01-19-2022, 06:46 PM
(01-19-2022, 01:26 AM)trainspotter139 Wrote:(01-18-2022, 02:41 PM)Bytor Wrote: We were warned, and rail is extremely easy to keep keep clear of snow. Even light rail. It wasn't snowing that fast as it took several hours before the 4cm had accumulated that the plows wait for before they start clearing the roads.
If GrandLinq/Keolis wasn't out there running a tram or or two all night to keep the tracks clear, that is incompetence on their part as we can easily expect multiple 5+ centimetre snow falls in a season, even in this day and age of climate change.
Also, how were the City snow plows allowed to just plow the snow over the LRT tracks? As easy as it is for light rail to keep up with falling snow, there's still such a thing as "too deep" for a tram. That is incompetence on the City's part to not make sure that didn't happen. It's also a bit more incompetence for GrandLinq to not expect such might happen and not have a rapid response contingency available.
They have a pretty bad operator shortage at the moment and are operating by maximizing Transport Canada limits on operator drive time and occasionally cancelling some train trips. If it were possible for them to operate trains after hours they would have. But when you hit that TC hours limit you're basically screwed.
Maximum duty period is 12 hours with a minium sleep time of 5 hours in the preceeding 24 hours or 12 in 48. The snow wasn't falling that fast, so after 2 hours a tram would have have been more than able to get through and clear light fluffy snow. (I mean, look how many hours it was before the snowplows came out.) So end of service at 12:00am, start at 5:00am, you call somebody to start at 1:00am with a loop to cover all tracks, they get half an hour break, then do another loop at 3:00am. Things are fine until normal start of service with the first trains going out a 4:45am. They worked for 3.5 hours if you include the 30 minute break. They go home, sleep until noon, come back in for their 8 hour shift at 1pm. All without declaring an emergency which allows them to abrogate those rules.