TTC: Other Items (catch all)

[Duck]

+1 on the architecture cruise. It's great. And make sure you spend time exploring the various lines of the cta. It's one of my favourite systems. "Quincy" on the Loop is fantastic and maintained in its original condition, paybox and all.

 

[Napoleon]

The TTC suffered a built of a melt-down last night--well, really the opposite of a meltdown as the problems were caused by ice buildup on the streetcar lines. Trying to get home, the Dundas cars were all short-turning at Bathurst heading westbound. College wasn't running. St. Clair was down. Queen was having problems. It was annoying that all the problems weren't listed as service alerts though. Dundas service had effectively ceased (I got the last westbound streetcar which then short turned) and the next streetcar was listed at 40+ minutes on NextBus--no service advisories were posted. No service advisory was given on Spadina, but there were two northbound 510 streetcars on Bathurst when I got off, so presumably something was wrong there. Really rather unimpressed with the TTC's communication efforts.

I wonder if the new streetcars using pantographs will have less trouble than the poles with icy conditions.

 

[nfitz]

Oh, last night was epic. I was taking a 504 up Broadview just before 9 pm, to catch a 506, when I noticed on http://totransit.ca/ that there were eight eastbound 506s sat at Broadview, and one heading south on Parliament at Dundas. So I jumped off at Broadview/Dundas and walked back to Queen to catch that 506 at Queen/Broadview. I actually ended up on another 506, as the whole chain of eight 506s headed down Broadview. Just in front of us was a 501 heading down Queen East. It seemed rather slow getting to Logan, and then got slower and slower. I almost jumped off at Carlaw to grab a 72, but I stuck on. It seemed to take about 30 minutes to get from Carlaw to Jones; and I noticed a Jones bus would be passing in 10 minutes. 5 minutes later we hadn't moved more than 10 feet, and I got off to take the Jones bus. When it showed up, the streetcar I was on, had only managed to traverse the Jones intersection. Behind us was a line of streetcars as far as I can see - I counted 25 streetcars in a row on http://totransit.ca/ (later on, I counted 28 as they approached Greenwood - though a couple of Flexities that had been there previously were gone, presumably going south on Leslie).

When I got home about 10:30 pm I looked again, and the streetcar at the front of the pack (4167) had only got to Greenwood. So that's about 90 minutes from River to Greenwood. I checked again at 11 pm and it had gotten about Kingston Road, meanwhile about 6 of the 506s were slowing heading north on Coxwell, but had only gotten to Dundas. Just before midnight, car 4167 was about to get to Neville Loop, and three 506s had gotten to onto Upper Gerrard while two had peeled off to head back west along Lower Gerrard, and but were only at Woodfield. And a 6th car was lagging on Coxwell.

So almost 3 hours from River Street to Neville Park on 501 - and not one service alert.

I saw the 3 on Upper Gerrard pass from my house. It appeared the first driver was going forward, then backwards, then fowards, slowly making progress, with the other two drivers trying to bang ice off the wire with the trolley pole, and occasionally running back to their own cars, to move fowards. They made good progress for a bit, but stalled at Woodbine. Meanwhile about 12:30 AM the 501 from Neville Park had gotten back to Russell in about 40 minutes (relatively good time, compared to earlier).

When I went to bed about 1 AM the three 506s were still stuck at Woodbine, the two heading west were approaching Broadview, and seemed to be speeding up (warmer near the river?), the 6th trailing 506 had gotten stuck at Coxwell/Upper Gerrard. Meanwhile just west of Main/Upper Gerrard were parked four more 506s that as far as I can see, hadn't moved since before 9 pm.

Never seen anything quite like it ...

 

[dowlingm]

CPTDB has a post which says 4406's pole snapped on Spadina. They were going to couple 4413, but they eventually raised the panto to move off.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

CPTDB has a post which says 4406's pole snapped on Spadina. They were going to couple 4413, but they eventually raised the panto to move off.

I wonder why they were so reluctant to use the panto.

 

[dowlingm]

I wonder why they were so reluctant to use the panto.

I wonder if the delay was because the operator asked for permission to raise and the request had to go to management level for signoff to raise and for where 4406 would then proceed to (presumably Spadina then out of service and back to Leslie by a specified routing to avoid non-panto compliant wiring)

 

[Steve X]

I wonder why they were so reluctant to use the panto.

Because the are afraid that some operator will raise the panto during their run and forget to take it down while heading back to the garage. There are still some parts of King or Queen hasn't finished upgrading so the panto will tear it apart. A TTC-made disaster can simply be avoided if no pans are used. They do plan to finish up that section and diverting routes so that can just run with the panto. It's going to happen soon, not 2020.

