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TTC: Major Operational Issues (Various)

Richard White said:
Dan.. correct me if I am wrong but did this not occur a few years back, I believe on Line 2 at St George?

If I recall, it led to a rather significant fire when things started to arc.
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Rail breaks are not unusual at extremely cold temperatures. They are rarer with the third rail due to the profile and mass of the rail compared to the running rail, but they do happen from time-to-time.

I don't recall the specific instance that you're referring to, but I find it hard to believe that there would be a third rail break at St. George due to cold in any circumstance. There may have been some other failure that led to the event, but it wouldn't have been temperature-based.

Dan
 
smallspy said:
Shoes are also the name of the devices that ride on the third rail and transfer power from it to the trains.

Which makes some sense if the cause of this is that the third rail has broken.

Dan
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I found the Jamaal Myers interview online. It's made quite clear early in the 9-minute segment he's talking about a pair of shoes being thrown onto the tracks.
( https://www.iheart.com/podcast/962-.../episode/this-will-be-a-tough-year-260308011/ - under the heading "This will be a tough year for Toronto commuters. City Councillor and TTC Chair @CllrJamaalMyers tells ... " )
At least he acknowledges what almost everyone else seems to avoid, that many delays are caused by what he described as "people going through issues", but I found his thought along the lines of resigning to the idea that 'there's not much that can be done to stop this' to be annoying. I've expressed my thoughts on this subject in a previous post.

Edit: Another article has :
“The power rail interfaces with trains via what’s called a ‘collector shoe’ on the underside of the train. The break made the area impassable for trains,” a TTC spokesperson said in a statement on X.
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I suppose it's also possible there could have been some misunderstanding on his part in the explanation of what may have been a purely mechanical problem in this case?
 
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smallspy said:
Rail breaks are not unusual at extremely cold temperatures. They are rarer with the third rail due to the profile and mass of the rail compared to the running rail, but they do happen from time-to-time.

I don't recall the specific instance that you're referring to, but I find it hard to believe that there would be a third rail break at St. George due to cold in any circumstance. There may have been some other failure that led to the event, but it wouldn't have been temperature-based.

Dan
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I may have confused it with another incident.

I could have swore there was an incident in the past few years where a shoe came off a train causing damage.
 
DanielMar_Toronto said:
UGH, Eglinton to St. Clair slow zone will definitely suck it’s like what, 4 km(?) between stations?
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It's 2.32 km as the crow flies, so it will be a little more by the train.

It is not a short journey at the best of times, you'd think such a brutally long segment would be priority no. 1 to get fixed up...
 
Having suffered the Coxwell-Woodbine slow zone for months (actually, I've never really noticed it, it is so brief), I was quite shocked by the southbound Sheppard West to (seemed closer to Eglinton than) Lawrence last week.

Northern Light said:
But my patience w/the TTC's operational challenges has been pretty much exhausted. They had rush hour shut downs on back to bad days on Line 2 last week, evening rush the one day, then morning rush the next.
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Nothing unusual or unexpected about yesterday's shut downs. It's pretty typical in the latter stages of a big storm.

I'm not sure what the morning shut-down was about, but the evening rush - I'm not sure that's a particular TTC issue. It takes a while to remove a corpse from under a train. And a police investigation as well.
 
DSCToronto said:
Undated but posted on TTC website 17 February

View attachment 631520
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Looks like the TTC is intent on making a lot of these existing slow orders go on for 1 year at this point. Which is pretty much something we've never seen in the TTC's history of subway operations.

I would've said that maybe it's due to the winter and they could be waiting for warmer conditions to make whatever repairs are necessary....but they had all of last spring, summer, and fall to do repairs to these stretches.
 
Amare said:
Looks like the TTC is intent on making a lot of these existing slow orders go on for 1 year at this point. Which is pretty much something we've never seen in the TTC's history of subway operations.
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Never? There's been slow orders on the Prince Edward viaduct for periods of years during the last couple of decades - ironically not currently.
 
nfitz said:
Never? There's been slow orders on the Prince Edward viaduct for periods of years during the last couple of decades - ironically not currently.
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There haven't been speed restrictions in place on the viaduct for 1 straight consecutive year. They have been in place on and off as part of the beam replacement project.

A project which is required due to the age of the span, not because of a problem grew worse due TTC management ineptitude.
 
DSCToronto said:
Steve Munro notes that the TTC have added a list of STREETCAR RSZs. https://stevemunro.ca/2025/02/17/streetcar-reduced-speed-zones/ As you might expect the TTC list is filled with typos and they fail to note that every switch is an RSZ
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I noticed the TTC decided to put a list of streetcar speed restrictions a couple weeks ago and I found it comical. Especially when they note the Queens Quay from York to the Harbourfront Tunnel as "seasonal".

When they say "seasonal" do they mean year-round? Because the restriction has been in place since April/May 2024 to my recollection and they dont seem to be interested in addressing whatever issue necessitated it in the first place. So is their solution to the problem just to keep the area speed restricted indefinitely (sorry I meant "seasonally")?
 
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