Toronto Eglinton Line 5 | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

[Steve X]

arent the trains already preempting that by stopping right at the end of the platform as if there was an imaginary third car attached? the bollards look like they are already installed for that scenario

They have to stop like that to prevent a door being blocked. You can see they do that on the surface section.
In the tunnels, ATO would help. They also have these bollards in Ottawa too.

 

[urbanclient]

76 cars delivered:

Toronto Transit Commission 6200-6275 - CPTDB Wiki (Canadian Public Transit Discussion Board)

That would be 38 two-car trains. I do not know the spare ratio they use (perhaps someone else does) but I'll note that 25% of 38 rounds up to 10.

Someone mentioned 42 minutes for a one way trip (not the advertised 38 minutes), so let's assume 85 minutes for a full round trip when including minimal dwell time at terminuses. At 3.25 minutes headway that would require 27 trains. There are not enough cars to run 27 three car trains. However, there are enough to run 14 three car trains, 13 two car trains, with 8 out of 76 cars for spares. Line 1 ran with 65/76 trainsets during peak in early 2020, so a low spare ratio is not entirely unheard of.

 

[rbt]

Someone mentioned 42 minutes for a one way trip (not the advertised 38 minutes), so let's assume 85 minutes for a full round trip when including minimal dwell time at terminuses. At 3.25 minutes headway that would require 27 trains. There are not enough cars to run 27 three car trains. However, there are enough to run 14 three car trains, 13 two car trains, with 8 out of 76 cars for spares. Line 1 ran with 65/76 trainsets during peak in early 2020, so a low spare ratio is not entirely unheard of.

They can also be fancy and run 2:30 headways in the central/tunnelled portion and a 5 minute headway on the surface section. Torontonians have few issues with overlapping/branched service seen on numerous routes.

 

[SaugeenJunction]

I'm fairly certain they'll need more cars for ECWE service, so they could pad that order for more cars in general. I do wonder how long until they realize they need to tunnel or elevate the eastern leg.

The are indeed intending to order more cars for the Line 5 West Extension. From the SRS tender on MERX:

The ECWE project scope has been divided into a number of contract packages as follows:

• Advanced Tunnel Contract 1 – under construction;
• Advanced Tunnel Contract 2 – under construction;
• Elevated Guideway Contract – under construction;
• Stations, Rail & Systems Contract – the subject of this RFQ;
• ECWE Maintenance – to be procured at a future date; and
• ECWE Fleet – to be procured at a future date.

Politically ordering cars makes sense to give the fine folks at Alstom Kingston some more work.

 

[urbanclient]

The truth is that experts have been modelling and predicting this for years.

I don't think us transit geeks are going to successfully predict that the initial ridership is double what the current capacity is designed for (which can then be quadrupled with more cars to provide more frequent service and longer trains). That would certainly be amazing if we all had that problem - but I'm tired of people dismissing science in so many parts of society and deciding they know more than the ones who actually do this for a living.

As a geek, I just don't think it's possible that a pre-covid Metrolinx or anyone else was able to predict a 10%+ surge in Canada's population in the span of 4-5 years from 2021 after the stagnation/decline in 2020. Something like 14% population growth in GTHA and 17% in Toronto proper up to 2024 at least. Stats Canada has Toronto's population at ~3.3 million as of July 1, 2024 without factoring in the full extent of undercounted visas and overstays. Our roadside signs still read 2.7 million since the census. Not a single population projection in the last 15 years of Metrolinx's publications or news releases indicates that they foresaw 15 years of growth in 5. I don't think anybody predicted this was going to happen, even the IRCC and its Minister.

Speculation:
Hypothetically, if we get 1% annual growth in the GTHA after 2027, we could still hit 10 million in the GTHA by 2031 as opposed to 2041. Potentially 9.5 million if we assume Mr. Ben Tal from CIBC is dead wrong about population undercount.

Article from Oct 20:
'He warned that the current immigration policy had led to undercounting of non-permanent residents, which in turn distorted housing demand forecasts.
“We [have] more people in the country than you think. People say we are 41 million. No, we are 42 million in the country. But we are not counting one million,” Tal said.

Statistics Canada’s official estimate for Canada’s population as of Q2 2025 was about 41.6 million.'

https://www.mpamag.com/ca/mortgage-industry/industry-trends/we-are-in-a-recession-cibcs-tal/553608
https://economics.cibccm.com/cds?id=858756bd-a8fc-4920-8ea4-e1dcd1c104d4&flag=E
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710015201

Then again, RTO is not fully in effect and TTC ridership is still down from pre-covid. It really is hard to say how high ridership will be.

P.S. the original debate was about route capacity, and how exactly Line 5 Eglinton was supposed to meet its own goal of hitting 15,000 passengers per direction per hour with its rolling stock.

 

[A 6264]

P.S. the original debate was about route capacity, and how exactly Line 5 Eglinton was supposed to meet its own goal of hitting 15,000 passengers per direction per hour with its rolling stock.

Well I CERTAINLY hope the TTC isn't really planning on hitting 15,000 passengers per direction per hour with its rolling stock! Ouch!

 

[smallspy]

Was being pedantic here, you mean to say with absolutely 0 change such as the addition of yellow bollards, the platforms are ready to go for 3 car trains on Day 1? In that case that's great news. I meant that I expected there was at least a nominal amount of work to be done, something a developing country wage slave company might be able to do in one work day, but Crosslinx Transit Solutions might take several weeks. 99.99% of the issue is that I think more rolling stock is needed for 3 car trains, 3 minute headways, both ways. There was a lead time of nearly 4 years when Edmonton ordered LRVs from Hyundai Rotem recently.

