Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[PHrenetic]

Originally Posted by bradnixon

The Trillium line only ran every 20 minutes before continuously welded rail was installed; after it was installed they were able to bump up frequency to every 15 minutes. So I'm assuming it enabled increased speeds.

Good Day.

..... and massively decreased maintenance on the bogies (suspension components) and wheels (wear and rounding), and on the trackage itself.

EnJoy!

[PHrenetic]

Originally Posted by roger1818

It does matter for track tensioning. As discussed before, with continuous welded rail there are no expansion joints, so when laying track they preheat the rail to a specified temperature so that the track won't buckle in hot weather. If tensioned too much though, the track can fracture in cold weather. The wider the temperature extremes, the harder it is to find that "Goldilocks" tension. This isn't related to the issue at hand though.

Good Day.

They also do not like putting in too many tight slip expansion joints such as at both sets of both ends of Hurdman' Rideau River bridge. They do require speed restrictions (aside from entering/departing a bridge). I also think expansion/contraction allowance is why the slight 'kink' in the tracks exists on the straight run between Blair and Cyrville (and this also gets a speed restriction of its own, which is rather unfortunate as otherwise the trains would/should have been able to hit max speeds here).

EnJoy!

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

What about Calgary where the weather can go from winter to summer overnight?

Less freezing rain/icing conditions though. Calgary usually just brute forces solutions: big natural gas switch heaters adapted from mainline rail, and when things get really bad, maintenance crews sitting at trouble spots to make sure the switch is working. Since Calgary’s interlining is at the downtown segment, if the switches aren’t working the entire system is disabled.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by bradnixon

The Trillium line only ran every 20 minutes before continuously welded rail was installed; after it was installed they were able to bump up frequency to every 15 minutes. So I'm assuming it enabled increased speeds.

I didn't think it could ever be slower than what we have now...

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Really!? I find the ride pretty rough. The "crunch" around the corners gets in my head, especially in and out of Hurdman.

That's on a corner. Expansion gaps would make it difficult to stand even when the train is on a straight stretch.

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I didn't think it could ever be slower than what we have now...

It can always be slower. Just watch an ANR train pass through Kanata. It is mostly class 1 track, so has a top speed of 10 mph and it is even slower in some places.

[OTownandDown]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Really!? I find the ride pretty rough. The "crunch" around the corners gets in my head, especially in and out of Hurdman.

It's all in your head for sure, because you hear nothing when it's running in a straight line, and the sudden sound or movement is jarring for sure. HOWEVER as a whole, it's far better than Montreal where you used to not be able to speak to eachother over the general din of the car tires. Or Chicago's squeaky system!

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I didn't think it could ever be slower than what we have now...

Remember that was before the extra passing tracks.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by bradnixon

Remember that was before the extra passing tracks.

I don't remember when the service went from 20 to 15, but I do believe that at both times we only had that one passing track at Carleton Station. The extra passing tracks were only added in 2014-2015 when the service was "upgraded" to 12 minutes, short of the 8 minutes promised.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...e-minute-still-over-original-time-pledge

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I don't remember when the service went from 20 to 15, but I do believe that at both times we only had that one passing track at Carleton Station. The extra passing tracks were only added in 2014-2015 when the service was "upgraded" to 12 minutes, short of the 8 minutes promised.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...e-minute-still-over-original-time-pledge

As stated in Colin Churcher's Railway Pages, "The line was relaid with continuously welded rails in July 2004 with the exception of the bridge over the Rideau river which is jointed rail," so the speed improvement predated the extra passing tracks by a decade.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by roger1818

As stated in Colin Churcher's Railway Pages, "The line was relaid with continuously welded rails in July 2004 with the exception of the bridge over the Rideau river which is jointed rail," so the speed improvement predated the extra passing tracks by a decade.

Thanks for that. This was before I started following City affairs closely.

I hope Stage 2 will bring some frequency improvements (even if it's 10 minutes vs the current 12) despite the City's current position stating it won't change. As the Mayor says "under promise, over deliver": hoping this is a rare case of that actually happening.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Less freezing rain/icing conditions though. Calgary usually just brute forces solutions: big natural gas switch heaters adapted from mainline rail, and when things get really bad, maintenance crews sitting at trouble spots to make sure the switch is working. Since Calgary’s interlining is at the downtown segment, if the switches aren’t working the entire system is disabled.

Sounds like some good ideas there.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Thanks for that. This was before I started following City affairs closely.

I hope Stage 2 will bring some frequency improvements (even if it's 10 minutes vs the current 12) despite the City's current position stating it won't change. As the Mayor says "under promise, over deliver": hoping this is a rare case of that actually happening.

The entire contract is written out with "12 minutes" in it, so that's very unlikely. Stage 2 was always meant to be just an extension of the line. No frequency changes. The entire capacity boost of Stage 2 is to compensate for the fact that the frequency never reached the original goal of 8 minutes.

But this is probably better suited in the Stage 2 south thread from here onwards..

[OCCheetos]

I'm a bit confused by the R1 and how it's being used.

