Hamilton LRT (Metrolinx/City of Hamilton, Revived)

[smallspy]

Would the new garage enable better service somehow? I’m not entirely familiar with the role they play in the scheme of things.

Yes, -ish.

As NoahB pointed out, it does allow them to more efficiently store and maintain a larger fleet, which is one thing that HSR has been working on over the past several years. They have lots of space at their current garage, but it was only built to maintain a fleet of about 250 vehicles. They're well beyond that now, and that number is only going to grow in the coming years.

The other thing that it gives the transit agency is the ability to shorten deadheads to a from routes. This is where the "-ish" part comes into play - by shortening deadheads, they also shorten the amount of time that the bus and driver are on the road, and thus save costs. It may not be much, but a 15 minute savings each across a fleet of 40 buses in daily service can save enough money to put another bus in service for a shift.

Of course, this does need to be countered with the overhead costs of running and staffing an additional garage. 20+ years ago, the TTC estimated that it cost them $3mil in staffing and overhead for any garage regardless of size - and that cost has only gone up since then.

Dan

 

[sunnyside]

More garage space means more buses. More buses, ideally, means more service. Sometimes the service is underfunded and not enough operators are hired to drive all the new buses.

Yes, -ish.

As NoahB pointed out, it does allow them to more efficiently store and maintain a larger fleet, which is one thing that HSR has been working on over the past several years. They have lots of space at their current garage, but it was only built to maintain a fleet of about 250 vehicles. They're well beyond that now, and that number is only going to grow in the coming years.

The other thing that it gives the transit agency is the ability to shorten deadheads to a from routes. This is where the "-ish" part comes into play - by shortening deadheads, they also shorten the amount of time that the bus and driver are on the road, and thus save costs. It may not be much, but a 15 minute savings each across a fleet of 40 buses in daily service can save enough money to put another bus in service for a shift.

Of course, this does need to be countered with the overhead costs of running and staffing an additional garage. 20+ years ago, the TTC estimated that it cost them $3mil in staffing and overhead for any garage regardless of size - and that cost has only gone up since then.

Dan

Thank you. The deadheading part makes a lot of sense, and I can see how that would improve operations. But, I would think that the HSR doesn’t have the financial means for the increased bus fleet itself yet. Ie, wouldnt they be moving on the garage if they had the extra buses already?

Also apologies, I’m not entirely familiar with info on the HSR despite being local because I find it very difficult to find any information.

 

[smallspy]

Thank you. The deadheading part makes a lot of sense, and I can see how that would improve operations. But, I would think that the HSR doesn’t have the financial means for the increased bus fleet itself yet. Ie, wouldnt they be moving on the garage if they had the extra buses already?

Also apologies, I’m not entirely familiar with info on the HSR despite being local because I find it very difficult to find any information.

https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/Hamilton_Street_Railway - And then click your way through some of the latest deliveries.

It's not obvious at first blush, but they've added over 30 net new buses to the fleet over the past 4 years. Of the buses coming next year, there's another half-dozen or more for expansion. That's a lot of new and additional service that can be run.

Dan

 

[ShonTron]

Why did HSR give up their Wentworth Garage, which was built in the 1980s to replace the ancient Sanford/King car barns? Cutbacks? The new HSR garage seems to be very close to the old Wentworth garage.

 

[tsm1072]

Why did HSR give up their Wentworth Garage, which was built in the 1980s to replace the ancient Sanford/King car barns? Cutbacks? The new HSR garage seems to be very close to the old Wentworth garage.

Based on this article it was due to cutbacks.

 

[smallspy]

Why did HSR give up their Wentworth Garage, which was built in the 1980s to replace the ancient Sanford/King car barns? Cutbacks? The new HSR garage seems to be very close to the old Wentworth garage.

That's a very good question. I think that Wentworth was largely built to maintain the trolleys, and once they were gone there wasn't much of a need at the time to maintain the two garages. The fact that the Mountain Garage was built with so much additional land around it and thus capacity - some of which has since been used - probably didn't help, either.

Dan