ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Canard]

Crossover installation? Will have to take a look!

[KevinL]

Crossover installation? Will have to take a look!

I think they meant the other side (hydro corridor/Shoppers plaza).

[Canard]

Well, since we all blinked, it happened. (it's installed!)

[Canard]

1/6 - Sunday, December 4, 2016

Since we're into our annual 5 months in a row of bleak, grey, depressing skies, I guess I can't wait until it gets sunny to see what's up along the line. Here's what's up along the line today:

• OCS work is still continuing on King/Northfield
  
• Trail crossing are complete along the Waterloo Spur at Albert McCormic Arena and Quiet Place
  
• Tracks at the Seagram platform are getting an anticorrosion treatment installed (remove rail clips, lift rail, coat, dry, re-attach)
  
• King in UpTown Waterloo is open!
  
• Some of those aggressive curb starts along the central rapidway along King have been marked with cones.
  
• Track lubricators at Union are hooked up, but just sitting there without an enclosure
  
• King St. Grade Separation is coming along great, with some curbs and paving having been completed
  
• The embedded track curve from Borden onto the Huron Spur is curing
  
• Hayward is a flurry of activity (even today), with the track curve between Hayward/Courtland complete and curing, and track crews working at the interface to the Huron Spur
  
• Track installation is continuing along Courtland (today)
  
• Track installation & welding is occurring at Wilson (today)
  
• And, since we all blinked, crossover installation is already well underway at Fairway
  

   
OCS installation continues at Conestoga.

   

   
Driver's facilities.

   
The trail crossing at Albert McCormic arena is now paved, and more-or-less complete.

   
I think this crew just South of here was working on the trail crossing at Quiet Place.

[Canard]

2/6 - Sunday, December 4, 2016

   
This crossover is between Albert McCormic Arena and the OMSF (just South of Weber).

   
Still not a fan of the R&T Park station entrance with those ugly fences.  I really hope one of those grand art pieces ends up going here, along with lots and lots of trees.

   
There's a huge stack of rail booting here, the same type we've seen where asphalt goes down.  This will be for the walkway to get to the platform.

   
One of my favourite sections of the line - because it's the fastest!  Here you can also see the 300 mm stagger back-and-forth that the contact wire makes, so it doesn't wear a groove in the pantograph of the train.

   
R&T Park station.

[Canard]

3/6 - Sunday, December 4, 2016

   
The entrance to the Seagram station now has a paved trail from the adjacent (new) parking lot. It's a shame the new green space has been destroyed already.

   
Rail treatment work; same as we saw at R&T Park and University, crews have un-clipped the rails and jacked them up, and applied a black coating on them.  I assume it's gotten cold enough now that they can't just let them air-dry, so the warmers and tarps are out.

   
UpTown Waterloo is now open.

   
Lots of "No Stopping" signs here.

   

[Canard]

4/6 - Sunday, December 4, 2016

   
A whole whackload of new signage.

   
Embedded curve from King onto the Waterloo Spur.

   

   
Future Waterloo Town Centre station area.

   
As others noted - the old cobblestone path through these two buildings has now been paved wall-to-wall.  Surprised, but very happy to see, as I'm a frequent user of the Spur Line and Laurel trail.

[Canard]

5/6 - Sunday, December 4, 2016

   
Waterloo Town Centre station area.

   
Even though I'm still primarily a motorist, I still can't help but think these very few spaces along King could have been better used as bike lanes.  There are hundreds of spots just the other side of the building - did the extra ~10 spots on King really make that much of an improvement?

   
The lubricators on King at Union are now connected... but still just sitting there.  I would have expected they would be installed inside an enclosure, or the cables would be protected... I'm thinking this is all temporary, but curious what the final solution will look like. (The hatch on top is where you refill them, the hatch on the side gives access to the pump and battery, and yes, I read the manual for them )

   
King St. Grade Separation.  Paving was being done on Friday here, I believe. Also, note the railings on the railway bridge/platforms!

   
Looking North on King, near Wellington.

[Canard]

6/6 - Sunday, December 4, 2016

   
No idea when this happened, but boom - suddenly, crossover!

   
This crossover is a normal sized one (No. 8) - the one at Conestoga is compressed (No. 5) due to space restrictions.

   
A&B Rail Crews were out working today just past the Wilson Ave. level crossing.

[KevinL]

Even though I'm still primarily a motorist, I still can't help but think these very few spaces along King could have been better used as bike lanes.  There are hundreds of spots just the other side of the building - did the extra ~10 spots on King really make that much of an improvement?

The local merchants are very protective of street parking - they were annoyed enough with the spots on the other side going away. Keeping these became a requirement.

This crossover is a normal sized one (No. 8) - the one at Conestoga is compressed (No. 5) due to space restrictions.

Will this be embedded, or clipped to concrete like the Conestoga arrangement?

[urbd]

Thanks for the update Canard!

We need to find out if those pine trees are meant to be permanent for the strip between Willis and William... I just really hope they're not intending them to be topiaries, that would be horrible!

Does anyone have an example of mature conifers used as street trees?

[Canard]

Will this be embedded, or clipped to concrete like the Conestoga arrangement?

Clipped to a slab, like Conestoga - the lack of Polycorp TrackJacket components as was used on the embedded crossovers is the telltale, as well as the exposed bits of rebar through the base slab (which is already poured).

We need to find out if those pine trees are meant to be permanent for the strip between Willis and William... I just really hope they're not intending them to be topiaries, that would be horrible!

Someone on facebook already said they're temporary, and after a close look at them today, I agree. The trees are sitting on temporary wooden bases, screwed onto the wooden covers for the actual holes that the future trees would get planted in.

[danbrotherston]

Even though I'm still primarily a motorist, I still can't help but think these very few spaces along King could have been better used as bike lanes.  There are hundreds of spots just the other side of the building - did the extra ~10 spots on King really make that much of an improvement?

The local merchants are very protective of street parking - they were annoyed enough with the spots on the other side going away. Keeping these became a requirement.

This is unfortunately the situation. Even though empirical evidence from other bike lane installations shows that they are wrong, the general sentiment is that if their customers cannot park in front of their business, well, they won't have any customers. And for better or worse, the cities are very often willing to acquiesce, to these demands. I think getting the BIA on board with removing street parking in order to install bike lanes north of Erb was tremendously progressive, and also instrumental in getting council support for doing so. And yet, despite the fact that more than 100% of the street parking was replaced with off street lots (yes, you read that correct, parking actually INCREASED in uptown), there was still a business who felt so strongly about losing parking, that they came to the council meeting to speak out against it.

[timc]

They are installing some temporary, green, construction fencing to the outsides of the Weber overpass near the OMSF today. I guess they don't want anybody getting silly ideas about messing with the messenger wire and other silly ideas. It is actually pretty amazing how close the wiring looks to the bottom of the overpass from the top of that overpass. I wonder what the permanent solution is going to be.

I was on Weber Street last night, and I'm sorry I reacted so quickly by saying that the fencing had been there for months. Yes, there has been fencing, but it was just strapped to the guardrail. It looks like they have more properly installed the fencing, on the outside of the barrier as you say, attached to the concrete with stainless steel brackets. This looks more permanent, at least until they reconstruct the road in a few years.

[jamincan]

With regard to the U-Turns on Northfield and whether there will be signage encouraging U-Turns then, I noticed last night driving along King that they have put U-Turn signs at several points along the route there, so that suggests that they will have at least considered it for Northfield (whether they implement them or not).