ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Canard]

Yesterday, Luisa D’Amato asked us on facebook what we thought opening day should be like.

Here's her piece:

https://www.therecord.com/opinion-story/...il-starts/

[rangersfan]

Have they been doing testing outside core business hours or has it been restricted to like 10 to 4?

[urbd]

Have they been doing testing outside core business hours or has it been restricted to like 10 to 4?

Only around business hours so far

[tomh009]

Yesterday,  Luisa D’Amato asked us on facebook what we thought opening day should be like.

Here's her piece:

https://www.therecord.com/opinion-story/...il-starts/

And quite appropriately she starts the article talking to Canard ... :O

[Canard]

Blush!

Testing is only 10am-2pm. They don’t want to pay the guys overtime... grr.

[timio]

Short shifts, or required personnel schedules don't match up, eg one group is 0730-1530 and another is 1000-1800?

[jwilliamson]

It could just be 8-4 workers, with two hours of work to prepare for tests and clean up afterwards.

[ijmorlan]

I saw a photo that appears to show the LRV being towed today:

https://twitter.com/zachbyrt/status/963823335154114560

Does anybody know what the story is? Because other pictures and video from today seem to show it under its own power.

[taylortbb]

I saw a photo that appears to show the LRV being towed today:

https://twitter.com/zachbyrt/status/963823335154114560

Does anybody know what the story is? Because other pictures and video from today seem to show it under its own power.

They towed it for a little bit from around Wellington to the Tannery. Someone in the FB group asked a worker and apparently it was an expected part of testing. Seemed to imply that it was because they wanted to test towing procedures, but there is an OCS transition point around central station, so maybe the OCS isn't powered south of it.

[mpd618]

Also, does anyone ever see any infill station opportunities on the phase one line?

McCormick (where iXpress 200 currently stops) is a pretty big omission from the current line, and would be natural to infill.

[timio]

Courtland and Manitou would likely be a good stop as well.

[Canard]

I will of course photograph every station when complete. I started that in the fall to round out my construction album (thinking of making a book), but halfway through, winter hit. I’ll pick up in the spring.

[danbrotherston]

I wonder how difficult building infill stations will be. Would it be possible to do track work (like installing gauntlet track) overnight or would the system have to shutdown or go single track?

[ijmorlan]

Also, does anyone ever see any infill station opportunities on the phase one line? I thought that depending how that new conference centre (Open Sky?) on Ardelt does and what else goes up in the industrial area (maybe a hotel on Overland?) that a stop could be inserted immediately south of the expressway at Ardelt/Overland. It would be fairly close to the existing Mill station, but no closer than stop distances in downtown/uptown areas.

As an interim measure, they could re-open the railway crossing just south of the expressway that has been closed (why? and side note: is crossing there now dangerous because it has been closed, when it was safe enough before?), and install a pedestrian route under the expressway and up to Mill Station. This would provide walking access from the LRT. I’m not sure if there is space in the LRT tunnel however for a pedestrian route. If not then I consider it a blunder: the additional cost of building the tunnel 4m wider would have been a triviality in the context of the overall project.

[JoeKW]

I was sad to see that I missed the ION in DT Kitchener yesterday, hopefully it makes another pass today.