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Ottawa Transit Developments

^ Bear in mind that *even mainline trains* have their limitations (although this can be addressed in many cases):
New LIRR Snow Policy: Service Stops If 10" Or More Falls
BY JEN CHUNG IN NEWS ON FEB 5, 2010 10:33 AM

NYC isn't likely to be hit hard by snow forecast for today and this weekend (DC, however, is operating under snow emergency conditions). But to be on the safe side, the Long Island Rail Road has announced changes to its snow policy, just in case the weather gets really bad: If 10 inches or more of snow falls, service will be suspended throughout the system.

The change occurred was prompted by an uncomfortable commute from Penn Station to Ronkonkoma during the December 19-20 winter storm where 150 passengers were trapped on a train for hours. The ride should have taken under 90 minutes, but ended up being six hours, and the passengers were stuck on the train, between stations, without power (and no heat)...and, as one passenger told WCBS 2, "There was no bathroom except one that was flooded." The situation was so desperate that some passengers tried to break out of the train, only for the police to be called (passengers begged cops to rescue them to no avail).
According to Newsday (subscription required, "The new philosophy reasons that you're better off stuck in Penn Station than on a broken-down train somewhere on the railroad's 11 passenger branches." You can read more details about the LIRR's policy on the website.
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http://gothamist.com/2010/02/05/new_lirr_snow_policy_service_suspen.php

This isn't an absolute indicator for heavy rail or LRT, but puts a perspective on expectations and how a system is/can be maintained. To think bus would be any better under these conditions is fanciful at best.
 
steveintoronto said:
^ Bear in mind that *even mainline trains* have their limitations (although this can be addressed in many cases):

http://gothamist.com/2010/02/05/new_lirr_snow_policy_service_suspen.php

This isn't an absolute indicator for heavy rail or LRT, but puts a perspective on expectations and how a system is/can be maintained. To think bus would be any better under these conditions is fanciful at best.
Click to expand...

Everyone knows the bus is worse, the odd thing is this fantastical belief that trains are impervious to weather. In fact OC Transpo had been marketing it that way, at least until the "it doesn't work in snow" narrative took over.
 
Kyle Campbell said:
I think this is one of my favorite art installations on the line

https://twitter.com/x/status/1132090173825716225
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I was initially a little taken aback they didn't go for a fully enclosed walkway between the VIA station and Trembley. Looking at this installation though, I'm a little happy they didn't go for an enclosed walkway. It seems much more pleasant than any enclosed structure (outside of the colder months at least). Although I'm curious why they decided to have the fare machines exposed to the elements rather than move the farelines and put them inside the station. Seems a bit odd to me.
 
ViveleCanada said:
I was initially a little taken aback they didn't go for a fully enclosed walkway between the VIA station and Trembley. Looking at this installation though, I'm a little happy they didn't go for an enclosed walkway. It seems much more pleasant than any enclosed structure (outside of the colder months at least). Although I'm curious why they decided to have the fare machines exposed to the elements rather than move the farelines and put them inside the station. Seems a bit odd to me.
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Unlike Toronto's surface stations on the subway or RT, none of the confed line stations are truly enclosed. The are just super elaborate roof structures over a platform.

If you put platform doors on Toronto's system, you could theoretically have fully climate controlled stations, that's not the case here

As for the ticket machine they are actually just inside the gate and overhanging roof. Many ticket machines are outside the station entrances though so that they are still accessible when the station is closed and trains are replaced by bus service, since the tickets are valid for bus travel as well.

All Southeast transitway stations also have ticket machines now, and the machines are sometimes inside and sometimes outside in a covered spot like under a bridge or canopy
 
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steveintoronto said:
^ Bear in mind that *even mainline trains* have their limitations (although this can be addressed in many cases):

http://gothamist.com/2010/02/05/new_lirr_snow_policy_service_suspen.php

This isn't an absolute indicator for heavy rail or LRT, but puts a perspective on expectations and how a system is/can be maintained. To think bus would be any better under these conditions is fanciful at best.
Click to expand...

In this specific case, this isn't as much of a problem of maintenance or operations - LIRR runs about as frequently as a heavy-rail operation can run, and has quite a bit of specialized snow-fighting equipment - but rather of design of their third rail and shoe interface.

For the record, the TTC's subway uses a very similar design and is subject to the same issues. Yet Metro-North, which uses a different kind of third rail and in the same geographical area as LIRR, is not.

Dan
 
smallspy said:
For the record, the TTC's subway uses a very similar design and is subject to the same issues. Yet Metro-North, which uses a different kind of third rail and in the same geographical area as LIRR, is not.
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This is the under-running vs over-running third rail argument, and Metro-North vs LIRR is an excellent comparison. It crops up in a number of other systems, but rather than revisit that discussion, most modern systems now prefer and use overhead electric (catenary) for many reasons. And this is where the Ottawa system is on the right side of history. Probably one of the most egregious examples in Canada is the SRT.

The best way to solving the third rail dilemma, under or over-running is to avoid it altogether, and use catenary. Ottawa's snow challenge pretty much becomes moot then compared to the many catenary systems well north of the Arctic circle.

Consulting the literature on this, I didn't realize this, the presumption had been that the two systems (LIRR and Metro-North) were incompatible for through-running. Not so evidently:


Contact shoe on Metro-North M8 railcar, designed for both over- and under-running third rail.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_rail

Addendum: The latter point above is a whole topic of discussion itself on rail forums, which led me to reading up on this (this was an issue when London's DLR was at first touted to share the Tube line into Bank Station, and as to how third rail compatibility was to be accomplished) but here's a very, very rare 'Diesel mode' of operation for the M8:
 
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Reecemartin said:
For anyone who doesn't know the alignment super well or who is just interesting check out this flyover video I made:

Its a good way to get a sense of the alignment, infrastructure and stations!
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Just a suggestion for your future videos, it would be nice if you could create a predefined path to move the camera instead of manually moving the camera with your mouse. It would make the videos a bit better and less prone to abrupt movements.
 
Leo_Chan said:
Just a suggestion for your future videos, it would be nice if you could create a predefined path to move the camera instead of manually moving the camera with your mouse. It would make the videos a bit better and less prone to abrupt movements.
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Would highly recommend Earth Studio for this.
 
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