Ottawa LRT

[Spokes]

What's the difference between a LRT and a light automated metro

Light Automated Metro = VAL (Lille, Toulouse, etc.), Copenhagen Minimetro, etc. - smaller than "heavy" subway vehicles, typically operating in smaller consists at shorter headways.

LRT = tramway (streetcar) often on dedicated tracks

Thanks for clarifying!

[ijmorlan]

ijmorlan, you might enjoy this article on how Montreal got all these covered stations:

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8267/23...9b25d3.pdf

Thanks, very interesting!

[Canard]

The idea is you can have smaller “everything” and just run trains closer together from the start to make up for it. VAL does this the most elegantly, with 60-second headways. It’s pure magic to watch. This was also the key design ideology behind ICTS (Scarborough RT*, Vancouver SkyTrain) - run small trains as fast and as close together as you can.

* - This never quite happened in Scarborough for a myriad of reasons, most notably the failure of the vehicles to successfully navigate a previously-built superstructure with too tight of a radius, necessitating a total rethink of the functional design of a terminus station meaning train lengths had to be doubled and headways halved - but that’s another story!

[ijmorlan]

They are just concepts as the actual plans will be done by whoever is selected to develop the central station complex.

That said, you are free to choose pessimism and I can choose optimism, on this and other topics.

I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic on this matter. I am just observing that this city doesn’t really do indoor links. In the specific case of the transit terminal, it is so obvious that the LRT station should be integrated into the train and bus terminal that no concept should have ever been published that didn’t show them as integrated; and the LRT station design should have been done at the same time as a sufficient amount of the train station design to make it clear exactly how the stations are to integrate. They built the bridge, in effect, for the LRT system; why hasn’t the design of the train station (platforms and platform access, not necessarily the larger development around it) been figured out enough to understand how the LRT connects to it?

[danbrotherston]

The idea is you can have smaller “everything” and just run trains closer together from the start to make up for it. VAL does this the most elegantly, with 60-second headways. It’s pure magic to watch. This was also the key design ideology behind ICTS (Scarborough RT*, Vancouver SkyTrain) - run small trains as fast and as close together as you can.

* - This never quite happened in Scarborough for a myriad of reasons, most notably the failure of the vehicles to successfully navigate a previously-built superstructure with too tight of a radius, necessitating a total rethink of the functional design of a terminus station meaning train lengths had to be doubled and headways halved - but that’s another story!

That sounds like a rather interesting story, not part of the history I know (my understanding was simply that apparently the trains have drivers despite being capable of autonomous operation).  Do you have a link?

[tomh009]

The drivers (who don't really drive, they just monitor the systems) are there thanks to the TTC union pressure.

I would like to hear about the train lengths and headways, too!

[Canard]

It’s well documented all over (Wiki is a good start) and OT for this thread, but in a nutshell the system was to be LRT. They built the turnaround loop at Kennedy to handle the turning radii that the CLRV’s could handle. The Province needed a showcase for their new ICTS system, and convinced the TTC to change technologies by paying for the difference.

The turnaround loop was too tight for the ICTS vehicles and they would occasionally derail. This resulted in a reconfiguration of the Kennedy terminus - which has a curve right after the station, so a full crossover was out. This meant there could only be a single track, with boarding/exiting possible on both sides of the train with a platform extension (the original config had trains stop at an exit platform, run through the turnaround loop, and board on the opposite side while the next train arrived).

Since there wasn’t time to get a train in and out fast enough, they had to halve the headways. Since that resulted in excess vehicles they could convert them to four-car trains.

But the system was meant to accommodate four car trains at the super short headways... which it could now never do, due to the config at Kennedy.

[KevinL]

[Pheidippides]

Their council also got a verbal update on progress. The plan is still to open in the first three months of 2019.

Other milestones:
-six trains made 55 successful end-to-end trips along the 12.5-kilometre route
-Stations east of downtown are essentially complete.
-Trains have been able to run at their maximum 83 km/h (won't operate at that speed though)
-Fare gates and vending machines have been installed.

[Spokes]

Funny I just watched the same. Man it looks good.

[jeffster]

[Spokes]

Even the above ground parts, I love how they're sheltered/enclosed.

[Markster]

From the Ottawa Citizen

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...f-progress

It’s looking more certain that the $2.1-billion Confederation Line LRT will open near the end of next March, although the city is nervous about promoting another launch date after it aborted the first two.

The city’s transportation general manager, John Manconi, would only tell council members Wednesday during a finance and economic development committee meeting that LRT would be ready sometime in the first quarter of 2019 but didn’t have an exact date.

Maybe we need to get some sense of competition in the region here, to get them to beat Ottawa to the punch!

[Spokes]

The Twitter account @Rail613 always jokes about that

[Canard]