Toronto Ontario Line | ?m | ?s

[44 North]

especially longer term as eventual extensions are unlikely to be tunnelled much if at all.

The OL is still quite expensive, but a northern extension could likely be done very, very affordably as it can be elevated.

Longer term is a point in favour of third rail. Think about it. When planning future extensions/branches in an urban realm we want a line that can be nimble - i.e allow for planning of grade changes and tight turns with ease. Flyunders and flyovers, short tunnels, deviations from road ROW to rail ROW to greenspace etc... pantos will make that more difficult. Why? Because the train's profile is that much bigger. Infrastructure has to be more expansive to allow this. This is one reason I've been an advocate of ~2.75m wide train for RL rolling stock, with a commensurate longer train to compensate for the narrowness. Now with pantos we're effectively getting bigger trains.

 

[44 North]

And ultimately catenary infrastructure is uglier. You'll get more pushback against elevated infrastructure with pantos than you would without them.

 

[T3G]

I don't have a horse in the race of third rail vs. panto, but I'm not sure I see the arguments in favour of third rail that you are making.

Pantos aren't difficult to work around. There are loads of tram systems all over Europe that run through narrow city centers that don't have the slightest difficulty getting around. The overhead can even be dropped, to reduce the amount of clearance required. In Prague, they have a tram line that goes right under a building!

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[AHK]

Metrolinx is operating a community information booth in our area this afternoon. According to one of the staff construction activities under the main contact (as opposed to the Early Works) are due to start in approximately two months - presumably the time frame required by the contractors for their mobilization activities.

 

[44 North]

I don't have a horse in the race of third rail vs. panto, but I'm not sure I see the arguments in favour of third rail that you are making.

Pantos aren't difficult to work around. There are loads of tram systems all over Europe that run through narrow city centers that don't have the slightest difficulty getting around. The overhead can even be dropped, to reduce the amount of clearance required. In Prague, they have a tram line that goes right under a building!

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We've got trams all over Toronto, with parts under buildings too. And I don't believe there'd be plans to drop the overhead by any significant margin on a new line like OL since it's all to be new.

Comparison. Internal tunnel diameter for Crosstown is 6.75m, whereas our last subway (TYSSE) is 5.4m. Minus the panto, I believe a Flexity and Toronto Rocket are fairly close in height. So why's there a massive discrepancy in tunnel sizes of almost one and half metres between a line with third rail power and that with overhead power? It's the overhead.

With regards to ramps and flyunders that 1.5m adds up. With a 4deg ramp - say diving under a street - we need an added 20m of horizontal distance for the line with a panto vs one without. Basically everything needs to be planned bigger, the guideway is visually bigger since it has pylons and wires all over, and we're more limited with what the line can do.

 

[ARG1]

And ultimately catenary infrastructure is uglier. You'll get more pushback against elevated infrastructure with pantos than you would without them.

That's like... your opinion man

I think catenaries look quite nice, shots like these especially feel really pleasant to look at

 

[T3G]

We've got trams all over Toronto, with parts under buildings too. And I don't believe there'd be plans to drop the overhead by any significant margin on a new line like OL since it's all to be new.

Comparison. Internal tunnel diameter for Crosstown is 6.75m, whereas our last subway (TYSSE) is 5.4m. Minus the panto, I believe a Flexity and Toronto Rocket are fairly close in height. So why's there a massive discrepancy in tunnel sizes of almost one and half metres between a line with third rail power and that with overhead power? It's the overhead.

With regards to ramps and flyunders that 1.5m adds up. With a 4deg ramp - say diving under a street - we need an added 20m of horizontal distance for the line with a panto vs one without. Basically everything needs to be planned bigger, the guideway is visually bigger since it has pylons and wires all over, and we're more limited with what the line can do.

I think this is a non concern. Overhead being dropped has nothing to do with the age of the infrastructure, but with physical constraints along the route. If there is a low bridge they need to clear, dropping the overhead is not a problem. It's done every time a tram line has to pass under a pre-existing bridge. That example from Prague, it's patently obvious they don't have 20 m extra horizontal distance, but they get on just fine.

