weekends, which gave enough time for the train to pass through. With the upgrade to an every 15mins service at all times this was the result.

The region's lease with the freight railway gives the region the right to terminate it if freight operations interfere with ION, but I think the current situation will be maintained for a while.

[KevinL]

Can the freight movements be moved later into the evening, such as after the end of Ion service?

[taylortbb]

Can the freight movements be moved later into the evening, such as after the end of Ion service?

That was the even earlier plan, but I believe CN advised that doing so wasn't feasible for them. The last ION trains return to the OMSF around 2am, and the first ones leave around 4:15am. That's a pretty small window to get up to Elmira, do their coupling and uncoupling, and make it back down.

Of course if they did two trains, and built a passing siding by St Jacobs, it probably could be done. But that's expensive for serving one customer.

[ijmorlan]

Can the freight movements be moved later into the evening, such as after the end of Ion service?

My understanding is that freight operations are allowed to send one train northbound between 23:00 and 01:00. From 01:00 to 05:00 freight has more or less unfettered use of its track. In practice, it’s a single southbound train somewhere around 04:00 or so.

This ties into the design of the interlocking. It is designed so that, short of sabotage, it is impossible for a freight train to enter track that is currently reserved for LRT. Before the derails can disengage, the LRT signals have to be set to red and the switches have to be aligned to take the freight through uptown, across the crossover at the Perimeter Institute, up the southbound LRT track, and onto the freight track where it branches off at Northfield. This implies that the LRT system is disconnected while this is happening.

I’m a bit unclear on some details. In particular, I don’t know how far the northbound freight has to get before the switches through Uptown can be moved to allow LRT to move. I would hope that once the freight has cleared the freight crossover, any southbound LRT waiting on the northbound track would be able to proceed across the LRT crossover and down to Willis Way; but maybe the freight has to get further than that (conceivably, it could be required to clear the derail at Northfield, although this would go beyond good safety planning and well into the realm of paranoia).

For southbound trains, my understanding is that LRT runs 3 south to Fairway before 05:00, starting at about 04:20. The first deadheads while the next 2 come into service at R&T. At this time there is no northbound service, because that can’t happen until the first LRT gets back from Fairway, which happens around 05:30. So the northbound LRT track can be used and the only interaction with freight is at the double crossover at the Perimeter Institute. My hope is that the freight would wait in the park for its turn; it should be possible for this movement not to cause noticeable impact on those early LRT runs. However, I have an idea that they might have to line up the entire route all the way through Uptown before the freight can come south of Northfield. I don’t know what time the freight actually goes through however; it may be that in practice they’re usually gone by the time first LRT goes out.

One thing I would like to know more about is how the freight spends its time. I think it takes about 4-5 hours to make the round trip from Uptown to Elmira and back. This seems like a lot of time, even with a certain amount of coupling and uncoupling of cars and with the slow speed at which they travel. So I wish I knew more about what specifically takes up the time. Maybe they are performing more individual actions than I realize, or maybe each one takes longer than I think, or maybe something else.

[ijmorlan]

Of course if they did two trains, and built a passing siding by St Jacobs, it probably could be done. But that's expensive for serving one customer.

Actually there are several customers:

Commonwealth Plywood at Northfield (although this may be a defunct siding; they used it to store incoming LRVs)

Fairway Lumber Home Building Centre in St. Jacobs (weirdly, though, not the massive distribution centre just a few blocks north)

Canada Colors and Chemicals

Chemtura (which Google Maps seems to be suggesting is now Lanxess)

But your main point is still valid - it’s 4 trains per week in each direction, pulling 1-15 cars, usually closer to the middle of that range. I’m actually moderately amazed that it still makes sense to maintain the line at that traffic level, although I have an idea that tanker cars have an inconveniently and surprisingly large capacity for transferring the load to highway transportation.

[Acitta]

The train crosses King St. very slowly and employs a flag man during the crossing (at least it did during the times I followed it during LRV delivery). This may account for the long delay.

[KevinL]

I think it's also the nature of some of the chemicals, that rail is considered more reliable than road. A tanker car can't jackknife on a highway and spill its load into mixed traffic.

[nms]

The round trip from King St in Waterloo to Erb St in Elmira (yes, there is an Erb St up there) takes about 2 hours (or one hour one-way). This would not include any stops to pick up or drop off cars. Track speed is defined by the track geography and condition. The track condition doesn't really allow for anything above 15 mph.

Dropping off and/or picking cars is a fairly complicated process depending on which cars need to be dropped off or collected. The first problem is "where are they" (ie are they the last in line, behind some other ones) and then next is the puzzle of pushing and pulling while leaving enough time for air brakes to charge throughout the whole trainset before it is moved each time.

[bgb_ca]

Real time for ion is now working in google maps

[Rainrider22]

Real time for ion is now working in google maps

How do I do that ?

[robdrimmie]

One of the blue signs with a white chevron, pointing up, has been added to the left side of the track approaching Mill Station towards Fairview, in the stretch between Ottawa and Borden. It's a fairly new addition, I saw it last night for the first time, but I hadn't been on the tram since last Friday so I'm not sure when it was added.

While on the train I thought that perhaps there was a slight climb there, so I played around with Google Maps' cycling directions to experiment with elevations. Unfortunately the walkway that runs parallel to the tracks between Borden Ave and Ottawa isn't in Google Maps yet, so I don't have clear elevation information. Ottawa and Mill is a little bit lower than Mill at Borden Pkwy but a little bit higher than Ottawa at Courtland but in all cases it's only a few metres either way.