I was very pleased yesterday to hear that the O-Train lines 2 & 4 will be put through the 21-day trial running process beginning on October 7. If everything performs flawlessly then train service could re-start on the southern line by mid-November. We all have our fingers crossed. Given the lengthy testing already accomplished, everyone is cautiously optimistic.
One group of residents, however, are nervous about what the imminent handover means for a localized noise issue. People who live on Railway and across the tracks north of Beech have been listening to a pronounced “kerchunk” that was identified to my and Councillor Troster’s office this summer. They say it’s keeping them up at night while the train is testing and waking them up early, and I believe them.
The sound is the result of re-using a piece of the previous rail infrastructure to accomplish a cross-over in this location. The crossover contains a point at which the tracks meet called a “frog”. The sound is the noise of the train wheels encountering a dip in the rail resulting in the clear “kerchunk”. It’s loud.
Modern rail lines have frogs that are profiled for the wheels traveling over them – essentially the wheels better hug the rail. Elsewhere on the line, the new frogs are profiled but the builder in this instance re-used the older equipment as they were allowed to do by the project agreement.
The fix for the “kerchunk” is what’s called a “conformal frog re-configuration”. Essentially, the rails will be built up to be optimally profiled, favouring the wheel profile on the new Stadler FLIRT vehicles that will be the ones predominantly traveling this stretch. They’ll build up the new profile and the City engineers with whom I’ve spoken seem very confident that it will bring the noise down significantly to end the unacceptable disruption to neighbours.
That work is being procured and I’m informed that there will be some clearer timelines coming soon. The work shouldn’t require a shutdown and sounds straightforward once designed and contracted. Affected residents, however, are nervous that with handover to the City looking like it’s coming soon that the work will be delayed past the lengthy time it’s taken already – or won’t be done at all. It needs to be made clear, I think, that this work is on the City side, and is not a deficiency that has to be corrected by the LRT builder. The City will fund and is committed to implementing the fix.
Some residents have also reached the point where they’re asking me to pivot and advocate for completely replacing the frog. I’ve been clear that I’m not willing to see a shut-down while a frog is fully replaced. Far too many people have already been unacceptably impacted by the long pause in rail service. I’m taking it on face value that the work they’ve proposed will fix the problem, and pivoting now will only delay the point when these residents can get a good night’s sleep by months. I believe that the anticipated work will be done, and very much appreciate residents’ continued patience.
We should see additional echo barriers installed in the coming days. I’m forwarding residents’ notes to the Stage 2 team to be answered, agreeing with those residents that we need to put their minds to rest that the noise will end.