As for the tunnels, without seeing the location of the overhead in relation to the rest of the tunnel I can't say. But it would not surprise me one bit if they had to leave some space on all sides so that crews can comfortably do work on the overhead if they need to.

 

[44 North]

That's like... your opinion man

I think catenaries look quite nice, shots like these especially feel really pleasant to look at

How quaint. A single rail line. A mainline railway at that, so not even relevant. You guys don't need to show Prague, or Montreal. We have tracks and wires all over Toronto. And now we have an elevated guideway, with catenary, it's on Eglinton. Why not show that considering the relevance to the topic at hand?

I like catenary. Our mainline commuter system needed it decades ago and is well overdue. As does the chugalug airport diesel that was supposed to have it. And an LRT, intermingling with people and cars, yeah how else is it going to get power. But a subway, separate from people and cars. Third rail is a winner. Saves money, looks better, greater flexibility.

Also the OL tunnel, if it didn't have catenary, should save about 16,000 dump trucks of dirt that has to be hauled somewhere.

 

[asey20]

That's like... your opinion man

I think catenaries look quite nice, shots like these especially feel really pleasant to look at
View attachment 458315

You wouldn't even be able to do this with third rail. Quite dangerous to have easy access to tracks and crossing with third rails (even if crossings don't have third rail). That's another major benefit ro catenary. Although I guess Ontario line is fully grade seperated so it doesn't really matter in this case.

 

[Kitsune]

Steering us back to actual O/L news.......

The O/L gets mention in the latest Transit Network Expansion Update, to next week's TTC meeting.

https://ttc-cdn.azureedge.net/-/media/Project/TTC/DevProto/Documents/Home/Public-Meetings/Board/2023/February-28/7_Transit_Network_Expansion_Update.pdf?rev=a675c9df704946afad364fbb9b8aee19&hash=D07E53E6B23D3A5C93A779AA4C87172C

Some bits from the above:

View attachment 458145
***

View attachment 458146

soo the 501 is going to be pretty much toast for next few years.. fun ! ... and then of course once this is done .. then the ttc will prolly need to tear up the tracks for renewal .

 

[ARG1]

How quaint. A single rail line. A mainline railway at that, so not even relevant. You guys don't need to show Prague, or Montreal. We have tracks and wires all over Toronto. And now we have an elevated guideway, with catenary, it's on Eglinton. Why not show that considering the relevance to the topic at hand?

I fail to see the difference in visuals. I like Catenary in trenches, I like catenary on viaducts. Those elevated viaducts in Melbourne and Sydney look really nice.

I like catenary. Our mainline commuter system needed it decades ago and is well overdue. As does the chugalug airport diesel that was supposed to have it. And an LRT, intermingling with people and cars, yeah how else is it going to get power. But a subway, separate from people and cars. Third rail is a winner. Saves money, looks better, greater flexibility.

Also the OL tunnel, if it didn't have catenary, should save about 16,000 dump trucks of dirt that has to be hauled somewhere.

I'm not going to claim to be an expert, but do you honestly think that the engineers in charge of this project haven't done the cost benefit analysis of doing overhead catenary? Do you honestly think the same government that changed the line to require less tunneling to save money, would at the same time force the line to use a power source that would require larger and more expensive tunnels? And no, the decisions wasn't made because of off the shelf design, most off the shelf metro vehicles like the Alstom Metropolis have variants that use 3rd rail. In all likelihood, Catenary was chosen for its benefits in speed and stronger resilience in winter conditions (whilst catenaries do have problems during winters, they don't ice up as easily during sub zero temperatures like 3rd rail does), and odds are catenary was chosen because it allows to easier to maintain the 90s headways the line needs to reach its capacity goals, you know, the constraint that was placed in order to save money by building shorter stations (which saves a lot more money than having smaller diameter tunnels).

Even if we assume that the engineers in charge of this project have no idea what they're doing, or that management decisions are being done on a whim, at the very least its likely that management thought the same thing you did related to tunnel diameter, and pushed for the smaller tunnel sizes based on that factor alone. Odds are, the reason its using catenary is because the engineering team came back to Metrolinx and told them that whilst the tunnels will be more expensive, catenaries will be able to ultimately save more money because of x, y, z.

