Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[OCCheetos]

The storage expansion at Belfast is complete (probably has been for a while). They have most of the trains stored in it now.

Unless they took the roof panels off of some of the existing trains, it looks like LRVs 35 and 36 are almost done with assembly. Two vehicles without roof panels were also parked in the shed.

[OCCheetos]

Does anyone know what the point of this path is?

[pattherat]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

I biked along the entire route from Tunney’s to Blair today and all I saw were doubles, and I saw a lot. They’re running at 3 to 10 minute intervals

I’ve seen no singles while watching overlooking Pimisi since the 25th. Testing everyday since then and they have all been doubles since that day.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

Does anyone know what the point of this path is?

A purpose built path for railfanning?

[AuxTown]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

A purpose built path for railfanning?

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by TheMatth69

Have you guys seen this video ? Apparently some guy manage to pay the security guard and get into the LRT tunnel to film the water leaks ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xrz1WDt-oEI

So it looks like all of that "pumping equipment" is actually there for the CSST... What he describes as the "pumping station" is completely unrelated to LRT and is part of the CSST.
He even says in the video "it's not coming from the tunnel", and he's right, it totally isn't.

So, if there was any doubt that that guy was full of shit...

[Badyouken]

Only doubles sighted today on my end.

[Badyouken]

From a poster in the know, on Reddit:

We're still going, nothing has changed due to flooding elsewhere. Tunnel is fine. All trains on the main line now are coupled. Starting trial runs this week, aiming for those consecutive days without major faults.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Badyouken

From a poster in the know, on Reddit:

That a legit source? Starting 12 days this week? If so, nice!! Guess we'll get the new handover date next FEDCO meeting.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

That a legit source? Starting 12 days this week? If so, nice!! Guess we'll get the new handover date next FEDCO meeting.

They've deleted their past comments but they have shown to be reputable so far. They seem to either be an operator or someone else working directly on the project.

[J.OT13]

A few comments on O-Train Fans regarding a Reddit user that could be the same guy. This person points to potential switch issues.

https://www.otrainfans.ca/forum/topic/64-confederation-line-train-tests-spotting/page/3/

[Badyouken]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

That a legit source? Starting 12 days this week? If so, nice!! Guess we'll get the new handover date next FEDCO meeting.

Not sure at all.

His other recent posts:

Trial runs start this week, aiming for 6 days (down from 12) with no major problems. So far I don't think there's even been 6 hours without major problems, so it will be interesting. I guess it's theoretically possibly to make the late June or early July goal, but things would have to improve at a much higher rate than they have been.

It's just what they've told us, from management. I haven't seen any documents or heard an official announcement. It's basically business as usual, but now with fingers crossed. Service started for 5am today on schedule, less than 30 minutes later things are screwed up and service is only Blair to Lyon. 60 minutes after that it's Lyon to Tremblay due to a disturbed switch. So... it's not going well. Given the last few weeks, not surprising.

We'll see!

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by Badyouken

Not sure at all.

His other recent posts:





We'll see!

It wouldn't be surprising if everyday is the 12 days now, but they'll only tell us once it's complete, since every issue restarts the counter

[Truenorth00]

This is nuts. How do they have such crap reliability? You gotta wonder if the work was shoddy or they cheaped out on systems.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

This is nuts. How do they have such crap reliability? You gotta wonder if the work was shoddy or they cheaped out on systems.

This doesn't seem that surprising to me. My world is software, and every project I've ever worked generally goes poorly at first when preparing for the final release and things are under real world testing. The problems get fixed, and things move on. This isn't software, but i think all major projects kind of flow the same way. Things that all worked well independently always seem to fall apart when you put it all together.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

This doesn't seem that surprising to me. My world is software, and every project I've ever worked generally goes poorly at first when preparing for the final release and things are under real world testing. The problems get fixed, and things move on. This isn't software, but i think all major projects kind of flow the same way. Things that all worked well independently always seem to fall apart when you put it all together.

Software/Signalling could have a big impact on the performance of switches.
My (completely random and uneducated) guess is that it is a problem related to software with the symptoms being switch-related.

[CityTech]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

It wouldn't be surprising if everyday is the 12 days now, but they'll only tell us once it's complete, since every issue restarts the counter

Now that all trains are complete, I feel like this is the case.

[CityTech]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

This doesn't seem that surprising to me. My world is software, and every project I've ever worked generally goes poorly at first when preparing for the final release and things are under real world testing. The problems get fixed, and things move on. This isn't software, but i think all major projects kind of flow the same way. Things that all worked well independently always seem to fall apart when you put it all together.

In software, as I'm sure you know (mostly saying it for the others here :p), fixes for minor bugs are often punted to after the release date, with the idea that these minor bugs will be fixed in an update/patch. At my company there's a triage system for bugs (from severity 1 to severity 5) and only bugs of 3 or higher have to be solved for the production release to happen.

With this, they probably can't do that, so QA work is a lot more intense.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

This doesn't seem that surprising to me. My world is software, and every project I've ever worked generally goes poorly at first when preparing for the final release and things are under real world testing. The problems get fixed, and things move on. This isn't software, but i think all major projects kind of flow the same way. Things that all worked well independently always seem to fall apart when you put it all together.

I don't buy it. They have had the corridor up and running for a year now. How are they getting switching issues this late? And signalling issues? It's not like this is the first time Thales has done CBTC.

Also, on the aerospace side, OEMs often build an "iron bird" where all the systems are tested and software build for flight critical systems is developed and tested before loading on to an actual airplane.

https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/news/en/2017/05/taking-flight-with-the-airbus-iron-bird.html

Why they wouldn't have a more validated model with most of the kinks out by now is beyond me. If they had these issues a year ago I'd buy it. Today? Starting to look like RTG is either cheaping out or less competent than we should think.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I don't buy it. They have had the corridor up and running for a year now. How are they getting switching issues this late? And signalling issues? It's not like this is the first time Thales has done CBTC.

Also, on the aerospace side, OEMs often build an "iron bird" where all the systems are tested and software build for flight critical systems is developed and tested before loading on to an actual airplane.

https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/news/en/2017/05/taking-flight-with-the-airbus-iron-bird.html

Why they wouldn't have a more validated model with most of the kinks out by now is beyond me. If they had these issues a year ago I'd buy it. Today? Starting to look like RTG is either cheaping out or less competent than we should think.

It depends on the severity of the kinks. We're getting third hand information here, even if it's from a driver he wouldn't know what's going on in the control centre. We also don't know how many problems are just from people themselves, this is the actual operators now running the trains, not the Alstom engineers

For example, in Shane's video they showed how the train would come to a complete stop if someone doesn't hit the deadman switch. All the operators have done simulator training, but things might be going wrong operationally when confronted with the real thing. Human error aborts the test and restarts the counter as much as infrastructure issues.