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Southeast LRT


A. Wong

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

More concrete work being replaced? Of course! It's TransEd after all.

January 19, 2021 – Starting on or about January 20, 2021, crews will be performing concrete work for track slab placements on Whitemud Drive westbound. To accommodate this work, one of the Whitemud westbound off-ramp lanes will be closed at 75 Street for two consecutive weeks. Left and Right turn lanes will remain permitted.

January 26, 2021 – Starting on or about January 27, 2021, crews will be performing concrete work for track slab replacements and installation of a new pedestrian crossing in the dedicated northbound right-hand turning lane at 66 Street and 38 Avenue. To accommodate this work, one northbound dedicated right lane will be closed. This work is expected to last approximately 4 weeks. There will be overnight work during this time.

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  • 1 month later...

TransEd said:
February 5, 2021 – Starting on or about Monday, February 8, the overhead wires for the Valley Line Southeast LRT along 66 Street, between 51 Avenue and 28 Avenue, will be energized from now on.

As construction progresses, the overhead wires are gradually being energized in each area of the 13-kilometre alignment beginning in Mill Woods and ending in Downtown.

For your safety, overhead wires should always be considered energized when strung from power pole to power pole.

The reality:
DSC00153-03-08-2021.thumb.jpg.251f56c889fb3cc09f8faf35af113de3.jpgDSC00144-03-08-2021.thumb.jpg.96941fbeb87bf685cf7b51cde97ba7f4.jpg
We don't believe anything south of 51 Ave has been energized yet. There have been grounding cables observed along the entire right of way for all of February, along with manlifts and what not, that wouldn't be able to be used if the wires were energized.
In particular has been 28 Ave. 
Work was progressing with Western Pacific Enterprise crews in the 95 Ave/ Connors Road area until their hi-rail platform line truck (which isn't insulated and cannot work under energized wires!) Since then WPE crews has been back to dicking around south of 51 Ave.
28 Ave has been a cluster for a long time.

Wire was installed through the curve from 66 St to 28 Ave and then just left with signs of incompletion. A bit before the energization announcement, crews returned and modified and seemingly finished the wiring. 

Then they cut in additional section insulators near the crossovers after the energization announcement, but then most recently they have disconnected feeders from the substation to the overhead, and have removed the droppers between the messenger and contact wires for both tracks through the curve. As of today, the removed feeders now go back as far as the Mill Woods stop itself. The wire is also tied off with straps, and the south track has a come-along as well between the balance weight assembly and catenary. 

So much for energizing.... the Charlie foxtrot continues along the VLSE LRT. 

In more positive news, EPCOR has been involved in stringing overhead down Connors Hill to Downtown. Wiring is starting to look good Downtown. My image from a week ago in a prior post shows the sagging contact wire. This is tensioned now, and most hangers installed. The wire for the crossover is coming along. Ok, sure, this is simple contact wire, but EPCOR has managed to get this moving along, while at the same time last week their crews were rebuilding the catenary for the NB track through Stadium Station.

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  • 2 weeks later...

While this is for the West LRT, it is certainly relevant for the SELRT as the LRV's will be used end to end on Valley Line. 8 responses to the RFQ, 3 invited to respond, and Bombardier/ Alstom is not among the shortlisted.

CAF
Rotem
Siemens

No details yet on who will maintain and operate this equipment. There is a small maintenance/ staging facility planned for Lewis Farms (west end of the line). I would image it will be TransEd, but, I guess you never know. Quite surprised that Bomardier/ Alstom wasn't shortlisted.
There were earlier negotiations with Bombardier before the RFQ to sole source the LRV's to them, but, talks were discontinued, among other reasons, due to Bombardier's proposed pricing.
The procurement is expected to be for 40 cars.

https://www.edmonton.ca/documents/transit/Industry_Bulletin_VLW_LRV_Procurement_Shortlist_March2021.pdf

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  • 2 weeks later...
39 minutes ago, Nick B said:

I'd be curious to know if there will be an opening ceremony for the line or if it will just start running at start of service. I may or may not make a trip up there for this depending on date.

I suspect there will be some sort of a fanfare, depending upon the pandemic. Granted, the NLRT didn't receive much and it was under a cloud after being delayed due to the signal system. 
The SLRT to South Campus and Century Park had big events. SLRT to HSS was significantly less. The line started service in the early hours of January 1st, with a banner breaking a few days later. 

