General CTrain Discussion

[Gsgeek540]

25 minutes ago, LRT said:

@Gsgeek540

On another note, the in-street train stop has been removed at Mcleod trail east bound. 

Not sure why though....

It hasn't been active for a few years.

[1604]

Thanks @LRT and @Gsgeek540 for the info. I can see how this situation arises. I don't know a thing about how to best change the signals to prevent this from happening, but it strikes me as something that should have been identified and corrected prior to 4 car service beginning on the blue line.

And I second @TimmyC62 - the May long weekend closure would seem to have provided a great window to fix this.

Given the fire station at the north end of 8th Street, this seems like a particularly bad intersection to have this continue happening at. But even if it's impacting 'only' pedestrians and normal traffic, it's still not good.

This is kind of a separate issue altogether but it would be nice to see an official reply from CT addressing the issue (e.g. "this is unacceptable to us & we're working to find a solution") - but they have not replied to either tweet. If they are aware and are working to resolve the issue (which, yes, I'm sure they are), they haven't communicated it.

[LRT]

16 minutes ago, Gsgeek540 said:

It hasn't been active for a few years.

No way really?  I did a bypass then the lights were out recentlyish

[Gsgeek540]

1 minute ago, LRT said:

No way really?  I did a bypass then the lights were out recentlyish

It was unplugged when Olympic Plaza switches went in.

13 minutes ago, 1604 said:

Thanks @LRT and @Gsgeek540 for the info. I can see how this situation arises. I don't know a thing about how to best change the signals to prevent this from happening, but it strikes me as something that should have been identified and corrected prior to 4 car service beginning on the blue line.

And I second @TimmyC62 - the May long weekend closure would seem to have provided a great window to fix this.

Given the fire station at the north end of 8th Street, this seems like a particularly bad intersection to have this continue happening at. But even if it's impacting 'only' pedestrians and normal traffic, it's still not good.

This is kind of a separate issue altogether but it would be nice to see an official reply from CT addressing the issue (e.g. "this is unacceptable to us & we're working to find a solution") - but they have not replied to either tweet. If they are aware and are working to resolve the issue (which, yes, I'm sure they are), they haven't communicated it.

Discussions on a fix are ongoing.

 

But folks, It isn't as simple as moving the loop to the nearside of 8 street.

 

If you move it to the nearside, are the lights going to change for the train when 18A goes green or run on regular timing? If traffic light timing is changed at 8 street, will the same follow at 9 street for 202s? What about trains coming onto the avenue from the NW and the West? Are their light cycles going to change too? How this going to affect traffic flow in the rest of the downtown core?

[CTrainDude]

1 hour ago, 1604 said:

Thanks @LRT and @Gsgeek540 for the info. I can see how this situation arises. I don't know a thing about how to best change the signals to prevent this from happening, but it strikes me as something that should have been identified and corrected prior to 4 car service beginning on the blue line.

And I second @TimmyC62 - the May long weekend closure would seem to have provided a great window to fix this.

Given the fire station at the north end of 8th Street, this seems like a particularly bad intersection to have this continue happening at. But even if it's impacting 'only' pedestrians and normal traffic, it's still not good.

This is kind of a separate issue altogether but it would be nice to see an official reply from CT addressing the issue (e.g. "this is unacceptable to us & we're working to find a solution") - but they have not replied to either tweet. If they are aware and are working to resolve the issue (which, yes, I'm sure they are), they haven't communicated it.

As indicated by Gsgeek540 earlier, it's not just a matter of 'fixing' it.  There's no signals fix to do.  If there was a way to fix it that easily, they would.  Actually, there are, but neither seem likely: close 8th Street, or build the 8th Avenue subway.

If you put an advance signal for 18A, you're going to get Blue line trains frequently cutting off Red line trains (while the Blue line trains sit at a red light at 8th Street), and the 201s block 6th Avenue, which people will complain about as well.  People seem to think Transit is full of dumbasses that couldn't be bothered to foresee these issues - trust me, they know these things can happen, but short of rebuilding the west end of downtown, there's little to be done.

And this past weekend, they removed the case for the former magnet at Macleod Trail, but it's been gone for a long time - as mentioned, since the OLY switches were installed, since it kept dumping trains going westbound over it, even when the light was green.

[1604]

4 hours ago, CTrainDude said:

As indicated by Gsgeek540 earlier, it's not just a matter of 'fixing' it.  There's no signals fix to do.  If there was a way to fix it that easily, they would.  Actually, there are, but neither seem likely: close 8th Street, or build the 8th Avenue subway.

Well, he outlined potential solutions they're looking into implementing, and LRT mentioned a fairly simple sounding change. That's all I was getting at with 'fix'.

I can appreciate the difficulty in making changes when all the other factors come into play; there are more than I had initially considered.

[CTrainDude]

32 minutes ago, 1604 said:

Well, he outlined potential solutions they're looking into implementing, and LRT mentioned a fairly simple sounding change. That's all I was getting at with 'fix'.

I can appreciate the difficulty in making changes when all the other factors come into play; there are more than I had initially considered.

Unfortunately, all of the potential solutions mentioned don't really solve the problem, it just moves it elsewhere or creates a new one. As I see you can appreciate, it's much more complex than the tweets would suggest. 

[thager]

[Blake M]

So last weekend Northwest CTrains were on a 16 minute frequency, yet from what I could see, there was no reason to be on that versus 10. Anyone got an answer for that?

[TimmyC62]

17 hours ago, Blake M said:

So last weekend Northwest CTrains were on a 16 minute frequency, yet from what I could see, there was no reason to be on that versus 10. Anyone got an answer for that?

You may be looking for this thread: 

Doesn't directly answer your question, though.

