ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Lens]

Caught 505 at Fairway Station last week:

ION Testing - Fairview Park 12 by Matt, on Flickr

ION Testing - Fairview Park 11 by Matt, on Flickr


More here: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmciCwzX

[Canard]

Gorgeous shots as always, Matt.

Anyone else finding that the Radio Player is now playing OPP stuff, not LRT chatter?

[trainspotter139]

Gorgeous shots as always, Matt.

Anyone else finding that the Radio Player is now playing OPP stuff, not LRT chatter?

Yeah it would seem the streams got messed up somehow

[trainspotter139]

More grade crossing signal testing from Mill Station to Fairway Station happening today.

[jason897]

Gorgeous shots as always, Matt.

Anyone else finding that the Radio Player is now playing OPP stuff, not LRT chatter?

Yep. I messaged the guy running it and he said his neighbourhood had a power outage recently so it might have messed up some settings... He'll look into it later today.

[jeffster]

So CTV had another part on the LRT, and obviously, as everyone knows, the rest of the trains won't be here anytime soon. Tom Galloway expressed hope that they'll be launching in December but it's starting to look like Spring 2019 at the earliest, and early 2020 at the latest.

[ijmorlan]

So CTV had another part on the LRT, and obviously, as everyone knows, the rest of the trains won't be here anytime soon. Tom Galloway expressed hope that they'll be launching in December but it's starting to look like Spring 2019 at the earliest, and early 2020 at the latest.

Sorry, what is up with the trains now? Last report said they were all substantially complete. What now?

[Bob_McBob]

So CTV had another part on the LRT, and obviously, as everyone knows, the rest of the trains won't be here anytime soon. Tom Galloway expressed hope that they'll be launching in December but it's starting to look like Spring 2019 at the earliest, and early 2020 at the latest.

FFS, 2020?! It's been 11 months since "substantial completion" now. What is so hard about setting up train signals that they might need to spend another 1 1/2 years dicking around with testing?

[trainspotter139]

So CTV had another part on the LRT, and obviously, as everyone knows, the rest of the trains won't be here anytime soon. Tom Galloway expressed hope that they'll be launching in December but it's starting to look like Spring 2019 at the earliest, and early 2020 at the latest.

Sorry, what is up with the trains now? Last report said they were all substantially complete. What now?

501 is waiting for back-ordered parts for the doors and 514 is undergoing it's water test. Delivery of the first vehicle from Kingston with the equipment installed is expected late-summer. But at this point we don't need those vehicles here yet. We only need the 6 that are here to finish the system integration and signals testing. One of the workers I talked to said they were quite close to testing using the specialized equipment on the trains. Which is one of the reasons they wanted to test the gates from Mill to Fairway (even though some of the gates are missing i.e. Siebert in front of Scherer GMC, one at Balzer that had to be moved due to hydro constraints). Friday there will be a crew in trucks making sure all the inductive loops work properly for the on-road sections.

[Canard]

Where can we get the report on vehicles + testing that was issued to council tonight?

[trainspotter139]

Where can we get the report on vehicles + testing that was issued to council tonight?

https://calendar.regionofwaterloo.ca/Cou...df#page=35

[jeffster]

You'd have to ask the politicians that question. I suppose it was "if you're late, you pay us, but if you're done on time, we'll start paying by this date.."

Unsure why Bombardier got the contract, we had choices from other makers.  I guess perhaps "nationalism" got in the way, so we went with "Canadian" despite it not being a great idea.

Everyone that was against the LRT and kept saying that it wouldn't be up and running by the date the Region claimed have been vindicated.

At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if it's not up before 2020. I figure 2019 by the time the trains are all here, plus a few more months of testing, adjusting, and then training. Spring 2020, we'll see service.

Wasn't this supposed to be up and running by fall 2017?

The order was from Bombardier because their prices were substantially lower.  It also allowed the region to order our trains along with Metrolinx which further lowered costs.

The LRT was supposed to be running in fall 2017.  There is little reason to think at this point that it won't be running in 2018, 2019 would require enormous new problems at Bombardier.  2020 would mean that we have trains from another manufacturer.

The trains being late is unfortunate and frustrating, but given that construction is finishing essentially on time, I'd argue the naysayers haven't a leg to stand on.  The vast majority of them don't care if the train is running, only if they're obstructed by construction anyway.

Looks like 2019 will be the absolute earliest now.

Seems most of the blame goes to Bombardier, but I think once we have the trains here, extensive training and testing will be needed. How long that takes? I would think much more than 6 months.

[tomh009]

Looks like 2019 will be the absolute earliest now.

You and I must be reading different reports if that's your conclusion.

[Canard]

Still have my fingers crossed opening gets bumped to Spring 2019; absolutely do not want opening day to be in the winter (so gross!!). Have been dreaming of this day for years, we don't need it ruined by having it happen in a snowstorm.

[jeffster]

Looks like 2019 will be the absolute earliest now.

You and I must be reading different reports if that's your conclusion.

They're saying December 2018. Early 2019 seems more reasonable, at this point. It's at best only 1 month off of the Regions new target date.