Metrolinx: Bombardier Flexity Freedom & Alstom Citadis Spirit LRVs

[steveintoronto]

I assume you have more issues?

That's your specialty. Let's have twenty different gauges, why stop with two? I mean, the operator can just hop out and change it when he gets to the Toronto border...who needs standards?

 

[nfitz]

That's your specialty. Let's have twenty different gauges, why stop with two? I mean, the operator can just hop out and change it when he gets to the Toronto border...who needs standards?

You said there that TTC gauge " complicates and limits the TTC's choices on a multitude of issues". And you can't even name a single significant issue, let alone a multitude of them. TTC gauge doesn't even stop existing TTC cars being re-gauged as they've been moved back and forth to standard gauge systems over the years.

Why not simply admit you were wrong?

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

That's your specialty. Let's have twenty different gauges, why stop with two? I mean, the operator can just hop out and change it when he gets to the Toronto border...who needs standards?

Why would an operator need to change the gauge of the train for any reason? The cars for the crosstown and the Finch LRT are never going to be run on the legacy network nor will the legacy network ones be run on the finch or crosstown lines. I

 

[steveintoronto]

The cars for the crosstown and the Finch LRT are never going to be run on the legacy network nor will the legacy network ones be run on the finch or crosstown lines.

Of course they won't, because of the difference in gauge. Which is exactly the point. The difference in voltage is not a problem, switching regulators can do that automatically.

While the rest of the world is interlining LRTs and trains, Toronto can't even interline LRTs and streetcars. I don't for a moment suggest changing the gauges of the streetcars, but observe that it adds to costs and stifles a much wider integration into the regions, all the while reducing available choices.

The lesson of Siemens dropping out of the original streetcar replacement bid falls on deaf transoms it seems. Even though Siemens bid again the second time around, the bid was high because of the challenge of adapting designs to the TTC's unique nature. And BBD bid, and was everyone's favourite....and lo and behold.

Gauge alone is just one of the many 'characteristics' of the TTC trackage. But gauge is what prevents a common fleet of TTC streetcars running onto LRT systems. The voltage is not a problem at all, variances far greater than that are being run on a number of systems, even 25kVAC automatically switched to 750/1500VDC on a number of systems.

Toronto isolates itself, and pays more to do it. That being said, standard LRVs couldn't run on most TTC track even if it was standard gauge. The rail profile wheel flange angles would cause problems, let alone the tight radii and switches.

Standard gauge is that way for a reason. And that's why Metrolinx settled on it.

I think ION might have a few opinions on the matter too...

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

Of course they won't, because of the difference in gauge. Which is exactly the point. The difference in voltage is not a problem, switching regulators can do that automatically.

While the rest of the world is interlining LRTs and trains, Toronto can't even interline LRTs and streetcars. I don't for a moment suggest changing the gauges of the streetcars, but observe that it adds to costs and stifles a much wider integration into the regions, all the while reducing available choices.

The lesson of Siemens dropping out of the original streetcar replacement bid fall on deaf transoms it seems.

Why do they need to have to switch vehicles from one network to the other it makes no sense at all. The TTC isn't going to rip up all of the streetcar tracks in Toronto just so they can interline with the LRT lines for many reasons one would be that it would take many years of replacement buses on every line and would cost more then it does maintain the system as it is. Even when the city of Toronto was building the Transit city line they decided they would be standard gauge and be separate from the curet streetcar system. If they wanted to interline with the current system they would have built it to TTC gauge.

 

[nfitz]

Toronto isolates itself, and pays more to do it.

Because on an inch difference in track gauge?

That simply isn't true. That's not a cost issue.

 

[steveintoronto]

The TTC isn't going to rip up all of the streetcar tracks in Toronto

Which is exactly what I stated.

Because on an inch difference in track gauge?

Yes, because of 2 3/8" in difference, they can't be through-running onto standard gauge tracks. I'm glad we agree on that. If it were otherwise, then everyone else wouldn't be using standard gauge, would they?

[...]
Why did the subways maintain streetcar gauge? When subways were being seriously designed for Toronto in the 1940s, there were suggestions that streetcars could be routed into the subway right-of-way, or be converted into the subway cars themselves. Certainly, a number of streetcars were converted for use as subway work trains, and there has been plenty of mixing of parts between the streetcar and subway network that the two have benefitted from the common gauge.

