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ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit
The Seagram crossing was stuck on this evening. Gates were up, but the lights and bells remained on.
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Might this have something to do with the cold weather? I mean it should be able to handle it, but it's the first time this year it's been this cold for a prolonged period.
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(01-22-2019, 09:27 AM)Spokes Wrote: Might this have something to do with the cold weather?  I mean it should be able to handle it, but it's the first time this year it's been this cold for a prolonged period.

Sure, that's probably the case here.

But I don't understand why all this equipment is so one off and flakey.  We have cold weather, we have railway signals in cold weather, why didn't we just copy exactly what we had at those other locations here?
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(01-22-2019, 10:11 AM)danbrotherston Wrote:
(01-22-2019, 09:27 AM)Spokes Wrote: Might this have something to do with the cold weather?  I mean it should be able to handle it, but it's the first time this year it's been this cold for a prolonged period.

Sure, that's probably the case here.

But I don't understand why all this equipment is so one off and flakey.  We have cold weather, we have railway signals in cold weather, why didn't we just copy exactly what we had at those other locations here?

Software. I'm sure it's software. (Seriously, the whole signaling thing is different from past systems because it has a lot more software.)
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Are they the exact same as other railway crossing equipment?
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(01-22-2019, 10:11 AM)danbrotherston Wrote:
(01-22-2019, 09:27 AM)Spokes Wrote: Might this have something to do with the cold weather?  I mean it should be able to handle it, but it's the first time this year it's been this cold for a prolonged period.

Sure, that's probably the case here.

But I don't understand why all this equipment is so one off and flakey.  We have cold weather, we have railway signals in cold weather, why didn't we just copy exactly what we had at those other locations here?

It has nothing to do with cold and everything to do with Sir Isaac Newton's 3rd Law of Motion.
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(01-22-2019, 10:34 AM)Spokes Wrote: Are they the exact same as other railway crossing equipment?

Nope, the FIEs talk to them... Of course they are also still subject to mechanical failure as well as the novel software failure mode that we get in 2019.

(On balance it is probably good that they have software. But it complicates things.)
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(01-22-2019, 11:01 AM)plam Wrote:
(01-22-2019, 10:34 AM)Spokes Wrote: Are they the exact same as other railway crossing equipment?

Nope, the FIEs talk to them... Of course they are also still subject to mechanical failure as well as the novel software failure mode that we get in 2019.

(On balance it is probably good that they have software. But it complicates things.)

Software should have nothing to do with whether they go up and down reliably. The software can reasonably do things like tell the crossings to go down based on something more sophisticated than a track circuit, and it can report the status to the vehicles and to transit control, but I agree that we have existing, reliable, methods for actually controlling the motion. Those existing methods should not be replaced unless and until the new method is proven more reliable than the existing techniques.

A real difference that might be relevant is that we now have probably at least a couple of dozen new crossings installed all at once. How reliable are other new railway crossings? I have no idea.

What I want to know is how well the system does at telling transit control about problems. I would say that anytime a crossing arm remains down more than maybe a minute with no track circuits in the area indicating presence of a train, transit control should get an alert so they can monitor the situation and send out a repair crew promptly in the event it doesn’t clear by itself. It sounds like they might possibly have something like that — presumably the person Canard observed was dispatched that way.
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I don’t think the problems with the arms at Seagram have anything to do with the cold. I really think it's a mis-adjusted cam triggering a switch.
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(01-22-2019, 05:08 PM)Canard Wrote: I don’t think the problems with the arms at Seagram have anything to do with the cold.  I really think it's a mis-adjusted cam triggering a switch.

In one recent case I heard an LRV operator call on the radio that wind had caused the arm to catch a bracket preventing it from going up all the way up and getting stuck in the 'travelling' position.  It cycled properly and cleared when the next LRV came through a few minutes later, so probably just one bad gust that caused it to snag.  :-(  I wonder if something as simple as rotating the catch bracket at the top to favour the prevailing winds might be enough to make a persistent gremlin disappear?  I also wonder if our highly flexible fibreglass arms versus the old fashioned (but more damaging to vehicles) wooden ones could be the cause of more wind related issues than we've seen with the legacy gates around town.
...K
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Am I wrong in thinking that the crossing arm at Seagram is exceptionally long? Is that part of the problem?
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It’s the longest one I’ve ever seen in my travels, that’s for sure! It’s ridonculous. Could certainly be part of the challenge.
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Yeah, an arm that long just seems to be asking for trouble with wind issues.
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I actually wonder if it might hold the world record for the longest crossing arm.

Edit - hrm. Maybe not...

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