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2 hours ago, MatthewB said:

I'm looking forward to seeing what they discuss at these presentations.
http://transedlrt.ca/updates/register-for-valley-line-southeast-virtual-spring-open-houses/

Quite frankly, the last round was disappointing as well as the "fire side" around the end of the year. Really, they report on that nothing that casual observer wouldn't already know. Indeed, the first round of the livestreams was geared towards seniors. And since people don't ask questions live, they can cherry pick the questions they answer. So, they don't have to answer the tough or embarrassing questions. But, that is TransEd for you. They keep blaming a chunk of concrete in the river for delays, all the while their shitty concrete work which saw the spans for the Whitemud Bridge demolished and rebuilt, and they had to replace 3 elevated sections, and numerous track sections having to be redone, are arguably more significant causes of delays.

These livesstreams do have some usefulness however. They do provide a measuring stick in some cases of how late or far behind TransEd has been.

Case in point, from the September 30, 2020 TransEd Mill Woods Update:

"it is important that you understand that these wires are about to go live, they are going to be energized in roughly 2 weeks. That will encompass the vast majority of the alignment between Whitemud all of the way to 28 Ave". - Dallas Lindskoog TransEd

And since February when they announced they were going to energize this stretch it has not happened. As far I heard last, there was still a grounding cable north of 38 Ave and substation feeders are still not reconnected on 28 Ave after they fixed and tweaked  various portions of the wire between the end of line and 66 St. The only energized section is the section between 34 Ave and 38 Ave. That was a full 6 months ago now that they said they would have energized this section.

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33 minutes ago, M. Parsons said:

Quite frankly, the last round was disappointing as well as the "fire side" around the end of the year. Really, they report on that nothing that casual observer wouldn't already know. Indeed, the first round of the livestreams was geared towards seniors. And since people don't ask questions live, they can cherry pick the questions they answer. So, they don't have to answer the tough or embarrassing questions. But, that is TransEd for you. They keep blaming a chunk of concrete in the river for delays, all the while their shitty concrete work which saw the spans for the Whitemud Bridge demolished and rebuilt, and they had to replace 3 elevated sections, and numerous track sections having to be redone, are arguably more significant causes of delays.

These livesstreams do have some usefulness however. They do provide a measuring stick in some cases of how late or far behind TransEd has been.

Case in point, from the September 30, 2020 TransEd Mill Woods Update:

"it is important that you understand that these wires are about to go live, they are going to be energized in roughly 2 weeks. That will encompass the vast majority of the alignment between Whitemud all of the way to 28 Ave". - Dallas Lindskoog TransEd

And since February when they announced they were going to energize this stretch it has not happened. As far I heard last, there was still a grounding cable north of 38 Ave and substation feeders are still not reconnected on 28 Ave after they fixed and tweaked  various portions of the wire between the end of line and 66 St. The only energized section is the section between 34 Ave and 38 Ave. That was a full 6 months ago now that they said they would have energized this section.

Those are fair points, I myself don't attend them live due to the reasons you outlined. I just like skimming it once it's on YouTube because I like getting the progress breakdown by zone; and that's also for the reason you mention haha.

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On 4/3/2021 at 1:12 AM, Catherine Wilkins said:

I wonder what Service Level 1 is?

Personally, Service Level 8 is the minimum level of service Monday to Friday.  I'm very happy to see this as the starting point.

One train doing the entire loop? Or perhaps they'd go back to the basics and use horses to pull the trams! 
I agree with you completely, Service Level 8 sounds like a good starting point, even without Covid forcing riders to spread out.

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3 hours ago, MatthewB said:

One train doing the entire loop? Or perhaps they'd go back to the basics and use horses to pull the trams! 
I agree with you completely, Service Level 8 sounds like a good starting point, even without Covid forcing riders to spread out.

Level one is just holding hands with other riders and walking the line together. 

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4 hours ago, MatthewB said:

One train doing the entire loop?

No. Minimum peak service is 5 minutes. Level 1 is single car trains.

Each "level" is one more 2 car train, so level 2 is 12 single car trains and 1- 2 car train. How the hell do you even schedule that so that the 2 car train is positioned for different peak points in each peak period?

Level 8 hence, allows 7- 2 car trains, which out of 13 trains, meaning every second train is 2 cars.

Personally, I do not think that is adequate. A 2 car BBD Valley line train is only equivalent to a 3 car U2 train. If it wasn't for the pandemic, I think definately all trains would need to be 2 car trains from the start. Although technically they could do all trains as 2 cars, that would mean every single car would need to be available every peak. Ask Ottawa how that is going.

The joys of a P3. Granted, if ETS/ who ever drew up the specs determined that "Level 8" wouldn't be reached for 22 years, my question is: What where they smoking? The shear number of buses, coming out of Mill Woods, plus adding 1000 or so park and ride stalls at Davies, and yet ETS has underestimated ridership of the Valley Line LRT.

It's either incompetence, or intentional for whatever reason.

 

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