ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Canard]

Hmm, the pad next to Clay and Glass was newly-poured concrete, and had services sticking out of it... Didn't look like it was related to the little water tunnel. Could be wrong of course, and it is on a strange angle relative to the track alignment. You'd think if it was substation or track related, it'd be parallel to the tracks.

[ijmorlan]

Hmm, the pad next to Clay and Glass was newly-poured concrete, and had services sticking out of it... Didn't look like it was related to the little water tunnel. Could be wrong of course, and it is on a strange angle relative to the track alignment. You'd think if it was substation or track related, it'd be parallel to the tracks.

Here's what happened, in order:

- dug down to existing concrete box, including partway down around the sides
- chipped off top surface, making it rough
- installed lots of bits of bent rebar, apparently by drilling holes, putting the rebar in, and gluing
- poured concrete over the whole thing

It's definitely not the pad for a substation, and it’s in the right place to be the creek structure, which I recall reading required reinforcement. Go on the other side of the CCGG to see where it goes underground. The next place downstream you can get a clue to its location is on Erb St. just West of Caroline, where there is a whole line of storm sewer grates along the curb. I believe these dump directly into the creek structure below. Then as far as I know it passes diagonally under the former Seagram museum building and crosses Caroline St., currently through a big pit.

Incidentally, the existence of the creek is one reason why I was always amused to hear people talk about burying the LRT, or building a subway. In this context the costs of that would have been insanely astronomical.

[Canard]

...which is why Monorail would have been the better choice, if grade separation was to be considered.

Thanks for the explanation about the pad.  Yes, there is a flat pad of earth being cleared just the other side of the little wooden bridge by Waterloo Park. I would imagine they're going to need to get to work on the bridge replacement very, very soon - track is headed this way within a few months.

[white_brian]

Come to think of it, if they had gone with the monorail then we would not have had to upset poor Jay Aissa (sp?) and could have just skipped that whole pitty party! His customers wouldn't have been so drastically been affected as they could just pass underneath it!
Lol just having a bit of fun! Cheers!!

[Canard]

...but then he would have cried foul that the Region was unfairly targeting him because monorail needs no fences, so the technology choice was made on that fact that they didn't want to give him any business. Haha

[BuildingScout]

I think we should have gone no rails. If monoroail is 50% than regular two track, it follows that no rail is 100% better. It would be really cool to see LRT hovercrafts pulling in at the station, in the style of the cars in Bladerunner.

[Canard]

Maglev was considered, but eliminated in the technology selection matrix (for the wrong reasons - but I don't pretend that it wouldn't have been expensive initially to build).  It works great in Aichi.



...or perhaps your tongue-in-cheek rip at transit alternatives was aiming more toward the trains in the recent Disney film Tomorrowland?

[BuildingScout]

...or perhaps your tongue-in-cheek rip at transit alternatives was aiming more toward the trains in the recent Disney film Tomorrowland?

I wasn't aware that anyone had actually watched that movie. 

[Canard]

Crews were out doing work on the tracks where they cross King in downtown Waterloo today.  The sign said it was closed from June 6 for 2 days so must have been something they could do over the weekend.

   

[ijmorlan]

Crews were out doing work on the tracks where they cross King in downtown Waterloo today.  The sign said it was closed from June 6 for 2 days so must have been something they could do over the weekend.

It was a track replacement of the crossing. They spent the previous couple of days building the new track adjacent to the existing track near the old train station (Paul Puncher’s). Once the old track is removed, they slide the newly-assembled track into place like a piece of model railroad flex track.

I’m not sure why the crossing was replaced — last I heard the whole thing is to be re-aligned and replaced as part of the LRT construction. Perhaps with the delay of the King St. work to next Spring it was felt the condition of the old crossing was too poor to leave for another year.

[Canard]

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking - kind of scratching my head as to why they'd bother doing any work to the existing crossing, since the new one is going to be actually very complicated, including a track switch.

I didn't actually see any new track at all at the station, are you sure? Or am I blind I didn't actually look that closely at the station, just saw the tamping machine and ballast cars sitting there and waved to them while they sleep over the weekend, lol.

[KevinL]

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking - kind of scratching my head as to why they'd bother doing any work to the existing crossing, since the new one is going to be actually very complicated, including a track switch.

The switch won't be at King, actually - the spur will parallel the LRT track past the Square station and only join it closer to Caroline. See: http://rapidtransit.regionofwaterloo.ca/...TownSq.pdf

[Canard]

Ahh, I'd remembered the configuration there wrong. That makes more sense.

I walked all the way along King and up into Waterloo this afternoon. King still just looks like pushing dirt around. Not to make light of the tremendous effort being put forth, but c'mon, when is the actual *construction* going to start? Everything so far seems like it's been just moving utilities. very anxious to move from the "taking away" phase to the "putting back and adding" phase.

[ijmorlan]

I didn't actually see any new track at all at the station, are you sure?  Or am I blind  I didn't actually look that closely at the station, just saw the tamping machine and ballast cars sitting there and waved to them while they sleep over the weekend, lol.

No, not blind, just at the wrong station! The assembly work was done East of Regina near Paul Puncher’s, the old Waterloo train station.

[timio]

King Street Grade Separation, in Kitchener work will begin starting on June 8 on King from Moore to Victoria to build the King Street Grade Separation. For this work, King West between Moore and Victoria South will be fully closed for up to 18 months. Initial activities include track reconfiguration at the Go Transit Layover Facility near Park and relocation of the existing track on King West. Beginning mid to late June, while we reconfigure the track at the Go Transit Layover Facility, Park will be closed for approximately three (3) weeks at the existing CN/ Go Transit railway track.

Source: http://rideion.ca/traffic-updates.html

Looks like the north-south routes are going to get more congested for a few weeks at the beginning of the grade separation.  I'm guessing GRT routes will go Park > Glasgow > Belmont > Victoria as the detour.

I'm also curious if/when they'll have to realign / regrade the Huron spur through all of this too in order to fit the new grade of the mainline.