I wonder if the delay was because the operator asked for permission to raise and the request had to go to management level for signoff to raise and for where 4406 would then proceed to (presumably Spadina then out of service and back to Leslie by a specified routing to avoid non-panto compliant wiring)

They'll have to report the incident anyways before they are told what to do. It's not simply asking if they can raise the panto. They'll have to figure out where to put the car as a dangling pole isn't safe to head back to the garage.

 

[DSCToronto]

I wonder why they were so reluctant to use the panto.

We have been through this several time; the pantos do not work on the old intersections (at least) as a panto could/would contact several overhead wires at the same time and though many streets are now 100% new wiring for the 'regular wires' there are lots of intersections and many diversion routes that are not yet done. The pantos will clearly be better on ice covered wiring but until all the overhead is upgraded they will only be used in testing.

 

[Duck]

I am still very curious to see a before and after photo of the changes that are required to accommodate pantograph operation.

 

[Steve X]

I am still very curious to see a before and after photo of the changes that are required to accommodate pantograph operation.

I'm sure most people here knows... a search on flickr (credits to drum118)

old TTC overhead:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/acousticsam/21578392468/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/drum118/7252274466/in/album-72157631695629916/

photograph friendly overhead:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/drum118/24858930291/in/album-72157647790230508/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/drum118/25682771792/

Notice how the supporting wires are connected to overhead wire. The panto will scrape all the support connectors in the old TTC installations.

 

[drum118]

I posted last year as well this year that until King & Queen are 100% new overhead, pans will not be used. TTC is not prepared to allow drivers to use pans on 510 or 509 as they fear a driver will forget to go pole to the yard and could bring the old overhead down.

The overhead once ready to use pans will not be a straight line like it is today. It will be stagger between supporting lines as not to wear a grove in the pan. By doing this stagger line, the pans will act as an ice cutter, but like most things, it only can deal with a small thickness. The support bracket will be on an angle to create the stagger line. The line will go to the north and then to the south to create the stagger.

512 riders are on the bus starting in June again until the end of the year.

June to Sept, St Clair West overhead will be replace with buses been used. No idea at this time, but may allow the ramps to be rebuilt that were supposed to be done years ago. Once the loop goes back into service, streetcars will only run from the station to Gunns Loop with buses going east until that loop is ready in Dec.

June to Dec, platforms will be modify for accessibility with grove cut into the platforms for the streetcar ramp.

No set date, but the concrete in the ROW at Vaughan Rd is to be replace that is only 10 years old.

April to June, new fare gates for all entrance to be replace by the new Presto ones.

St Clair Station will see roof replacement done in phases from June to Dec with buses been used. The platform will be modify as well for the new cars.

Heath entrance could be close to allow tile replacement to take place.

If you look at the OS for Roncesvalles Yard and Spadina/QQ intersection, you will see the difference between the old and new with QQ being new. Vaughan Intersection on St Clair has the new overhead.

I have a shot somewhere of 512 that was stagger while the line was being rebuilt years ago, but can't located at this time

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

Just a question about 512 does anyone know what they are going to do about the current layout for loading and unloading at St. Clair west station. Currently the streetcars come into one platform to unload and the proceed either to a secondary track to be out of service r pull up to one of two stops one for east to St. Clair station and one west to Guns loop. Too bad they don't have the space that exhibition loop does then they could easily have them pass each other.

 

[Duck]

Thanks for that, guys; those photos are excellent - I get it now. The stringers that support the wire ideally are in-line with the plane of tension so the hanger doesn't roll at all with the pulling forces... so for the pantograph, they have to move that support point waaaaay out to the side on curves. The trolley pole design with the compact inverted C-shape makes a lot of sense for the contact roller on the trolley pole.

 

[Voltz]

Just a question about 512 does anyone know what they are going to do about the current layout for loading and unloading at St. Clair west station. Currently the streetcars come into one platform to unload and the proceed either to a secondary track to be out of service r pull up to one of two stops one for east to St. Clair station and one west to Guns loop. Too bad they don't have the space that exhibition loop does then they could easily have them pass each other.

I don't think anything will change, the new streetcars will take up the length of both the loading platforms so they will probably just it make into one loading platform.

But when the St Clair line was being rebuilt they knew the new streetcars would be longer, and should have taken the opportunity to redesign the loop here to accommodate them, but they did not, typical of the TTC to not think about little but important things like this.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Just a question about 512 does anyone know what they are going to do about the current layout for loading and unloading at St. Clair west station. Currently the streetcars come into one platform to unload and the proceed either to a secondary track to be out of service r pull up to one of two stops one for east to St. Clair station and one west to Guns loop. Too bad they don't have the space that exhibition loop does then they could easily have them pass each other.

Isn't there enough room for this already?