ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Canard]

Someone on the Facebook group snapped it on Caroline at the Willis Way station.

Haha, that’s awesome, he strung the wire in that section (among others) It must be so exciting for them to see their work come alive!

[Canard]

[Canard]

[Canard]

[ijmorlan]

Millhaven didn’t have a rail siding? Did they truck the vehicles a short distance and then transfer them to the flat car outside of the facility? This seems surprising!

That's exactly what they did, the vehicles were transferred from a truck onto the flatcar parked on a siding about 300 metres east of the plant on the corner of Taylor Kidd Blvd. and Jim Snow Rd.  Here's the pic I got of 504 on her loading day, unfortunately I didn't get there in time to observe the operation:



If you look on Google Maps' satellite view, you can see the empty bed for the track to Bombardier (above Direct Coil Inc.) that's being re-layed:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@44.2138012,-...!1e3?hl=en

Thanks! Interesting that it looks as if most of the former siding is still there and connected to test track for something that needs to be able to take tight corners - ICTS? Also a space where it appears another loop of track was removed near Direct Coil. I wonder when their rail connection was removed, and why? It seems weird to ship rail cars other than by rail, given that the site is right next to a siding and most customers will have rail service (I mean, they don’t build rail-based transit in tiny towns who lost their rail service decades ago). Maybe because it was mostly a testing and research facility rather than manufacturing?

[jamincan]

I wonder why they're doing the clearance test under it's own power now, while before they were doing a pull-through test without power.

[ijmorlan]

Question re: today’s testing: are they skipping the towing step? I saw the clearance checking attachments, but I haven’t seen any images showing the trackmobile, and the footage taken from KCI that I saw seemed to show the vehicle driving itself.

[trainspotter139]

I wonder why they're doing the clearance test under it's own power now, while before they were doing a pull-through test without power.

They have been testing the power system the past few weeks.

[Bob_McBob]

CTV posted a video of the LRV crossing into Kitchener.

https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1321085

[KevinT]

Today I caught up to it on King at Agnes, where it stopped before reversing back up the southbound track to head home.  Here it is departing Agnes northbound:

[KevinT]

I caught up to it again at Allen, as it reversed through the counter-flow section (so, not counter flowing this time).  I loved getting to walk right alongside it!

[KevinT]

I overheard the radio chatter as it came down Caroline St.  Once the gates dropped, they cleared it to proceed across the intersection, through the crossover to the northbound track, and directly to the OMSF at 15 km/h, i.e. no further stops!

[KevinT]

It may only have been 15 km/h, but without stopping it was hard to catch!  I missed it at Seagram, University, and Columbia, finally catching it again at Quiet Place.  No issues with the signals this time, they all worked perfectly!



When this thing runs at its rated it speed, it truly will be rapid transit!

[ijmorlan]

On my way home (about 15:00) I noticed what looks like one of those warming tents set up on the southbound track just north of Erb/Caroline. It seems they must have set it up after they were done for the day because the warming tents on the northbound track are still set up.

Awesome to see this happening! Thanks for all the videos!

[urbd]

It may only have been 15 km/h, but without stopping it was hard to catch!  I missed it at Seagram, University, and Columbia, finally catching it again at Quiet Place.  No issues with the signals this time, they all worked perfectly!



When this thing runs at its rated it speed, it truly will be rapid transit!

Thanks for the amazing updates!
I managed to catch a glimpse of it as well... and ugh, I'm actually despising those extremely loud bells. Is it just me or are they excessive?