There are TTC vehicles that operate using standard gauge, however, and more are coming. Although the Scarborough RT was initially designed to be a streetcar line, the ICTS system which replaced it was designed from the ground up, and its design did not allow for interchanging of parts between the subway and RT networks. Finally, there is the new LRT under construction beneath Eglinton Avenue. When the Transit City plan was first proposed, there were suggestions that the new lines and the legacy streetcar network could share maintenance facilities, and thus the two should share the same gauge. When the Transit City proposal was taken up by the provincial government in Move Ontario 2020 -- a wider plan to build 52 public transit projects across the Greater Toronto Area and Waterloo Region -- there was a suggestion that the TTC's legacy gauge should be applied to the LRT projects in Mississauga, Hamilton and Waterloo, creating an "Ontario gauge." However, the ease and simplicity of sticking to the North American standard won out, and Toronto's new LRT lines will be built to standard, rather than TTC gauge.

Frequently Asked Questions about Toronto's Streetcars - Transit Toronto - Content

Transit City to use Standard Gauge Track
The Toronto Star reported yesterday that the TTC has agreed to build Transit City lines to standard gauge (4′-8.5″), instead of the TTC gauge (4′-10.875″) that is used on the subway and legacy streetcar lines.

Until recently, I had been on the fence about what gauge should be used, actually leaning towards TTC gauge. The primary reason for this is that shared maintenance facilities could be beneficial. That reason is only a possibility for the St. Clair streetcar line, but would first require that line to be extended west to Jane Street, plus would require the construction of the Jane LRT line to provide a way for St. Clair cars to reach the Eglinton maintenance facility.
Now, with the possibility of extending St. Clair west fading away, and the start of construction for Jane to be a decade away (or more), this benefit is a bit of a moot point.
The presumed benefit of standard gauge equipment is that there may be a cost benefit, partly due to mass orders with other future LRT systems, and partly due to a more open bidding process as most vendors have off-the-shelf models ready to go in standard gauge.
The TTC’s early orders for Sheppard, Finch, and Eglinton are large enough that quantity pricing will be there already. In the future, if a small order is needed, doing so as part of a larger order with other systems (Hamilton, KW, Ottawa, …) could be a real benefit.
Having more vendors bid can bring prices down, or at least give that impression. Giving another contract to Bombardier may not sit well with the public, whether or not it may be the most economical provider. Bombardier does have a benefit in that maintenance costs could be lower if TC cars are of the same basic design as the legacy cars. Common training and parts inventory can lower costs, and even though legacy cars are single-ended with trolley poles and TC cars will be double-ended with pantographs, there will be a lot of common spare parts and repair procedures.
I suspect a big advantage to using standard gauge will be the ability to borrow or lease cars from other systems, either to test a new model or to provide extra capacity to meet some short-term need. Re-gauging cars may not be as easy with low floor models as it is with high floor models. With high floor cars, it is a matter of changing the trucks. With low floor, if the design permits, it could be as easy as an adjustment, but if the design did not take that into account, then it could be nearly impossible.
The legacy system and Transit City will differ in supply voltage, 600 volts on the legacy system and 750 on Transit City. This, however, does not prevent one type of car from operating on the other system as modern electronic control systems can handle this variance.
Other than deadhead moves, there is no reason for the legacy network and Transit City to be interconnected. Legacy cars will only have doors on one side and will require loops at the end of the line while TC cars require cross-overs at the end of lines and cannot negotiate the 11 metre radius curves on the legacy network, not to mention the fact that their pantographs will snag on some of the overhead infrastructure.
One benefit from choosing standard gauge will come in some cost savings in the conversion of the SRT to LRT. That line is already standard gauge and in theory, coversion will just be a matter of removing the reaction rail and the power rails and installing overhead wiring. In practice, it won’t be quite that easy, as the at-grade part of the SRT may not have clearance enough between the two tracks, so at least one track will have to be shifted. Still, the other should be able to be used as-is, and the tracks on the elevated section should have the necessary clearance. We will have to see how this benefits the conversion or not.
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 7th, 2010 at 10:00 pm under Light Rail Vehicles, Transit City.
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3 Responses to “Transit City to use Standard Gauge Track”

