Valley Line LRT | TransEd/Marigold | City of Edmonton

EdwardEdm said:
46 LRV's have been ordered, 40 was the original plan. Storage plans call for storage of 28 LRV's at Gerry Wright OMF B, and 12 at Lewis Farms, however, Lewis Farms has a flex track that can store 2 LRV's or MOW equipment, although upon further review, the 2 cars on flex track might be part of the 12 total cars. There's also an option for a C yard at Gerry Wright for MOW equipment and outdoor storage of MOW materials, instead of needing to house that on the OMF B site. Of course given that a number of cars will be in for maintenance at any given time, 28 cars at Gerry Wright OMF B should be sufficient, and if they can accommodate more, all the better.


The Lewis Farms facility won't be used for initial deliveries for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the contract calls for all commissioning and testing to be done at Gerry Wright OMF B.
The practical reason for this is Lewis Farms won't have the facilities and equipment for commissioning and testing such as pits and elevated platforms. Although it's described as a "light maintenance facility" that seems to largely mean it can support daily cleaning. Without elevated platforms, I don't think Lewis Farms could even do something like replacing pantograph carbons if the need came up.
Lewis Farms I also suspect won't have the space to unload an LRV easily. It might be possible, but, with the length of these LRV's and the required trailer you certainly need a good, straight section of track with road access to maneuver the trailer.
I'm pretty sure for that matter, that when the LRV's are delivered they will use the existing delivery track at Gerry Wright OMF A rather than building a second delivery track at OMF B. I didn't see any indication of requiring a delivery track at OMF B.

Having said that, I'm sure if the need really arose, they could truck LRV's between Lewis Farms and Gerry Wright once LRV's have competed their initial acceptance. Of course, TransEd did this when the elevated section was embargoed and they wanted to swap out the cars that were trapped north of the elevated section for a new set of cars to get some time burning in those cars.
Click to expand...

Wow, thanks for the info on this! Really cool to hear about the specifics of this process.
 
At 3:52 of the video……right hand side of the picture……116th St and the property immediately south of 104th Ave……houses are smashed, property is fenced and some material being stored……looks like it’s under construction?
 
I'm also guessing the orange crosswalks will be part of the road construction on the Valley Line West. I don't object to their construction, unless the city starts them around October.
 
Core samples on one site and piles for second traction transformer
IMG_2840.jpeg
IMG_2842.jpeg
 
8:15am today, Churchill. Wednesday (peak office day). Not a soul standing cause maybe half the seats were full.

Ridership levels feel pretty concerning…

Has anyone heard how they’re being received by the city/council?
 
I'm fairly new to this community still, and not nearly as well-versed in these things as others, but I would like to point out that it seems a little unfair to judge the whole line by one train's occupancy levels at one moment, which also takes place during the last hour of peak times, when things are supposed to be winding down as peak time comes to an end.

At that time of the morning there are trains coming every five minutes, and have been coming every five minutes for over two hours. You're going to need a lot of people stuffing those trains to make every train look well occupied considering an entire rural Alberta village such as Rosemary (population ~400) could all fit on one two-car train and still have room to carry another 150 people.

I think patience is what's needed with the Valley Line, as the destinations it serves improve, and efforts to improve transit perception are made (which I agree, are way over blown), the riders will come.
 
Yeah, I've taken the Valley Line a few times out of necessity at around afternoon peak hours in the middle of the week (this train is a literal god send for the SE and Millwoods), and the 5 min frequency really does zoom people pretty fast.

Plus right now, Valley Line ridership is a remarkably good barometer of downtown's vibrancy. The more downtown recovers and grows, getting more events, jobs and retail options especially (I've seen several people head to the City Centre Winners all the way from Millwoods which is interesting), (and the school year starts again for post-secondary students in the fall), the more visible we'll see ridership on both peak/non peak hours, and that'll probably be the case until VLW opens in 2027-2028.

That's actually kinda cool to see.
 
I usually park at Stadium Station and ride my bike in. Funny as a Vancouverite of 22 years I prefer not to ride my bicycle in the rain, yet have no problem with riding when it's -15 out. I decided to drive to Strathearn today and take Valley Line in. 8:10am, rear of a two car train set, I'd say almost 2/3rds of the seats were taken and there were a few standees like myself. Mostly office, retail, and student looking mix of people. The 5 minute frequencies are amazing, missed one train and I was in Skytrain mode, "another one will come shortly." By the time I was finished a Duolingo session, we were almost out of the tunnel towards Quarters. I have confidence more people who live and/or work in the SE will find a way to integrate Valley Line into their commutes.
 
thommyjo said:
8:15am today, Churchill. Wednesday (peak office day). Not a soul standing cause maybe half the seats were full.

Ridership levels feel pretty concerning…

Has anyone heard how they’re being received by the city/council?
Click to expand...
IDK why you say ridership is concerning. Are you aware that Edmonton was on of, if not the first, major North American city to achieve its pre pandemic ridership numbers.

Be more worried about our inadequate service levels as we still remain, something like 100,000 operational hours below our set standards.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top