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TTC: Flexity Streetcars Testing & Delivery (Bombardier)

There's been no significant evidence of improvement in delivery frequency o date by any standard. However the latest schedule only called for one shipment in August, and they hit that.

One in an entire month is a pretty low bar. Is that what we are reduced to?

But 4 in September - and there's certainly indications that they may well achieve 2 or 3 if not more. Time will tell ...

What are these indications?
 
What are these indications?

There's been a lot of media reports in the last 4-5 weeks about recent comments from both Byfield and Colle that production has been going weekly starting in the fall. I think most of those have already been discussed here. I've heard some comments offline as well.
 
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I stand very much corrected regarding your 2nd, 4th and 7th photos - those are in fact what I meant by median ROWs - but the others show either mixed traffic trackage, streetcar-only roads or, in the case of the 1st photo, an off-street loop like Broadview or Cherry St, but in a more built-up setting. Also, that's not so much for the main train station (presumably you mean Alexanderplatz, not Hauptbahnhof) as it is for the Hackescher Markt S-Bahn station.
There is not much of a difference an ROW, Mix traffic and median ROW from what I saw in 2012 in Europe. Most median ROW/Mix Traffic lines are white line or marker with a clear understanding of the law, cars are not allow on tracks period. To do so is subject to stiff fines, not the slap on the hand that we do. Never saw a car on any mix traffic lines with markers/lines, other than where allow. Some places allow cabs in these ROW/mix traffic lines.

Hauptbahnhof is getting tracks as shown in photo 4 and another way to build concrete ROW.

As for delivery, we will have to wait until Nov/Dec to see what the delivery time frame really looks like.
 
Maybe they're going the IKEA way. The TTC will have to assemble the parts together themselves... if they include the key wrench.

Ikea-wrench.png



With the expected results:
tumblr_ncm7woKFUz1sy7kxko3_1280-1024x1024.jpg

8af0903a25fcc8fbb3ae44ca1e60ccfe.jpg
 
Looks like they are taking a break from training, all 8 are out today (ones with Wheelchair access are new streetcars)

Provided that they are capable, all 8 are to be used for service during run of the CNE. There is no training scheduled.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
Provided that they are capable, all 8 are to be used for service during run of the CNE. There is no training scheduled.
Then why are 6 on Spadina and only 2 on Harbourfront.

I made the mistake of trying to catch a streetcar at Union at 6:30 pm yesterday. The line- up came out of the streetcar platform, along one side of the subway platform, looped around and was down to the other end. So I walked to Queens Quay, and caught a 510 Flexity there. The car was only about 1/3 full, with no one standing, and lots of empty seats! Clearly the line for the platform was for the 509, leaving those wanting a 510 completely screwed.

So again I ask. Why are there six Flexities on 510 and only two on 509?
 
Then why are 6 on Spadina and only 2 on Harbourfront.

I made the mistake of trying to catch a streetcar at Union at 6:30 pm yesterday. The line- up came out of the streetcar platform, along one side of the subway platform, looped around and was down to the other end. So I walked to Queens Quay, and caught a 510 Flexity there. The car was only about 1/3 full, with no one standing, and lots of empty seats! Clearly the line for the platform was for the 509, leaving those wanting a 510 completely screwed.

So again I ask. Why are there six Flexities on 510 and only two on 509?

509 is ridiculously packed with CNE, TFC games, Harbourfront centre events.
 
So again I ask. Why are there six Flexities on 510 and only two on 509?
Probably because it's longer route and they want more on it for capacity Plus there are only about six or 7 cars on the 509 usually and with extra car on bathurst it's hard for them to pass when a flexicty is in play at exhibition lopp
 
509 is ridiculously packed with CNE, TFC games, Harbourfront centre events.
All the more reason to be running bigger vehicles on Harbourfront. Not that there was any TFC games or anything else at BMO Field yesterday. And I didn't see anyone get off at Harbourfront Centre. Sure, the Ex is on. Wouldn't have thought that 6:30 pm on a Tuesday would have been a particularly busy time departing Union, after rush-hour is mostly over.
 
So again I ask. Why are there six Flexities on 510 and only two on 509?

I think that there are only 2 runs on 509 that are scheduled to be low-floor - they are the ones in the 50s - whereas there are 8 or 9 runs every day on Spadina that are scheduled to be low-floor.

This means that of all of the streetcars on Harbourfront, only two run need to have drivers trained to drive the low-floor cars. The others may have operators who are trained to do it, but they are just as likely to not be.

There are ways to go around this, but then you're at the whim of guys signing for overtime - and they may not necessarily be low-floor trained either.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
I'd have assumed that they could just have swapped vehicles on each route, on the day. But maybe not that simple.

Oh well, hopefully by next summer, both routes will be fully converted, and we'll never have that problem again.
 
How long did their first dozen take?
To answer my own question, somewhat ...

Looks like their first production vehicle was 8002 delivered in 2011 - http://transphoto.ru/list.php?serv=0&mid=2571&cid=77. There were 7 vehicles delivered in 2011 and 17 of this model delivered in 2012, and another 12 of this model in 2012- http://transphoto.ru/list.php?serv=0&mid=3390&cid=77

To complicate matters, they have 4 different models. They have both 30-metre long and 40-metre long streetcars; and uni-direction and bi-direcitonal versions of both.

Hard to say if it's faster or not, as there's no indication when the first production streetcar was delivered. We only know that it went in service in September 2011.
I 'll try to answer that directly from Germany: The first production vehicle # 8002 was delivered on 2nd September 2011. The eights production vehicle # 8009 was delivered 158 days later on 7th February 2012. Thats an average of 22.6 days between each delivery.

Since the delivery of the serial production cars startet in 09.2011 the delivered took place quite regular.
But the original timeline for building the prototypes and serial vehicles had been set for 2005 and 2007 to 2015.
In the End the four prototypes (one each unidirectional / bidirectional & 30 meter / 40 meter long) were delivered at the turn 2008/09.
The serial vehicles were ordered on 1st September 2009 and deliverey begann quite exactly two years later.

http://www.strassenbahn-online.de/Betriebshof/LF100/FLEXITY_Berlin/index.html
 
Thanks. I guess the other complication is these weren't the first Flexities ever manufactured by that facility.
 
What is the next decision point with respect to the TTC's evaluation of Bombardier sticking to their latest streetcar delivery schedule?
 

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