[Gsgeek540]

On 2017-05-29 at 9:22 PM, TimmyC62 said:

You may be looking for this thread: 

Doesn't directly answer your question, though.

A few of reasons. Fleet allocation, storage and cost.

 

On any given night, 4 trains, 4 car trains, are stored at Tuscany Tail Track. Those trains could "theoretically" be anything. U2, SD 5/6/7, SD 8, S200. The direction was to develop a headway where a spare train would be available if need be with no additional storage in the NW. Aside from the fact there is no more room at Tuscany Tail track, The cost of rearranging more work to have an additional train parked "somewhere"...whether its northland or left of the platform at tuscany (strongly frowned upon..) and having additional 24 hour security for that wouldn't be worth the benefit.

 

For a 10 minute headway, 4 trains would be required. Meaning, if something breaks down, you are hooped. Now you may ask "why not break those trains up". It simply comes down to the fact that there is no guarantee what trains will end up at Tuscany. Anything goes during a rebuild after a delay. Just because your all day keys are all SD 5/6/7 for example doesn't mean they will end up that way. In addition, you would need to pay a rail service tech to move cars around if things were to actually work out....which in my experience is very unlikely.

 

The way the line was operated was virtually no additional cost. Yes a lighter headway but there was a spare available in case anything happened.

 

Now of course, if a train was to break down and be parked on the tail track, that becomes your 4th train on tuesday. Where do you get that 4th train on tuesday? Of course it does come online at 6am so if need be, they could get a train out of Anderson or Oliver Bowen and start earlier to get it up there for its scheduled leave time inbound from Tuscany.

 

With the service the way it was, 16 minute service with 4 car trains

[Blake M]

3 minutes ago, Gsgeek540 said:

A few of reasons. Fleet allocation, storage and cost.

 

On any given night, 4 trains, 4 car trains, are stored at Tuscany Tail Track. Those trains could "theoretically" be anything. U2, SD 5/6/7, SD 8, S200. The direction was to develop a headway where a spare train would be available if need be with no additional storage in the NW. Aside from the fact there is no more room at Tuscany Tail track, The cost of rearranging more work to have an additional train parked "somewhere"...whether its northland or left of the platform at tuscany (strongly frowned upon..) and having additional 24 hour security for that wouldn't be worth the benefit.

 

For a 10 minute headway, 4 trains would be required. Meaning, if something breaks down, you are hooped. Now you may ask "why not break those trains up". It simply comes down to the fact that there is no guarantee what trains will end up at Tuscany. Anything goes during a rebuild after a delay. Just because your all day keys are all SD 5/6/7 for example doesn't mean they will end up that way. In addition, you would need to pay a rail service tech to move cars around if things were to actually work out....which in my experience is very unlikely.

 

The way the line was operated was virtually no additional cost. Yes a lighter headway but there was a spare available in case anything happened.

 

Now of course, if a train was to break down and be parked on the tail track, that becomes your 4th train on tuesday. Where do you get that 4th train on tuesday? Of course it does come online at 6am so if need be, they could get a train out of Anderson or Oliver Bowen and start earlier to get it up there for its scheduled leave time inbound from Tuscany.

 

With the service the way it was, 16 minute service with 4 car trains

Well alright then that works

[Chinese Daniel]

All XD40 in redline shuttle.

[Gsgeek540]

33 minutes ago, Chinese Daniel said:

All XD40 in redline shuttle.

For all scheduled maintenance projects resulting in C-Train shuttles in 2017, one of Calgary Transits customer commitment goals is to dispatch buses with bike racks. As a result, given that only 4 D60LFR have bike racks, this will likely be the norm for a good part of the summer.

[vicinity]

Mabe when 6001-6006 get a refurb we will see then out for shuttle

[LRT]

17 minutes ago, vicinity said:

Mabe when 6001-6006 get a refurb we will see then out for shuttle

Wow hard to believe they're 10 years old already!

[Nick B]

2 hours ago, Gsgeek540 said:

For all scheduled maintenance projects resulting in C-Train shuttles in 2017, one of Calgary Transits customer commitment goals is to dispatch buses with bike racks. As a result, given that only 4 D60LFR have bike racks, this will likely be the norm for a good part of the summer.

Sorry but I'm missing something here. Any particular reason they're not dispatching #6074-6093 on the shuttles as they've already been doing consistently for a number of years?

[Gsgeek540]

3 hours ago, Chinese Daniel said:

All XD40 in redline shuttle.

 

53 minutes ago, Nick B said:

Sorry but I'm missing something here. Any particular reason they're not dispatching #6074-6093 on the shuttles as they've already been doing consistently for a number of years?

I failed to see XD40 instead of XD60 which is should read.

 

I can confirm that all of them are....or atleast were.....dispatched as XD60s...all of which with bike racks.

[Nick B]

Rode the full length of the shuttle from Somerset to Anderson about an hour ago and all shuttles I saw were XD40's, two of which were #8317 and #8206.

[vicinity]

Interesting!

[Gsgeek540]

3 hours ago, vicinity said:

Interesting!

Interesting indeed. Alot different then the fleet list i saw for today. Ill look into when i get back in a few days

[Chinese Daniel]

8 hours ago, vicinity said:

Mabe when 6001-6006 get a refurb we will see then out for shuttle

Those old articulated bus is way better ride than XD60, they have big Cummins ism, Heavy load with big hill just like not think, they are very good bus, i wish they all have BIKE RACK in future(6001-6059).

[Gsgeek540]

Decision to run Spring Gardens 40 foot buses with bike racks for C-Train shuttle was a last minute decision...like literally last minute. Still digging as to why.

[vicinity]

Dead u2 consist on c platform tail track 

[LRT]

15 minutes ago, vicinity said:

Dead u2 consist on c platform tail track 

Blown traction motor on it's south car. 2042 I think