01-08-2018, 04:34 PM
I got into a friendly ION snow clearing discussion with a work colleague and I made some guesses that I'd like to validate with the more knowledgeable folks. I can't find details of snow clearing practices anywhere other than the small blurb on the ION FAQ page that doesn't really go into detail, so would appreciate pointers in the right direction if possible.
The discussion was prompted by my colleague discussing a pickup plow (as opposed to the full-sized plow/salters) that started to clear off ION tracks. Given the accumulation over night, the truck driver started but stopped quickly when the snow started being pushed onto the regular roadway. I'm not sure where exactly it was, but it was apparently a place where there was nowhere for the snow to go but onto the road.
During normal operation I understand (and explained) that trains would be run regularly overnight to keep things clear, and therefore there wouldn't be the situation where a lot of accumulation gets cleared at once. Even in our worst storms if a few centimetres accumulated during the overnight period, moving it from the tracks onto the road wouldn't cause much problem.
My colleague asked what would be done about all the snow between the track and the train itself, and I had no idea. We're near active tracks and I went out to lunch today so as I passed them (on Duke near Victoria) I saw that the snow was just built up in those areas and only the tracks were exposed. My assumption is that that will be the case with the LRT as well, but my colleague thinks that they're going to be plowing accumulated snow off the tracks in areas.
We were specifically talking about parts of the track where there's curb separation from the roadway. Like, the King St. Underpass, most of Charles St. etc, under the assumption that the parts of the track flush with the road will just be cleared by regular plows.
The discussion was prompted by my colleague discussing a pickup plow (as opposed to the full-sized plow/salters) that started to clear off ION tracks. Given the accumulation over night, the truck driver started but stopped quickly when the snow started being pushed onto the regular roadway. I'm not sure where exactly it was, but it was apparently a place where there was nowhere for the snow to go but onto the road.
During normal operation I understand (and explained) that trains would be run regularly overnight to keep things clear, and therefore there wouldn't be the situation where a lot of accumulation gets cleared at once. Even in our worst storms if a few centimetres accumulated during the overnight period, moving it from the tracks onto the road wouldn't cause much problem.
My colleague asked what would be done about all the snow between the track and the train itself, and I had no idea. We're near active tracks and I went out to lunch today so as I passed them (on Duke near Victoria) I saw that the snow was just built up in those areas and only the tracks were exposed. My assumption is that that will be the case with the LRT as well, but my colleague thinks that they're going to be plowing accumulated snow off the tracks in areas.
We were specifically talking about parts of the track where there's curb separation from the roadway. Like, the King St. Underpass, most of Charles St. etc, under the assumption that the parts of the track flush with the road will just be cleared by regular plows.