Confederation Line East LRT Extension (Stage 2) [Blair to Trim] | U/C

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Well that's it. The City was told by experts in the planning phase "no actually, what you're proposing is a light-metro, not an LRT", but the City insisted it was too small for a light-metro, so bidders (two of the three) proposed LRT.

These trains are designed to be slow street running, not used on a higher speed metro line. They made modifications, but it wasn't enough.

And now they don't actually want to spend the money to fix the problem.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Well that's it. The City was told by experts in the planning phase "no actually, what you're proposing is a light-metro, not an LRT", but the City insisted it was too small for a light-metro, so bidders (two of the three) proposed LRT.

These trains are designed to be slow street running, not used on a higher speed metro line. They made modifications, but it wasn't enough.

One of the requirements was that the trains had to be able to operate at 100 kph. Now they run at bicycle speed in a large section near Hurdman. Mission accomplished.

The biggest stumbling block for light metro was the expectation that there would be at grade traffic crossings particularly in the suburbs. We kept reimagining what we wanted. Major feature creep. No wonder it turned into such a disaster.

Just like Line 2. It was originally going to be a tramway with gate controlled (presumably) at grade traffic crossings south of South Keys. In a major change of plans, we decided that a regional train with massive stations was better and the stations were to be no where near where people live. At least the trains are reliable. Personally, I would rather have a station at the end of my street with a somewhat fancy bus shelter. The trains might even be faster with proper double tracking.

[Richard Eade]

At least OC Transpo still thinks that the eastern extension of Line 1 will someday open. It is already changing the signs.
https://www.octranspo.com/en/news/article/signage-changes-on-line-1-for-the-future-east-extension/
(I wish that OC Transpo would put dates on their Webpages. I don't know when this news was released.)

I like some of the changes. The line maps will, for example, show past station names and information about connections and washrooms - although the washrooms will likely be closed.

Is OC Transpo jumping the gun on changing the signs? Should it wait until closer to the actual opening?

How crowded will those line maps be once the western extension, and Line 3 are added? Would it be a good time for OC Transpo to make the switch to station names on both sides of a central line. This allows for more compact maps - and could allow OC Transpo to indicate which side the platform is on (and which door to stand beside).

[Kitchissippi]

We should just order proven non-Alstom trains. Edmonton's new Hyundai Rotem trains look nice, or maybe the Kinki Sharyo or Siemens trains used in Seattle. Enough of this Alstom crap. They're about $8 million a train set, the feds should throw in some money to rescue the city .

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

We should just order proven non-Alstom trains. Edmonton's new Hyundai Rotem trains look nice, or maybe the Kinki Sharyo or Siemens trains used in Seattle. Enough of this Alstom crap. They're about $8 million a train set, the feds should throw in some money to rescue the city .

After the 2006 fiasco, Siemens trains are out of the question. We could have had them but Ottawa contracts were not worth the paper that they were printed on.

[dougvdh]

There were a pair of trains at Montreal Rd Station (westbound) at 3:10 today. 1163/1165 if I read correctly.

[J.OT13]

Conversations about the Federal Public Service and the urban form should move to more appropriate threads.

I'd suggest this thread for the public service discussion: https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=264349&page=2&highlight=federal

This thread for the built form arguments: https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=176632

[AuxTown]

Any updates on this? Are they in the final testing phase? I wonder how they plan to get enough operators to run the entire system when completed?

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by AuxTown

Any updates on this? Are they in the final testing phase? I wonder how they plan to get enough operators to run the entire system when completed?

Still waiting to get enough trains for regular service and thensome. I think we're up to 28 or 30 trains in service and we need 42 (?) to start testing east, so according to OC, I think that will be around end of June.

Don't take what I'm saying as gospel because my memory is shaky, but what I'm saying is somewhat informative.

Trending in the right direction. Best case scenario IMO, if everything goes perfectly well, would be Fall opening. What I'm hoping for is December. What's reality? Who knows.

[urbanforest]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Still waiting to get enough trains for regular service and thensome. I think we're up to 28 or 30 trains in service and we need 42 (?) to start testing east, so according to OC, I think that will be around end of June.

Don't take what I'm saying as gospel because my memory is shaky, but what I'm saying is somewhat informative.

Trending in the right direction. Best case scenario IMO, if everything goes perfectly well, would be Fall opening. What I'm hoping for is December. What's reality? Who knows.

Don’t they theoretically only need something like two weeks of testing? So if everything goes to plan (ignoring the years of delays up to this point…) then it could be open in late July?

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by urbanforest

Don’t they theoretically only need something like two weeks of testing? So if everything goes to plan (ignoring the years of delays up to this point…) then it could be open in late July?

Stage 1 was 12 days, but I believe it's now 30 days since Stage 1 didn't go so hot.