ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[KevinL]

Surely at some point it's more cost effective - how fast will they be delivering the Eglinton cars for that project?

[Viewfromthe42]

It'll be interesting to see how their stable of flat bed cars does delivery when the destination isn't KW, but Edmonton.

[tomh009]

How expensive can an LRV flatbed car be? Is it really purpose-made for this, or is it adapted from regular flatbed cars?

[KevinT]

It'll be interesting to see how their stable of flat bed cars does delivery when the destination isn't KW, but Edmonton.

It would be interesting to see if the Edmonton cars even fit on a flatcar. Their vehicles are two modules longer, and certainly won't fit on the flatcars used for the Ion and Eglinton Crosstown vehicles.

How expensive can an LRV flatbed car be? Is it really purpose-made for this, or is it adapted from regular flatbed cars?

Not very. The flatcars used for the Ion LRVs and TTC streetcars are just standard cars from the TTX rental pool with two rails and a collapsible stowage box welded to their decks. When all this is over they'll grind off the welds and return them to the pool.

[KevinL]

I was just at the GRT info session at Region HQ, and they had this up. I confirmed with one of the staffers that this is the current draft of the in-vehicle route map.

[bgb_ca]

Now will it light up like the TTC one on the subway?

[Canard]

The flatcars are very customized - easily several hundred k each. They’re a lot more complex than I think people give them credit for.

The point is: Bombardier has no reason to spend a dime building another one. It’s not their fault now we’re late.

[taylortbb]

The flatcars are very customized - easily several hundred k each. They’re a lot more complex than I think people give them credit for.

The point is: Bombardier has no reason to spend a dime building another one. It’s not their fault now we’re late.

That doesn't match what I've heard elsewhere. It came up on Urban Toronto at https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/io...st-1260402 where user smallspy said:

The "lack of transporter cars" is really a fairly trivial issue. It will take CN 6 hours or less to rig up another car - they just need to be told by Bombardier to do it.

I'm not sure the exact background of that user, but he's one of the more senior members on that forum and CPTDB, with a long history of being right about these sort of things and having lots of reliable insider info on Bombardier (and general rail operations).

I'm not saying you're not trustworthy Canard, but right now I've got two very "in the know" people telling me totally opposite things, so I'm not sure what to believe.

[Canard]

I've reached out to some contacts for more info about them.

I'm sticking with they have no reason to build more, though - it's not their fault the Region told them not to ship trains.

You're all also making the assumption that trains not arriving fast enough is now the hold up and what is driving the opening date - it is not.

[Pheidippides]

When I was at the GRT meeting last night staff were pretty tight lipped about Ion related information, but they did mention that in the April 18th report to council they would be presenting multiple implementation options to choose from.

That, to me, sounds like aa phasing in of service, but your guess is as good as mine.

[Canard]

Multiple implementation options? What do you mean?

[Pheidippides]

I don't know. They didn't say.

It sounded like to me, hypothetically,
Option A - open July 1, 2018 with 6 vehicles and 1 spare on 30min service
Option B - open September 1, 2018 with 10 vehicles and 1 spare on 15min service
Option C - open January 1, 2019 with 12 vehicles and 2 spare on 8min service

All hypothetical conjecture though for another 8 days and 8 hours at least.

[Viewfromthe42]

All of those options would suggest that Bombardier is indeed part of the delays, wouldn't it? If they can open with any number of vehicles on July 1st, then opening with fewer overall vehicles could only be Bombardier's fault, not anyone else's, right?

If those were the options, there's no way you could reasonably go with A (we've complained a lot about people having gotten used to parking on LRT tracks or separated bike lanes, we couldn't train people to think that LRT is a 30 min service, especially not those who might try it for the first time because it's LRT, only to be dissuaded because they think the service is terrible). C would be hard because you'd be doing a massive route change over the Christmas holidays, in winter.

[KevinL]

I doubt the options are as wide-ranging as Pheidippides' suggestion. I'm thinking A) is launch July-August with most to all vehicles, make no immediate changes to bus routes except removing 200 and B) is launch full Ion September 4 and implement bus changes simultaneously.

I guess we see on the 18th.

[Canard]

You could extrapolate that Bombardier is the cause of the delay in the same way you could blame your friend for being late to dinner because they have a 30 minute drive to the restaurant and you told them you were meeting there with your friends in 15 minutes.