ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[danbrotherston]

[Canard]

Hi everyone, can confirm that the vehicle which was delivered a few days ago was 512. Hope this helps!

[KevinL]

[Spokes]

I saw that too. Here's hoping she's right.

[Canard]

There is no hidden message or news in her tweet - she’s repeating what she’s been told at Council.

[urbd]

There is no hidden message or news in her tweet - she’s repeating what she’s been told at Council.

So you happen to have insider knowledge that suggests otherwise? or just an educated guess? You seem adamant that service will not start in December.

[timc]

There is one of these signs was also added in front of the uptown parkade where the NB track curves in to the public square reminding people not to stop on the tracks and to stop BHEIND the stop line.

Oh that's good, but I have much more faith in it working at Caroline.  On King, it's usually congestion which pushes cars back, there's rarely a day when I walk past that I don't see someone stopped on the tracks while walking by.

I often see cars stopped too near the tracks on Columbia as well. I hope that this will diminish once ion is in service and trains are going past every 5-10 minutes.

[Bob_McBob]

How long are the signals and arms going to be stopping traffic when a train goes through a level crossing, or traffic lights at an intersection? What is the legal minimum and what is typical?

[ijmorlan]

How long are the signals and arms going to be stopping traffic when a train goes through a level crossing, or traffic lights at an intersection? What is the legal minimum and what is typical?

Longer than necessary if what we’ve seen so far is any indication. In particular, after the train has cleared the crossing the protection should stop immediately — there is no need to wait for the train to make any distance. The trailing coupler could literally still be overhanging the sidewalk and it wouldn’t be a problem.

On the other end, it’s harder to say — sometimes the gates seem to be down for an awfully long time before the train finally arrives, but they may still be driving slowly during testing and evaluating the safety of different timings is non-trivial. Although I will say that I saw a video which appeared to show a crossing in Britain where the protection was enabled for literally 5 minutes before the train came, which is obviously absurd and had the predictable effect of people trying to beat it, or even climbing over the gates to run across. Ours are definitely not that bad.

[KevinT]

How long are the signals and arms going to be stopping traffic when a train goes through a level crossing, or traffic lights at an intersection? What is the legal minimum and what is typical?

I don't know what's legally mandated by Transport Canada, but when I was listening to the ION radio during timing tests over the summer they seemed to be averaging around 25 seconds in advance, and 5 seconds after.  They were still tweaking things during that process (some were WAY more or less initially), so without waiting around at all the gates with a stopwatch I can't say what they eventually dialed in to.

Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_cros...Technology, the detection circuits consider both the train's position and speed in order to estimate its arrival time.

[Canard]

Meanwhile on the Waterloo Spur, I was standing not long ago at Quiet Place. The arms went down, and then I watched them go down at Bearanger.... THEN I saw a train slowly approaching from the North at 20 km/h. The arms stayed down until the train went past, so they were down for many minutes.

A few days ago I saw a train stopped on the curve at Hayward onto Courtland, and it had already triggered all the gates beyond the Block Line Station, which meant traffic was completely snarled.

Lots, lots, lots of work to do still.

[Pheidippides]

I’m not sure if the heavy rail standards apply to LRT at all or to LRT on heavy rail track, but the standards are here:
https://www.tc.gcca/media/documents/rail...df#page=46

It seems a bit complicated.
 
Descent of the gate arm must take at least 10 seconds.
If a rail vehicle is travelling >25kph the gate arm must be horizontal at least 5 seconds before the vehicle’s arrival (if the vehicle is travelling <25kph the gate arm must be horizontal at time of vehicle arrival).
Ascent of the gate arm must take at least 6 seconds.
Plus the travel time of the train across the crossing.
 
So for most of the crossings along the spur you are looking at at least 10+5+6+crossing time = total time (seconds).
 
So for Columbia (~30m crossing width) where the limit is 50 you are looking at a minimum of 10+5+6+3 = 24 seconds with the crossing arms down.
 
It seems like the rest of the warning system has different standards (see below). It looks like the lights and bells will be on at least 26 seconds before the rail vehicle even arrives (20 seconds + 1sec per 3m extra width above 11m). I think that recent video of  511 at Hayward showed the arms and lights activated a good 1min 15sec beforehand, but hopefully that gets tightened up; imagine a 1min plus of forewarning every 4min.
 
 
15.2 Gates
15.2.1 The gate arm must be installed perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the road approach.
15.2.2 The descent of the gate arm must take 10 to 15 seconds and its ascent must take 6 to 12 seconds.
15.2.3 The gate arm must begin its descent once the gate arm clearance time has elapsed, calculated in accordance with article 10.4.
15.2.4 For a grade crossing where railway equipment enters the grade crossing at more than 25 km/h (15 mph), the gate arm must rest in the horizontal position not less than 5 seconds before the arrival at the crossing surface of railway equipment.
15.2.4.1 For a grade crossing where the railway equipment enters the grade crossing at 25 km/h (15 mph) or less, the gate arm must rest in the horizontal position when the railway equipment arrives at the crossing surface.
15.2.5 The gate arms must operate uniformly, smoothly, and complete all movements without rebound, and must be securely held when in the raised position.
15.2.6 If the gate arm strikes or fouls any object during its ascent or descent, it must readily stop and, on removal of an obstruction, assume the position corresponding with the control apparatus.
 
 
 
16.1 Warning Time
16.1.1 The time during which the warning system must operate, before the arrival of railway equipment at the crossing surface, must be the greatest of:
(a) 20 seconds, unless the grade crossing clearance distance (Figure 10-1) is more than 11 m (35 ft), in which case, the 20 seconds must be increased by one second for each additional 3 m (10 ft), or fraction thereof;
(b) the Departure Time for the design vehicle (article 10.3.2);
© the Departure Time for pedestrians, cyclists, and persons using assistive devices (article 10.3.3);
(d) the gate arm clearance time, plus the time to complete the gate arm descent, plus 5 seconds;
(e) the minimum warning time required for traffic signal interconnection as referred to in article 19.3(a);
(f) the time for the design vehicle to travel from the stopping sight distance, and pass completely through the clearance distance.

[timc]

Meanwhile on the Waterloo Spur, I was standing not long ago at Quiet Place. The arms went down, and then I watched them go down at Bearanger.... THEN I saw a train slowly approaching from the North at 20 km/h. The arms stayed down until the train went past, so they were down for many minutes.

I saw two police cars at the Bearinger crossing yesterday directing traffic when the train was near the crossing, so it seems that there is definitely some work going on there.

[Bob_McBob]

I watched a bunch of videos of C-Train crossings and it seems like the bell typically rings for 40-50 seconds, depending on whether it's a pedestrian crossing or intersection. I think that would be a reasonable standard for ION.

[KevinT]

I’m not sure if the heavy rail standards apply to LRT at all or to LRT on heavy rail track, but the standards are here:
https://www.tc.gcca/media/documents/rail...df#page=46

It seems a bit complicated.

<snip>

Thanks for hunting all of that info down for us!

I think that recent video of 511 at Hayward showed the arms and lights activated a good 1min 15sec beforehand, but hopefully that gets tightened up; imagine a 1min plus of forewarning every 4min.

I would say that anything observed with 511 (or even within it's vicinity, i.e. as another LRV goes past in the opposite direction) doesn't count right now as they are only just in the early stages of testing the integration of its 'specialized equipment' with the rest of the system.  From what I've heard on the radio there are signal crews and flaggers working the crossings wherever 511's been out.

What you see with 505 to 509 in the absence of 511 would be more representative of the way the crossings are tuned right now.