The car was in for service in Waterloo on Wednesday so I had reason to use ION to travel from end to end. The system is now on ATP, and while that reveals the potential of it they clearly have a long way to go.
Southbound between Northfield Station and Bearinger it got up to quite a clip, but after that it was much the same as it was when purely Line of Sight driven, if not far more cautious through many spots. It still slows considerably near the crossovers by the Perimeter Institute, and was far too cautious approaching the LOS transition at Erb / Caroline, no doubt to the chagrin of drivers blocked in both directions waiting for it to arrive. After the LOS transition it remains manually operated until departing Borden Ave for the Huron Spur, where it seemed equally overcautious approaching Ottawa St. Departing Mill Station there was another exhilarating spike of acceleration and speed until just after the expressway, becoming overcautious again for the bridges over Schneider's Creek. After that it's a total s---show through the Hayward curves, up to Block Line Station and on to Fairway Station. It's no wonder the radio scanner is full of drivers reporting "late into Fairway due to ATP".
Northbound later in the day the train crawled out of Fairway, but it had departed from the non-preferred platform so took the crossover at exit rather than at entry. When watching the trains there last week they seemed to fly out of Fairway and across Wilson, which I'd really been looking forward to. Once clear of Wilson Ave the ATP launched us so quickly that the sanders were rev'ing on dry track to prevent major wheel sleep, shifting me uncomfortably in my stand-up bum seat. (I had my bike with me, so that's where I had to be.) It slowed again for the new (currently unsignalized) pedestrian crossing from Traynor to Fairway, and after that the s---show was mostly repeated until clear of the Hayward S. This time I had a GPS speedometer app running and once clear of Hayward the train launched itself to 65 km/h without any caution over the creek bridges. It was great until clear of the Expressway when it dropped to a crawl for the trailing point crossover and into Mill Station, after which we were back to Line of Sight (manual operation) at Ottawa St. Once back on ATP through Waterloo Park the train didn't seem to get much faster than the old 50 km/h manual limit, and didn't slow for the Perimeter crossovers at all despite the freight one being facing point. That was nice. It didn't seem to go above 50 until after Columbia, braking nicely for R&T Park Station. Out of R&T it briefly hit 65 again, absolutely flying across Quiet Pl and Old Albert, then slowing to well below the old manual speeds to duck under Weber St and pass the OMSF. That was disappointing.
The brief moments of 65 km/h travel were awesome but lasted no more than a few seconds, and on the whole the trip was much slower than when the vehicles were manually operated through the ATP sections. The potential is evident, but it still needs major work. I hope that the tuning continues until all is operating smoothly.
A side note: It really seemed to integrate well with the crossing gates. Except in the troublesome Hayward to Fairway section, the train seemed to arrive at the gates moments after they hit full drop and their lunars went solid white. Car drivers will love this if it remains consistent!
