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

[TOtramz]

Has train testing been ramping up even more since the last few updates?

Given that they will start official simulation soon, I'm still hoping for an earlier opening but more training is always a good thing.

 

[EYorker]

Has train testing been ramping up even more since the last few updates?

Given that they will start official simulation soon, I'm still hoping for an earlier opening but more training is always a good thing.

I was travelling along Eglinton yesterday around 5 PM and I only observed 2 trains on the entire surface section from Kennedy to Leslie. One train was holding WB at Lebovic. Another was doing a good clip heading EB at Wynford.

Seems to be hit and miss as to how much action is happening along the line.

 

[Steve X]

That would only explain the fire damaged and flooded units, and none of the collision victims.

Replacing the electronics might be expensive, but I doubt it comes close to the ~10 million price tag for a brand new unit.

There was an ALRV that had a similar mishap occur in 2007, but they fixed it up and ran it until 2014. I can't imagine a considerably younger Flexity being scrapped.

It does take a lot of time and effort to repair any vehicle than to build one of an assembly line. This is true for a passenger car and for the TTC.

I don’t know how much work it would take to replace everything on a streetcar but I would imagine it is significant and more labour intensive than assembling a new one.

 

[T3G]

Wait, are we talking about the amount of labour required, or cost? Because those are separate criteria. The cars are obviously not designed to be taken apart willy-nilly and it may well be easier to manufacture a new car, but it is difficult to imagine how exactly rewiring a vehicle from scratch is more expensive than having to run wires, and then build an entire new machine around it as well.

If it was not considered cheaper to supply 66 new cars rather than re-welding the old ones, a process during which the cars had to be effectively stripped down to the frame and rebuilt, how can it be cheaper to build a brand new Flexity rather than replace the affected components on the flooded and fried ones? Especially the flooded ones - most of the expensive, high voltage stuff (sans traction motors and gearboxes) is on the roof of the flooded ones, what they had to do was redo the interior and replace the trucks and the low-voltage auxiliary circuits in said interior; which might be a pain in the a$$ but is also not nearly as expensive.

 

[smallspy]

The cars are obviously not designed to be taken apart willy-nilly and it may well be easier to manufacture a new car, but it is difficult to imagine how exactly rewiring a vehicle from scratch is more expensive than having to run wires, and then build an entire new machine around it as well.

It's always going to be more complicated to affect a repair because the initial process of the repair is going to be removing things in the way of what needs to be repaired. And in most cases, removing those things has to be done in a way that allows them to be reinstalled afterwards.

In the case of a rewiring project, ones need to remove all of the interior panels in the way of the wiring loom, and make sure that all plugs are accessible. Only then can the previous wiring loom be removed and replaced. And frankly, hope that there are no other snags.

This is as opposed to building a car from scratch, where the timing of the installation of the wiring is done in such a way that the crews doing the installation have unfettered access to everything that they need. No panels to remove, no plugs to detach, no other modules in the way.

Dan

 

[Steve X]

Wait, are we talking about the amount of labour required, or cost? Because those are separate criteria. The cars are obviously not designed to be taken apart willy-nilly and it may well be easier to manufacture a new car, but it is difficult to imagine how exactly rewiring a vehicle from scratch is more expensive than having to run wires, and then build an entire new machine around it as well.

If it was not considered cheaper to supply 66 new cars rather than re-welding the old ones, a process during which the cars had to be effectively stripped down to the frame and rebuilt, how can it be cheaper to build a brand new Flexity rather than replace the affected components on the flooded and fried ones? Especially the flooded ones - most of the expensive, high voltage stuff (sans traction motors and gearboxes) is on the roof of the flooded ones, what they had to do was redo the interior and replace the trucks and the low-voltage auxiliary circuits in said interior; which might be a pain in the a$$ but is also not nearly as expensive.

When you buy a car, you’re paying for parts and labour. When you get a quote for collision, you have to pay for the labour too.

In TTC’s terms, this would mean either allocating the resources to hopefully fix one streetcar on X amount of hours. If they can’t fix it, they lost those hours paid that could have gone towards something more useful.

 

[T3G]

It's always going to be more complicated to affect a repair because the initial process of the repair is going to be removing things in the way of what needs to be repaired. And in most cases, removing those things has to be done in a way that allows them to be reinstalled afterwards.

In the case of a rewiring project, ones need to remove all of the interior panels in the way of the wiring loom, and make sure that all plugs are accessible. Only then can the previous wiring loom be removed and replaced. And frankly, hope that there are no other snags.

This is as opposed to building a car from scratch, where the timing of the installation of the wiring is done in such a way that the crews doing the installation have unfettered access to everything that they need. No panels to remove, no plugs to detach, no other modules in the way.

Dan

Sure, I get all that - but the question is, which choice is the more economic one?

Considering that it was reported that 4471 and 78 had been cleaned and repaired by October 2019, I would have guessed the latter - but then, I'm not sure why they wouldn't have been recommissioned ages ago.

 

[crs1026]

Considering that they were water/sewage damaged and the cleaning thereof (which happened in New York State) would have required access to all the nooks and crannies, I'm speculating that the two flooded cars are effectively stripped shells at this point. One would think that there would be minimal corrosion impact - it was one event, dried out immediately afterwards - so one would think the shells are still usable, but that's just a layman's speculation.

- Paul

 

[smallspy]

Sure, I get all that - but the question is, which choice is the more economic one?

Considering that it was reported that 4471 and 78 had been cleaned and repaired by October 2019, I would have guessed the latter - but then, I'm not sure why they wouldn't have been recommissioned ages ago.

It's a very valid question.

But consider this - the TTC has far, far more streetcars than it needs for service right now, and not enough places to store them yet. What's the rush to get them back?

Dan

 

[Richard White]

It's a very valid question.

But consider this - the TTC has far, far more streetcars than it needs for service right now, and not enough places to store them yet. What's the rush to get them back?

Dan

The bigger question is, if they have all these extra cars, why are they not attempting to run more frequent service to free up storage space?

 

[duffo]

The bigger question is, if they have all these extra cars, why are they not attempting to run more frequent service to free up storage space?

Because that costs money.

They are running them overnight instead of parking them, because they don't have the space right now. Which benefits us riders but probably isn't great for SOGR...

 

[nfitz]

They are running them overnight instead of parking them, because they don't have the space right now. Which benefits us riders but probably isn't great for SOGR...

Overnight being a few extra cars for the 4-hour period between 2 AM and 6 AM.

Are the 303/305/312 routes only temporary?

 

[jordanmkasla2009]

Overnight being a few extra cars for the 4-hour period between 2 AM and 6 AM.

Are the 303/305/312 routes only temporary?

If temporary they'll be in place for a long time while Hillcrest yard gets refitted and Russell carhouse yard gets redone. even then there still won't be enough storage space for cars.

 

[nfitz]

If temporary they'll be in place for a long time while Hillcrest yard gets refitted and Russell carhouse yard gets redone. even then there still won't be enough storage space for cars.

In a city where we've closed the on-ramp from Lakeshore East to the Gardiner temporarily for 9 years - I considered that temporary.

Hopefully by the 2030s or so when full storage is available, the temporary will then become permanent, with expectations of 20-minute service and the acceptance of all night streetcars.

 

[SaugeenJunction]

Here’s about 10 mins of Line 5 testing from this past week I stumbled upon on YouTube. Trains seem to be moving at a decent clip in the Golden Mile.