TTC: Streetcar, Bus and Wheel-Trans Operations & Maintenance

[W. K. Lis]

Hope the volume is self-adjusting. Or at the very least, adjustable by the driver.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Today is the 154th birthday of Toronto's streetcar system.

Happy birthday to the Toronto streetcar system

There are perhaps few things more symbolic of Toronto than its streetcars. For more than 150 years, surface rail has formed the backbone of the city’s public transportation system, and despite numerous struggles and threats of abolition, it’s still streetcars that principally serve the downtown core: 240 vehicles carrying some 290,000 daily riders across 11 lines.

154 years ago this week, work started on the city’s first streetcar route: a horse-drawn “street railway” between Yorkville town hall just north of Yonge and Bloor and St. Lawrence Hall on King St.

The route was chosen based on its popularity. The city’s first public transit company, founded by cabinet maker and undertaker H. Burt Williams in 1849, operated a stagecoach service between roughly the same two points, linking the Toronto’s main market with what was then the independent town of Yorkville.

Read the rest at Spacing: http://spacing.ca/toronto/2015/08/19/happy-birthday-toronto-streetcar-system/

I'll be accepting birthday cakes on behalf of Toronto's streetcar system. Toronto's streetcars prefer red velvet

 

[W. K. Lis]

Today is the 154th birthday of Toronto's streetcar system.



Read the rest at Spacing: http://spacing.ca/toronto/2015/08/19/happy-birthday-toronto-streetcar-system/

I'll be accepting birthday cakes on behalf of Toronto's streetcar system. Toronto's streetcars prefer red velvet

The streetcars are now horseless. So too are the single-occupant carriages.

The bad news is that there are so many of the single-occupant horseless carriages, that we seem to have traffic congestion all day long because of them.

 

[Amare]

Today is the 154th birthday of Toronto's streetcar system.

I'll be accepting birthday cakes on behalf of Toronto's streetcar system. Toronto's streetcars prefer red velvet

We should get together and deliver a streetcar cake on RoFo and DoFo's front porches. The look on their faces would be priceless!

 

[TheTigerMaster]

The streetcars are now horseless. So too are the single-occupant carriages.

The bad news is that there are so many of the single-occupant horseless carriages, that we seem to have traffic congestion all day long because of them.

Having so many of these single-occupant horseless carriages on the road sounds horribly inefficient.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

We should get together and deliver a streetcar cake on RoFo and DoFo's front porches. The look on their faces would be priceless!

Or you could deliver it to my porch

 

[Amare]

Or you could deliver it to my porch

If there's any extra after Ro and DoFo eat their cake, ill certainly send some over. But that really hinges on how much cake the two of them end up eating.

 

[salsa]

If there's any extra after Ro and DoFo eat their cake, ill certainly send some over. But that really hinges on how much cake the two of them end up eating.

They have more than enough to eat at home, so I doubt there will be much appetite left for the cake. Especially for a streetcar cake.

 

[AlbertHWagstaff]

Having so many of these single-occupant horseless carriages on the road sounds horribly inefficient.

The carriages may be horseless, but many of the occupants of the carriages are rear halves of horses.

 

[salsa]

Last week I wanted to hear what the talking buses sound like, but I boarded two of the 4 buses (one on Bathurst, the other on Bayview) that were supposed to have the external announcements and I didn't hear anything at all. Did anyone else have better luck?

 

[TheTigerMaster]

On our new bendy busses, I've noticed a lot of people illegally entering through the rear doors. Most of the people I've seen do this have metropasses or transfers in hand, so I don't think this is a fare evasion issue. They must be getting confused because of the new POP rules brought in by the LFLRVs.

I don't blame these people for getting confused. I can't even keep the rules straight in my head. As far as I know, only the 509 and 510 are POP all the time. 511 Bathurst is occasionally POP when LFLRVs are operating. And the Queen and King cars are POP between certain points on the line and time of day.

 

[Admiral Beez]

What's going on at the Queen St. East rail shed? It looks like they've installed new tracks, but isn't this shed destined to close after the Leslie St. shed opens?

 

[nfitz]

What's going on at the Queen St. East rail shed? It looks like they've installed new tracks, but isn't this shed destined to close after the Leslie St. shed opens?

They are installing new tracks. If you go along Eastern, you can see that they are reconfiguring the road a bit, and building a sidewalk between the roadway and the tracks.

There has never been a plan to close any of the current yards. We've ordered 204 new streetcars (with the TTC wanting another 60 to reach 264). Only about 100 will be at Leslie Barns. There'll be about 50 each at both Russell (on Queen East) and Roncesvalles yards. The ultimate capacity with the 3 yards is only 264 cars.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Hillcrest can hold a couple. That's where the new streetcars arrive, so they are capable of holding on a few there for a short time. Not for serious maintenance, which will be done at Leslie.

See link.

 

[dowlingm]

I'd like to see Hillcrest activated as a division to stage 512/511 in a >204 LFLRV equivalent fleet size rather than try and do everything from three crammed yards with no allowance for any yard's unavailability due to track failure or maintenance (not to mention two yards basically on the same section of Queen East with no prospect of Commissioners trackage any time soon)