1. W. K. Lis Says:
   January 10th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
   There is of course the use of dual gauge. See this article for more information.
   Cal’s comment: This is somewhat impossible with standard and TTC gauges. Even the Wikipedia entry cited says, “For dual-gauge track to be achievable using three rails, the difference between the gauges needs to be at least as wide as the foot of the rail.” The difference between the two is 2.375″ - barely the width of the rail head, let alone the foot of the rail!
   The only dual gauge track that is possible is with four rails offset enough, which leads to a slightly wider median needed where it runs in a median. I’m not so sure that the benefits of sharing a maintenance facility outweighs the extra costs of construction and maintenance of four-rail dual gauge track.
2. proactol plus Says:
   April 2nd, 2011 at 11:40 am
   What we want to do is remove as much vehicle customization as possible, because we think we can achieve better value for the taxpayer by taking an international off-the-shelf standard design, basically the same proven LRT vehicles that are used elsewhere in Canada, the U.S. and Europe.
   Cal’s comment: Absolutely, and with Metrolinx responsible for the ordering of vehicles, their larger scope translates into improved buying power for not only Toronto LRVs, but also for other systems such as Mississauga, Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge, Ottawa, and so on.
3. portalize Says:
   May 20th, 2011 at 3:50 am
   One benefit from choosing standard gauge will come in some cost savings in the conversion of the SRT to LRT. That line is already standard gauge and in theory, coversion will just be a matter of removing the reaction rail and the power rails and installing overhead wiring. In practice, it won’t be quite that easy, as the at-grade part of the SRT may not have clearance enough between the two tracks, so at least one track will have to be shifted. Still, the other should be able to be used as-is, and the tracks on the elevated section should have the necessary clearance. We will have to see how this benefits the conversion or not.

1. Toronto LRT Information Blog » Blog Archive » Transit City to use Standard Gauge Track

Lots more online...

 

[smallspy]

I'm surprised - everyone here a decade ago seemed to think that you'd not be able to easily modify the TTC Flexities to run on the 750Vdc network - and that was a bigger interoperability issue than re-gauging the wheels.

You don't just simply run one on the other without changes.....but without seeing electrical schematics for the cars, I don't think that converting one to the other is particularly earth-shattering. In theory, it may be as little as replacing the line transformer and various line-side circuit breakers and sensors - of course, that is assuming that the packaging of the two versions is similar enough to do so.

Unlike with older equipment, there is very little line voltage equipment on the cars past the transformer.

Dan

 

[steveintoronto]

You don't just simply run one on the other without changes.....but without seeing electrical schematics for the cars, I don't think that converting one to the other is particularly earth-shattering. In theory, it may be as little as replacing the line transformer and various line-side circuit breakers and sensors - of course, that is assuming that the packaging of the two versions is similar enough to do so.

Unlike with older equipment, there is very little line voltage equipment on the cars past the transformer.

Dan

There is no traction xfrmr on DC vehicles. That is one of the previous advantages to DC traction. With modern xfrmr design (Siemens is far ahead of the competition with core configuration) that weight penalty has been all but eliminated. Switching power supplies also minimize the difference (the higher the conversion frequency, the smaller the core necessary, albeit other factors limit the highest freq that can be used without significant core losses).

In the case of DC to DC, a simple switching stack is all that's necessary. The basic circuit is very simple and cheap.(The voltage sensing is just done with inexpensive but 'fast' diodes) For a streetcar/LRV, the unit would be about the size of a suitcase including all the automatic sensing to do the switch instantaneously. The unit will also double as a 'clamp-regulator' on voltage variations on the line. This is very similar to computer power supplies that can be plugged into 120V or 240V sources with no change needed other than the plug, or the plug-in chargers for cell/i phones and devices.

In the event, older pre solid-state control motors will run just fine on a variance of 600-750V. The higher voltage will render 1.3X more traction torque and power, all other things staying the same. When mainline third rail trains in London run on the Underground lines (still done to this day) they do so on the lower Underground voltage (660v vs 750v). That's a perfect illustration of interoperability as I describe earlier, not available to Toronto due to the track gauge difference.

Track Sharing

• Hammersmith (Met) - Near Aldgate [Circle Line / Hammersmith & City Line].
• Just east of Baker Street - Near Aldgate [[Hammersmith & City / Metropolitan Line]
• Just east of Baker Street - Aldgate [[Circle Line / Metropolitan Line]
• Southern side Circle Line [Circle Line / District Line (main section)].
• Western side Circle Line [Circle Line / District Line (Edgware Road - Wimbledon service)].
• ‡Harrow-On-The-Hill - Moor Park - Amersham [Chiltern Railways / Metropolitan Line].
• *(Barons Court) - Acton Town - Ealing Common [District Line / Piccadilly Line].
• Rayners Lane - Uxbridge [Metropolitan Line / Piccadilly Line].
• Queens Park - Harrow & Wealdstone [Bakerloo Line / Euston-Watford London Overground].
• §Aldgate East - Barking [District Line / Hammersmith & City Line].
• Richmond - Gunnersbury [District Line / North London Line London Overground].