From my understanding and past experiences, when something like a door fault occurs (like this afternoon), trains do continue running in a limited capacity on the unobstructed track with two trains zipping through per direction at a time.

But in order to compensate for passenger flow during the disruption, R1 is deployed in the affected area to help with getting passengers through the area. R1 is also deployed in both directions, even if the obstruction is only on one track.

Is this what is actually happening? Because it seems poorly communicated (that there are still limited trains running) and by the looks of what's on Twitter, it confuses a lot of people. The fact that an obstruction of any kind on any track causes everyone to think they need to catch an R1 bus seems unnecessarily confusing.

Also, is this what other cities do?

[TheMatth69]

Small question if anybody can answer... We had a couple "power" breakdowns lately caused by non-contact between the pantograph and the overhead wires, but I was wondering, since our trains are operated in MU (multiple units), if a train could still move and operate with only one pantograph working correctly (there's 2 on each trainset and one on each "cars")?
My guess is no since if one pantograph goes into fault, it would cut the power supply to the car and make the other working car (with the working pantograph) do more efforts to push/tow the whole trainset.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Moscow seems pretty close. Ottawa seems to be colder by about 2-4 degrees on average monthly temperatures. But they have the same months of sub-zero average highs and lows. And similar precipitation profiles. Both are under the same Koppen climate classification.

The average January low in Moscow is 5 degrees warmer than Ottawa, the average January precipitation is 10 mm less.

The difference is even more striking if you look at the actual forecasts, in Moscow it doesn't get colder than -2 and doesn't get warmer than 3 for the next two weeks. The most precipitation is 2-4 cm of snow on the 27th. In contrast the Ottawa temperature ranges from -15 to +5 and has several precipitation events.

Moscow is in the middle of a giant plain, with no geographic features for thousands of km.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by TheMatth69

Small question if anybody can answer... We had a couple "power" breakdowns lately caused by non-contact between the pantograph and the overhead wires, but I was wondering, since our trains are operated in MU (multiple units), if a train could still move and operate with only one pantograph working correctly (there's 2 on each trainset and one on each "cars")?
My guess is no since if one pantograph goes into fault, it would cut the power supply to the car and make the other working car (with the working pantograph) do more efforts to push/tow the whole trainset.

Ken Woods answered this on Twitter. The answer is no, you can't move a coupled train with only one pantograph and there is no traction power distribution across the coupler.

[Catenary]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

I'm a bit confused by the R1 and how it's being used.

From my understanding and past experiences, when something like a door fault occurs (like this afternoon), trains do continue running in a limited capacity on the unobstructed track with two trains zipping through per direction at a time.

But in order to compensate for passenger flow during the disruption, R1 is deployed in the affected area to help with getting passengers through the area. R1 is also deployed in both directions, even if the obstruction is only on one track.

Is this what is actually happening? Because it seems poorly communicated (that there are still limited trains running) and by the looks of what's on Twitter, it confuses a lot of people. The fact that an obstruction of any kind on any track causes everyone to think they need to catch an R1 bus seems unnecessarily confusing.

Also, is this what other cities do?

What they do depends on where the fault occurs and what time of day it is. We've seen situations at Cyrville and Blair where one shuttle train can operate between St. Laurent and Blair, with regular operations on the rest of the line. The shuttle comes every 12 minutes though, so capacity is limited and supplementary R1 service is required if the failure occurs at peak.

In many circumstances, single tracking is much more difficult. Any fault that requires single tracking past multiple stations will cause significant delays in both directions, as frequency through the single track is limited and with many trains on the line, they will back up on each side of the blockage. You mention an obstruction on only one track, but there's really no such thing; with such a short line any blockage on one track will affect every train on the line in only a couple of minutes. In most of these situations, the most efficient solution is to split the line, operate two good sections, and then bus bridge them together.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by Catenary

In many circumstances, single tracking is much more difficult. Any fault that requires single tracking past multiple stations will cause significant delays in both directions, as frequency through the single track is limited and with many trains on the line, they will back up on each side of the blockage. You mention an obstruction on only one track, but there's really no such thing; with such a short line any blockage on one track will affect every train on the line in only a couple of minutes. In most of these situations, the most efficient solution is to split the line, operate two good sections, and then bus bridge them together.

I wonder how much more it would have cost to put crossovers between every station so that it would be much easier to detour around stopped trains.

I guess the trade-off is more potential switch issues, and maybe once we are past our teething period the number of instances of immobilized trains will small enough that it wouldn't be worth it.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by bradnixon

I wonder how much more it would have cost to put crossovers between every station so that it would be much easier to detour around stopped trains.

I guess the trade-off is more potential switch issues, and maybe once we are past our teething period the number of instances of immobilized trains will small enough that it wouldn't be worth it.

And increased wear and tear on the trains due to the frogs in the switches (a small gap in the rail needed to allow the flange on the outside wheel to cross the inside rail)


CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

[lrt's friend]

Wouldn't having more cross-overs also reduce the average speed of the trains over the entire line? It seems that the trains run quite a bit slower where ever their is a cross-over.