(11-28-2018, 09:46 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Out of curiosity, can anyone who knows more about trains than I tell me why it was necessary to bend the LRT tracks away from the freight alignment, towards the buildings right in front of Coras before the merge back together? It seems like it achieves nothing, it uses more space, but also decreases the radii of the track curve.
Remember they want the platform to be perfectly straight for 2 LRV-lengths, but they want the freight track to have large radius. The LRT track is the corner while the freight track is the surface of the caulk bead. If you can find the page in the RFP plans posted some time ago it will probably be clearer.
Having said that, I’m not convinced it couldn’t have been done better. In particular, a lot less space would have been used for tracks if the freight and LRT tracks formed a gauntlet in the station just like further north. The difference would be that at the south (east) end of the platform, the tracks would diverge with a frog rather than joining back up as at the other stations. I’m a bit concerned about track radii for the freight and the possibility of needing highly non-standard special work at the points (and maybe the frog too), so I’m not sure that my idea would really be better, taking into account all considerations. But if it had worked it would have left lots of space for a multi-use trail immediately north of the tracks; and if furthermore the tracks in the stations were done like the other stations (non-embedded), it would have eliminated improper motor vehicle access.