ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Rainrider22]

June 21
Luck out stopping off in Kitchener on my way to London to caught 506 in testing between Mills Station and Fairview Mall. If I have visited before 12 pm, I wouldn't have caught these videos. Testing was to start at 8:00 am, but started after 12 pm.

Every intersections had police officer on duty as well the contractor.

No idea what the plan is for communication, but the driver had a hand-held device that was moved from end to end and clip to the control panel.

Found the horn weak for crossing the road.

Car was slow arriving at Fairview Station, but it sure jack rabbit departing the station.

https://youtu.be/3nbFfKIDMnU
https://youtu.be/tj0xhnIwp-4
https://youtu.be/M7ej_4y9ewI
https://youtu.be/qcvQvJ1Ee98
https://youtu.be/ZiZthBARYxs
https://youtu.be/iLOmLf0Q3ns

Great video, thanks for taking the time to share them...

[Coke6pk]

Thanks!

Question: on the radio, they talk to WRPS and refer to them as “Paid-Duty Officers”. Why is that?

My guess was to discriminate between regular officers, and the ones that are specifically requested to help out with testing? ie so a bunch of regular police don’t show up to an intersection to protect it?

It’s just weird to me because... everyone is paid to do their job. I’m a “Paid-Duty Mechanical Designer” but that’s not what my business card says

The Paid-Duty Officers are typically called in for overtime and use whatever spare cruiser they have in the garage (like the Pride cruiser).

"Paid-Duty" has been correctly defined in this forum.  It is a position that is paid by a private entity.  They are offered to sworn officers on their time off.  Paid Duties include things like Rangers games, Parades, Oktoberfest Festhalls, Concerts and Large Outdoor events.

Back in the day, the officers were paid in cash or cheque at the end of their duty.  This was ripe for abuse and the negative perception of a grocery store manager paying cash to an officer who was standing at the front of the store all night [Not sure if it still happens, but Toronto Police used to have a paid duty at the Dominion Store on Wellesley St on Friday and Sat nights].  Today, when an event is being planned, rules are set on the number of paid duty officers required.  [ie. AGCO may say you need minimum of 4 police officers per festhall.... themuseum requires one officer for proms held there).  WRPS will pay the officer and it goes on their T4, and the client will be billed.

The reason for the call sign on the radio, each "zone" that officers are assigned to have a call sign.  It stays with the zone, not the officer working it.  When there is a paid duty they are identified by that call sign as they don't have individual numbers, and they zone officer working that area is separate and available to take calls.

As for the Pride cruiser, its assigned to the Traffic branch, and is normal rotation... not just "in the garage".

Coke

[jamincan]

I know the Pride Cruiser was used as one of the race vehicles for the KW Classic, so definitely not just traffic duty.

[KevinT]

June 21
Luck out stopping off in Kitchener on my way to London to caught 506 in testing between Mills Station and Fairview Mall. If I have visited before 12 pm, I wouldn't have caught these videos.

Thanks for sharing these, and glad you were able to catch some of the testing on your way through town.  I caught some last Thursday (mostly from the car, so no video) in the Wilson to Hayward stretch and none of the crossing signals were working at all, it was police escort only that day.  Nice to see the progress on that front!

[Lens]

Caught 505 at Fairway Station last week:

ION Testing - Fairview Park 12 by Matt, on Flickr

ION Testing - Fairview Park 11 by Matt, on Flickr


More here: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmciCwzX

[Canard]

Gorgeous shots as always, Matt.

Anyone else finding that the Radio Player is now playing OPP stuff, not LRT chatter?

[trainspotter139]

Gorgeous shots as always, Matt.

Anyone else finding that the Radio Player is now playing OPP stuff, not LRT chatter?

Yeah it would seem the streams got messed up somehow

[trainspotter139]

More grade crossing signal testing from Mill Station to Fairway Station happening today.

[jason897]

Gorgeous shots as always, Matt.

Anyone else finding that the Radio Player is now playing OPP stuff, not LRT chatter?

Yep. I messaged the guy running it and he said his neighbourhood had a power outage recently so it might have messed up some settings... He'll look into it later today.

[jeffster]

So CTV had another part on the LRT, and obviously, as everyone knows, the rest of the trains won't be here anytime soon. Tom Galloway expressed hope that they'll be launching in December but it's starting to look like Spring 2019 at the earliest, and early 2020 at the latest.

[ijmorlan]

So CTV had another part on the LRT, and obviously, as everyone knows, the rest of the trains won't be here anytime soon. Tom Galloway expressed hope that they'll be launching in December but it's starting to look like Spring 2019 at the earliest, and early 2020 at the latest.

Sorry, what is up with the trains now? Last report said they were all substantially complete. What now?

[Bob_McBob]

So CTV had another part on the LRT, and obviously, as everyone knows, the rest of the trains won't be here anytime soon. Tom Galloway expressed hope that they'll be launching in December but it's starting to look like Spring 2019 at the earliest, and early 2020 at the latest.

FFS, 2020?! It's been 11 months since "substantial completion" now. What is so hard about setting up train signals that they might need to spend another 1 1/2 years dicking around with testing?

[trainspotter139]

So CTV had another part on the LRT, and obviously, as everyone knows, the rest of the trains won't be here anytime soon. Tom Galloway expressed hope that they'll be launching in December but it's starting to look like Spring 2019 at the earliest, and early 2020 at the latest.

Sorry, what is up with the trains now? Last report said they were all substantially complete. What now?

501 is waiting for back-ordered parts for the doors and 514 is undergoing it's water test. Delivery of the first vehicle from Kingston with the equipment installed is expected late-summer. But at this point we don't need those vehicles here yet. We only need the 6 that are here to finish the system integration and signals testing. One of the workers I talked to said they were quite close to testing using the specialized equipment on the trains. Which is one of the reasons they wanted to test the gates from Mill to Fairway (even though some of the gates are missing i.e. Siebert in front of Scherer GMC, one at Balzer that had to be moved due to hydro constraints). Friday there will be a crew in trucks making sure all the inductive loops work properly for the on-road sections.

[Canard]

Where can we get the report on vehicles + testing that was issued to council tonight?

[trainspotter139]

Where can we get the report on vehicles + testing that was issued to council tonight?

https://calendar.regionofwaterloo.ca/Cou...df#page=35