ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Canard]

Minor point, but all of the signals for the switches (crossovers) throughout the system are now illuminated red (horizontal bar). Happened a few days ago.

[Coke6pk]

Did this get Tweeted to the Region or GrandLinq?  I'd love to know their response....

Coke

[Canard]

They likely won't - they're excruciatingly selective in what they respond to.

[timc]

I saw a worker at the TPSS near Columbia Street today. At least a couple of the switches are now in the closed position.

[Canard]

Were the lights on top of the OCS poles on?

[timc]

I don't recall seeing any

[Square]

Lol, another week gone and still no paperwork!

[danbrotherston]

Lol, another week gone and still no paperwork!

Indeed.  What is going on with that?

[darts]

I guess they couldn't scan and email the paperwork, or fax it

[Pheidippides]

Probably lawyers arguing over who's liable WHEN (not if) the LRV gets hit during testing or trying to find a insurance company to back that risk.

Or maybe they are debating whether the contract was supposed to include an owners manual and trains or if it was just for the trains.

What I don't understand is, why set themselves up for potential disappointment? Why announce in mid-September "three before November"? Why not just have them show up? "Oh look we said 14 by the of the year and we are getting closer to that goal."

It's like they've got the old truism, "under-promise and over-deliver" backwards as a company motto.



The more I think about the amount of burn in time (600km per LRV) and testing they still need to do the more unlikely "May 1" seems. That's 8,400km of burn in kilometres to complete or 494.12 trips down the 17km (is that what we settled on for length?). At revenue service speeds that would be 46min per trip or a total of 22,729.41min or 378.82 hours or 15.78 days (24/7) of burn-in time; and the burn-in will not likely be at the regular speeds for the first while so it will take longer. Then there is system wide testing on top of all of that.

[ijmorlan]

The more I think about the amount of burn in time (600km per LRV) and testing they still need to do the more unlikely "May 1" seems. That's 8,400km of burn in kilometres to complete or 494.12 trips down the 17km (is that what we settled on for length?). At revenue service speeds that would be 46min per trip or a total of 22,729.41min or 378.82 hours or 15.78 days (24/7) of burn-in time; and the burn-in will not likely be at the regular speeds for the first while so it will take longer. Then there is system wide testing on top of all of that.

I’m not concerned about burn-in time. All they need to do is run regular service for a couple of days while still in testing. 600km is only about 18 round trips. Remember there will regularly be 12 vehicles operating on the line all at once and there is no reason burn-in can’t be done with multiple vehicles at once.

I’m more concerned that the testing phase will drag on and on with no information about what is actually happening, especially with testing showing no sign of actually starting. Testing does not require all vehicles; and most testing only requires one vehicle (things like do the signals get triggered by the vehicle, etc.). Of course some testing requires multiple vehicles — I thought one article said they needed 3.

So assuming that testing is already completed, it should be possible to begin a base service operating every 15 minutes 3 days after the 7th vehicle arrives, and ramp up to full rush hour service 3 days after the 12th vehicle arrives (spares should not be needed on a brand-new system, especially with the spares on their way within days or weeks of opening). Of course I don’t expect anything like that to happen — this project has never operated on the idea that things should happen as soon as they can. Also I’m assuming that vehicles arrive fully ready to operate and all they need is burn-in; and maybe each vehicle needs a bit more testing before beginning burn-in.

[Canard]

They're certainly not going to announce any information regarding testing anymore - look what happened the first time they tried to help us fans out by letting us know.  They got "rewarded" for that by being crucified by the media and the haters on social media.  I'm livid about that, personally.

Burn-in is only happening on the test track. Simulated service and testing on the rest of the line won't happen until burn-in and signoff is complete. Bombardier still owns 501 and 502.

[ijmorlan]

They're certainly not going to announce any information regarding testing anymore - look what happened the first time they tried to help us fans out by letting us know.  They got "rewarded" for that by being crucified by the media and the haters on social media.  I'm livid about that, personally.

The problem is that they have typically not provided enough information, and much of the information they have provided was wrong. For example, they said testing was starting on a particular day, even though they clearly did not have a firm plan to do so. With this paperwork thing, why not explain specifically what is missing and what has to happen in order for it to be complete? It’s called transparency, and while haters gonna hate, the rest of us would be much less frustrated with the delays if we had a better understanding of what they are actually about.

They should have had an official blogger throughout the whole construction period, who would have communicated with the people responsible for scheduling the work crews and would have explained “for the fans” what was happening with the construction. Now that we’re moving into vehicle testing, they could write articles focussing on specific aspects of the testing regime. Way more detail than drivers in general need, but still of interest to a significant number of people, and wouldn’t need even a single FTE to do a thorough job. On a project of this size, it’s not unreasonable to have extra communications just for interest. The person could also help with making sure closure communications and so on actually match up with what is really happening.

When Conrad Grebel College did their most recent building expansion they did a great job of something like this. They regularly posted articles with information about what the construction crews were doing, complete with photos from inside the construction zone. I’m not sure if it’s still up — it’s the kind of thing that should remain up eternally but people typically don’t think of it that way. Something like that for the LRT project would have pre-emptively answered all the questions you (for example) ever posted to Twitter.

Instead we got “how ION trains work” videos that clearly cost a significant amount of money to make, but managed not to show a single piece of actual electrical equipment for the system nor even mention the actual operating voltage. We just got confirmation that, yes, the trains run on electricity. A disappointment even for the casually-interested public.

[Canard]

Just casually pointing out that there is a Council meeting at 7pm next Wednesday (November 1).

[Canard]

1/1 - Thursday, November 26, 2017

   
Installation of the "bumping posts" happened today at Conestoga.

   

   
Rawie seems to make almost all of these around the world.

   

   
Functionally, the bumping post can slide along the track. As you can see, there's a clamping element that is attached to the rail head. It closes around the head with springs, and a specified force can be applied. So, when a train impacts the bumping post, it can slide along in the same direction with a carefully engineered resistive force. The clamp at the train-end prevents that end of the bumping post from lifting up (which is why it wraps around under the rail head).