Shared Service Routes - Railfanning London's Railways

A transport enthusiast's guide to where it is possible to travel between the same stations via different trains.

citytransport.info

Here's another:

Netherlands
To mitigate investment costs, the Rotterdam Metro, basically a third-rail-powered system, has been given some outlying branches built on surface as light rail (called Sneltram in Dutch), with numerous level crossings protected with barriers and traffic lights. These branches have overhead wires. Similarly, in Amsterdam one "Sneltram" route goes on Metro tracks and passes to surface alignment in the suburbs, which it shares with standard trams. In most recent developments, the RandstadRail project also requires Rotterdam Metro trains to run under wires on their way along the former mainline railway to The Hague.

Sneltram is operated by Gemeentelijk Vervoerbedrijf in Amsterdam lightrail with third rail and switching to overhead on the traditional tramway shared with Trams in Amsterdam. Line 51 to Amstelveen runs metro service between Amsterdam Centraal and Station Zuid. At Amsterdam Zuid it switches from third rail to pantograph and catenary wires. From there to Amstelveen Centrum it shares its track with tram line 5. The light rail vehicles on this line are capable of using both 600 V DC and 750 V DC.

Third rail - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

There's a lot more examples, but that suffices to make the point...to those that care to see.

 

[nfitz]

Which is exactly what I stated.
Yes, because of 2 3/8" in difference, they can't be through-running onto standard gauge tracks. I'm glad we agree on that. If it were otherwise, then everyone else wouldn't be using standard gauge, would they?

Precisely! Only an inch to each wheel. How has TTC had any significant costs to this? How does one inch "complicates and limits the TTC's choices on a multitude of issues"?

Don't bother quoting irrelevant articles. There's rarely anything of relevance in material that you've merely referenced.

You don't just simply run one on the other without changes.....but without seeing electrical schematics for the cars, I don't think that converting one to the other is particularly earth-shattering. In theory, it may be as little as replacing the line transformer and various line-side circuit breakers and sensors - of course, that is assuming that the packaging of the two versions is similar enough to do so.

Gosh, I guess that may not even be an issue either!

 

[steveintoronto]

Don't bother quoting irrelevant articles.

For someone who claims to know so much about London, you certainly do a brilliant job of dismissing yourself.

Precisely! Only an inch to each wheel.

lol...

 

[nfitz]

For someone who claims to know so much about London, you certainly do a brilliant job of dismissing yourself.

Simply because you were wrong about them posting the entire tube map on most trains, is no reason to start being rude.

lol...

My first comment above was moving each wheel about an inch. As usual, in your never-ending attempts to make it look like you know better, you are trying to make it look like I was underestimating it, and are adding the two changes together to get about two inches.

I really am unsure why you are so hugely concerned by an inch or two. Is that how you get "multiple issues". Each wheel on each cars is an issue?

 

[nfitz]

For someone who claims to know so much about London, you certainly do a brilliant job of dismissing yourself.

Simply because you were wrong about them posting the entire tube map on most trains, is no reason to start being rude (which in itself was a pivot from how that started with you saying that they should put GO lines on TTC maps on trains - leading me to ask how much stuff you wanted to cram over the doors, to you pivoting about showing main-line stations rather than lines).

lol...

My first comment above was moving each wheel about an inch. As usual, in your never-ending attempts to make it look like you know better, you are trying to make it look like I was underestimating it, and are adding the two changes together to get about two inches.

I really am unsure why you are so hugely concerned by an inch or two. Is that how you get "multiple issues". Each wheel on each cars is an issue?

 

[thettctransitfanatic]

That's your specialty. Let's have twenty different gauges, why stop with two? I mean, the operator can just hop out and change it when he gets to the Toronto border...who needs standards?

Barrie bus op drives bus to Steeles, stops, changes wheels, drives into the city

 

[drum118]

That's your specialty. Let's have twenty different gauges, why stop with two? I mean, the operator can just hop out and change it when he gets to the Toronto border...who needs standards?

For one who loves posting links, I am surprised you haven't read this how wheel gauges can be change on the fly from one system to another. I had this happen to me going from France to Spain.

Then, TTC being changing wheel gauges before you were born and not that hard to do. They have done it both ways.

If it wasn't for the fact that TTC was in its 3rd year of rebuilding the system to the new standards, TTC would have standard gauge on the surface today. It would have required parts of the system to be bus until a yard and a number of lines were converted to standard gauge.

Variable gauge - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org