12-29-2016, 10:06 AM
While visiting my folks over Christmas, we popped up to Ottawa for an afternoon to check out construction of the Confederation Line.
Some sections are very far along; but to my surprise, others (mostly in the West) haven't even been started! They have a short section of single track completed in which they're now testing out their first LRV... but that section is pretty... jenky. On the connector between the Belfast Yards and the main line, the droppers between the messenger and contact wire are all skewed at a violent angle; and some of the droppers aren't even connected to the contact wire!
The stations are going to be grand and very impressive, that's for sure - they really went all out on those. Metro-quality, for sure. It really feels to me like this system should have been Vancouver SkyTrain (Bombardier INNOVIA Metro 300) tech, not a tram. Like, they went 90% of the way of having a really high tech, full on intermediate light metro... and were just like "Oh shoot, we blew all our money on the stations - okay, let's throw streetcars on it". There's no point really to having low-floor LRV's when you're never doing step-on/step-off and all the stations are dedicated and the entire line is totally separated (not a single crossing of any type).
A lot of the line uses existing Transitway BRT Right of Way, and while taking photos I kept leaping out of my skin for an instant when I'd see a bus go by, thinking it was a train testing.
Anyway, enough about that, on to some photos!
This is the Cyrville station.
Looking East, toward Blair.
The main entrance off Cyrville road. Just behind me, a similar, albeit slightly smaller structure exists, allowing access from either side of the overpass.
Some sections are very far along; but to my surprise, others (mostly in the West) haven't even been started! They have a short section of single track completed in which they're now testing out their first LRV... but that section is pretty... jenky. On the connector between the Belfast Yards and the main line, the droppers between the messenger and contact wire are all skewed at a violent angle; and some of the droppers aren't even connected to the contact wire!
The stations are going to be grand and very impressive, that's for sure - they really went all out on those. Metro-quality, for sure. It really feels to me like this system should have been Vancouver SkyTrain (Bombardier INNOVIA Metro 300) tech, not a tram. Like, they went 90% of the way of having a really high tech, full on intermediate light metro... and were just like "Oh shoot, we blew all our money on the stations - okay, let's throw streetcars on it". There's no point really to having low-floor LRV's when you're never doing step-on/step-off and all the stations are dedicated and the entire line is totally separated (not a single crossing of any type).
A lot of the line uses existing Transitway BRT Right of Way, and while taking photos I kept leaping out of my skin for an instant when I'd see a bus go by, thinking it was a train testing.
Anyway, enough about that, on to some photos!
This is the Cyrville station.
Looking East, toward Blair.
The main entrance off Cyrville road. Just behind me, a similar, albeit slightly smaller structure exists, allowing access from either side of the overpass.