View attachment 692993

The line has been built and configured in such a way that they can run 3-car trains on day 1 if they so felt. All stopping positions are consistent (far end of the platforms), all ancillary equipment at the stations is installed in such a way as to operate that way.

Someone mentioned 42 minutes for a one way trip (not the advertised 38 minutes), so let's assume 85 minutes for a full round trip when including minimal dwell time at terminuses. At 3.25 minutes headway that would require 27 trains. There are not enough cars to run 27 three car trains. However, there are enough to run 14 three car trains, 13 two car trains, with 8 out of 76 cars for spares. Line 1 ran with 65/76 trainsets during peak in early 2020, so a low spare ratio is not entirely unheard of.

An 85 minute round trip for a route that operates 42 minutes in one way is poor planning. You need several minutes at each end for recovery in the trains run a bit late and to allow the crews to prep the trains to change directions.

95 minutes is a more likely amount of time that will be needed to ensure that trains run to schedule.

Dan

 

[urbanclient]

The line has been built and configured in such a way that they can run 3-car trains on day 1 if they so felt. All stopping positions are consistent (far end of the platforms), all ancillary equipment at the stations is installed in such a way as to operate that way.

Consider me corrected

An 85 minute round trip for a route that operates 42 minutes in one way is poor planning. You need several minutes at each end for recovery in the trains run a bit late and to allow the crews to prep the trains to change directions.

95 minutes is a more likely amount of time that will be needed to ensure that trains run to schedule.

Dan

Was thinking ideal scenario to point out that some combination of 2 and 3 cars could be possible to run on Day 1 to maximize route capacity. If 95 minutes is the realistic round trip time, then we could do 21 two car trains and 8 three car trains at 3.25 min or something similar to keep 7-10 spare cars? Do you think having such a low spare ratio is feasible?

 

[ThenWhat]

Was thinking ideal scenario to point out that some combination of 2 and 3 cars could be possible to run on Day 1 to maximize route capacity. If 95 minutes is the realistic round trip time, then we could do 21 two car trains and 8 three car trains at 3.25 min or something similar to keep 7-10 spare cars? Do you think having such a low spare ratio is feasible?

How does using 3 car trains rather than 2 car trains help with capacity when the total number of cars does not change? Is that because the system cannot handle headways shorter than 3 minutes or so? Or is it because the number of drivers is capped?

 

[Jane2021]

Line 5 Changes stage 2 effective November 16th

 

[nfitz]

Line 5 Changes stage 2 effective November 16th
View attachment 693198

But not combining the 51 Leslie/56 Leaside yet. I guess there's a stage 3 coming. I'm surprised they'd bother with the 151 until then. TTC just doesn't get that frequent changes to the same routes only confuse and frustrate customers. They don't magically adjust instantly ... which is what the one report for this months meeting noted for King/Queen bustitution, with a tone of surprise. Perhaps the reason there's not enough 503 buses on King downtown currently - because their model says they'll use Queen ... well maybe by 2027 ...

 

[urbanclient]

How does using 3 car trains rather than 2 car trains help with capacity when the total number of cars does not change? Is that because the system cannot handle headways shorter than 3 minutes or so? Or is it because the number of drivers is capped?

I am making the assumption that headways shorter the 3-3.25 minutes are not possible right now. All hypotheticals, but as someone has mentioned, they could short turn at Laird to crank up frequencies for the west underground section at the cost of doubled headways in the east, which is not entirely unreasonable given the population distribution.

 

[bono47]

Any word on when this is being handed over to the ttc? What’s the latest holdup? This thread will be beside itself the day it finally happens.

 

[abovegrade]

As a geek, I just don't think it's possible that a pre-covid Metrolinx or anyone else was able to predict a 10%+ surge in Canada's population in the span of 4-5 years from 2021 after the stagnation/decline in 2020. Something like 14% population growth in GTHA and 17% in Toronto proper up to 2024 at least. Stats Canada has Toronto's population at ~3.3 million as of July 1, 2024 without factoring in the full extent of undercounted visas and overstays. Our roadside signs still read 2.7 million since the census. Not a single population projection in the last 15 years of Metrolinx's publications or news releases indicates that they foresaw 15 years of growth in 5. I don't think anybody predicted this was going to happen, even the IRCC and its Minister.

Speculation:
Hypothetically, if we get 1% annual growth in the GTHA after 2027, we could still hit 10 million in the GTHA by 2031 as opposed to 2041. Potentially 9.5 million if we assume Mr. Ben Tal from CIBC is dead wrong about population undercount.

Article from Oct 20:
'He warned that the current immigration policy had led to undercounting of non-permanent residents, which in turn distorted housing demand forecasts.
“We [have] more people in the country than you think. People say we are 41 million. No, we are 42 million in the country. But we are not counting one million,” Tal said.

Statistics Canada’s official estimate for Canada’s population as of Q2 2025 was about 41.6 million.'

https://www.mpamag.com/ca/mortgage-industry/industry-trends/we-are-in-a-recession-cibcs-tal/553608
https://economics.cibccm.com/cds?id=858756bd-a8fc-4920-8ea4-e1dcd1c104d4&flag=E
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710015201

Then again, RTO is not fully in effect and TTC ridership is still down from pre-covid. It really is hard to say how high ridership will be.

P.S. the original debate was about route capacity, and how exactly Line 5 Eglinton was supposed to meet its own goal of hitting 15,000 passengers per direction per hour with its rolling stock.

I know this is off-topic, but I wonder if and when we will catch up to/surpass Los Angeles.

 

[lead82]

I know this is off-topic, but I wonder if and when we will catch up to/surpass Los Angeles.

Never. LA county is bigger population than all
of Ontario. Toronto will
Never get there as we don’t have the ECONOMY of LA to support such massive growth.