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A misplaced hydro pole
One of the first signs that city staff were not interested in cost-effective LRT is captured in this picture.
Rather than move the pole over (costing $700), they moved the rail line.
This causes the train to have to slow down before it gets to that curve, and then apply power to climb the hill, and then brake once it gets to the station.
In the other direction, the train coasts down the hill, has to brake to slow down to go around the curve, and then, has to apply power to accelerate again.
This is a zoom in on the relevant section. Notice how the tracks could have continued almost straight through. Hidden under the snow behind the pole is a turnout that the city of Ottawa wants to remove. Doing so will mean that the O-Train will NEVER get to Gatineau.
Why remove it? because it makes noise. No silly, curves make noise.
Had the track been straight, there would be no noise. Friends of the O-Train has asked the Canadian Transportation Agency about severing this main line, and the city claims they are disconnecting a "spur" -- we are pursuing this, but we need help.
Comments
What does this pole really cost?
Friends of the O-train researcher Tim Lane did the following calculation.
It's quite an eye opener --- miss-spent capital has significant ongoing operational costs.
Remember this when you put that extra 0.25 into the fare box --- city staff can turn $20M stations into $250M stations easily, but can't spend $700.
There are some open questions in this analysis about how much fuel the O-train uses while idling vs under load.
At most this is a 10x change in the calculations, which we show.
Each O-Train uses ~ 650 litres diesel/day
Both trains = 1300 litres/day
1300/36 train hrs/day/60min./hr = 0.6 litre / min.
Every minute of the day, the two O-Trains combined are sucking back 0.6 litre of diesel fuel.
Let's assume that every time the O-Train has to slow for the H.G.M. Pole, and then climb the hill to Bayview Platform, it uses the equivalent of an additional minute's worth of fuel, compared to just coasting up the hill to a stop, if the track was straight.
And, every time the train leaves Bayview, crawls around the pole, creeps through the "wrong" hand switch, and then has to pour on the power to get moving towards Carling Station, it uses an additional minute's worth of fuel, compared to just accelerating down the hill, if the track were straight.
So, every time the train arrives at, and leaves Bayview, it uses an additional 2 minutes worth of fuel, compared to what it would use if the track was straight.
The O-Train arrives at Bayview every 15 minutes, or 4 times per hour, or 4 x 18 hrs of service/day = 72 times per day.
If climbing & descending the hill, around the curves, uses 2 minutes extra fuel each time, then it is using 2 x 72 x 0.60 L/min = 86.4 extra litres of fuel per day.
At $0.90 per litre, that's about $77.75 per day of extra fuel.
Times 360 days per year, that's 360 x $77.75 = ~ $28,000 per year of wasted fuel to go around the H.G.M.P, & through the "wrong" hand turnout.
Over the 8 year history of the O-Train, that's $28,000 x 8 = ~ $224,000 in fuel wasted.
Or, looking at it another way, H.G.'s "saving" of $700 by not moving that hydro pole, was used up in less than two weeks of operation, after the O-Train started service in Oct. 2001.
Now, all this is based on my assumption that additional fuel used in climbing the hill, and not being able to use the descent to get going again, uses the equivalent of an extra 2 minutes worth of fuel.
Let's say I am overestimating the "penalty" by a factor of ten times. (I would say that it is unlikely that the "penalty"
is THAT small, but let's use the new smaller number.)
So, it would have taken less than twenty weeks of operation of the O-Train to have "wasted" in fuel, what was "saved" by not moving the pole.
And, the cost of fuel "wasted" per year would be $2,800 per year, versus $28,000.
And, the total cost since Oct 15, 2001, would be in the $22,000 neighbourhood, rather than $224,000.
(Ed: to recap, somewhere between $22,000 and $224,000 of fuel wasted, and CO2 emitted in order to save $700.
Further, the city is going to spend a lot of "infrastructure" money this summer to put up fences and remove the switch in an attempt to get rid of the squeal from the wheels as it goes around the pole)
STILL a GLARING example of "Penny wise and pound foolish!"