 

[44 North]

I fail to see the difference in visuals. I like Catenary in trenches, I like catenary on viaducts. Those elevated viaducts in Melbourne and Sydney look really nice.

I'm not going to claim to be an expert, but do you honestly think that the engineers in charge of this project haven't done the cost benefit analysis of doing overhead catenary? Do you honestly think the same government that changed the line to require less tunneling to save money, would at the same time force the line to use a power source that would require larger and more expensive tunnels? And no, the decisions wasn't made because of off the shelf design, most off the shelf metro vehicles like the Alstom Metropolis have variants that use 3rd rail. In all likelihood, Catenary was chosen for its benefits in speed and stronger resilience in winter conditions (whilst catenaries do have problems during winters, they don't ice up as easily during sub zero temperatures like 3rd rail does), and odds are catenary was chosen because it allows to easier to maintain the 90s headways the line needs to reach its capacity goals, you know, the constraint that was placed in order to save money by building shorter stations (which saves a lot more money than having smaller diameter tunnels).

Even if we assume that the engineers in charge of this project have no idea what they're doing, or that management decisions are being done on a whim, at the very least its likely that management thought the same thing you did related to tunnel diameter, and pushed for the smaller tunnel sizes based on that factor alone. Odds are, the reason its using catenary is because the engineering team came back to Metrolinx and told them that whilst the tunnels will be more expensive, catenaries will be able to ultimately save more money because of x, y, z.

Seems like the highest frequency subways in the world do so without pantos. And do we know if it was in fact engineers or cost-benefit analyses that made the decision to go with overhead? If I'd hazard a guess it was more bureaucratic - perhaps as a wow-factor to show that the line stands out from conventional subways and the project that preceded it, or a belief that catenary would somehow make the project easier to build because it coincided with GO's electrification.

 

[GioBuild]

I really want to apologize if it has already been posted, but does anyone have a link to a timeline of when each station is projected to start work? Thank you. I am particularly interested in when construction of the new Pape Station is projected to commence.

 

[ARG1]

Seems like the highest frequency subways in the world do so without pantos.

The highest frequency subways in the world don't have to deal with Toronto winters, and the ones that do (Moscow) either have extremely limited above ground segments, or whatever above ground segments they have are covered (see: the southern section of the Moscow Red Line in the median of the Filatov Highway).

And do we know if it was in fact engineers or cost-benefit analyses that made the decision to go with overhead? If I'd hazard a guess it was more bureaucratic - perhaps as a wow-factor to show that the line stands out from conventional subways and the project that preceded it, or a belief that catenary would somehow make the project easier to build because it coincided with GO's electrification.

Do you honestly believe that Dougie who has been penny pinching every project that doesn't go through his backyard, that has been trying to save every dime he could with the OL, made the decision to spend more money on a "wow" factor of having overhead power? If you wanted to make an argument that the people in charge are spending money on vanity features, that's fine and I could play along, but realistically speaking, overhead power is the worst possible vanity feature you can possibly have. How many people in the general public even remotely care about things like overhead vs 3rd rail vs idk, Platform Screen Doors or full automation. Heck I'm pretty sure if you ask most people what 3rd rail is, or how our subway trains are powered, they would have no clue, or would say something like the rails themselves are electric.

 

[generalcanada]

I really want to apologize if it has already been posted, but does anyone have a link to a timeline of when each station is projected to start work? Thank you. I am particularly interested in when construction of the new Pape Station is projected to commence.

pape station hasnt even got its rfp out yet dont expect the station to start construction until closer to 2026 AKA "Ontario Line – Pape Tunnel and Underground Stations" the similar "Ontario Line – Elevated Guideway and Stations" which is the whole area north of the dvp should start construction a little earlier than the tunnels
other than that there really isnt much public timelines except for "7 years of streetcar detours till 2030" and "metrolinx hands site access off to the contractor in may of this year"