Transit City Gauge

[SlickFranky]

I may have missed something here. Aren't the new flexity cars replacing the legacy cars AND serving new TC lines? Or are there 2 seperate vehicle specs?

I thought the demands of the legacy network were the reason the order was so complicated and had so few qualified bidders.

 

[Jimbits]

The new streetcars are single-ended and only have doors on one side, hence they wouldn't work on the Transit City lines.

 

[jeffreym]

Yes, but the TTC has an option in their contract for Bombardier for 400 Flexity cars for TC. I assume they'd just be more similar to the 'standard' design is all.

 

[EnviroTO]

What a mistake not using TTC gauge. Standardization is about making systems interoperable and this does the opposite. The Eglinton LRT tunnel would need to not only have higher platforms installed but track relaid to upgrade to subway. How can it make sense to create an LRT system where no LRT on that system can ever go downtown? Is it really that unlikely that future transit would want to enter the central city? LRT is sold as a method of urbanization but there is no point standardizing on the system that would allow it to connect with the most urban area? Dumb.

The cost of not standardizing, which led to there being a standard gauge in the first place, was the costs associated with not being interoperable. The costs of transferring freight between systems, and the cost of equipment which can handle multiple gauges IS expensive. A large order of TTC gauge equipment is NOT much different than standard gauge. The costs of maintaining two fleets and the costs which would be involved in creating an interoperable system with two track gauges is much more significant.

Standardize GTA transit gauge... on TTC gauge. I think Metrolinx has decided this because "standard" sounds better than "TTC". I would really like to see financial analysis for this decision if there is any... which I suspect there isn't.

 

[DavidH]

Yes, but the TTC has an option in their contract for Bombardier for 400 Flexity cars for TC. I assume they'd just be more similar to the 'standard' design is all.

Since the TC lines are Metrolinx projects, Metrolinx gets to make the final decision on car procurement. They haven't decided whether to utilize the option or do a separate tender.

 

[Darwinkgo]

What a mistake not using TTC gauge. Standardization is about making systems interoperable and this does the opposite. The Eglinton LRT tunnel would need to not only have higher platforms installed but track relaid to upgrade to subway. How can it make sense to create an LRT system where no LRT on that system can ever go downtown? Is it really that unlikely that future transit would want to enter the central city? LRT is sold as a method of urbanization but there is no point standardizing on the system that would allow it to connect with the most urban area? Dumb.

The cost of not standardizing, which led to there being a standard gauge in the first place, was the costs associated with not being interoperable. The costs of transferring freight between systems, and the cost of equipment which can handle multiple gauges IS expensive. A large order of TTC gauge equipment is NOT much different than standard gauge. The costs of maintaining two fleets and the costs which would be involved in creating an interoperable system with two track gauges is much more significant.

Standardize GTA transit gauge... on TTC gauge. I think Metrolinx has decided this because "standard" sounds better than "TTC". I would really like to see financial analysis for this decision if there is any... which I suspect there isn't.

The Eglinton 'subway' does not need to be TTC grade to be upgraded to high floor subway rolling stock in the future. Since they aren't building an interconnect, and adding one would be crazy expensive there is little reason to use this as a point of contention.

As for legacy vs new connectivity: unless you were going to rebuild the traction power and switching system for the legacy network there would be no way to run TC equipment on the old lines even with the same gauge. With the design of the legacy cars, there is no way they could operate on the TC network even with the same gauge.

The only difficulty created is with the Lakeshore lines, and either it will end up all legacy, or the shared track lengths will have to be built as dual gauge, not an insurmountable issue.

 

[Justin10000]

Purely from a railfan point-of-view, I would love to see the Altsom Citadis in North America. Really nice vehicles.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Steve Munro's website had a report to the transit commission dated June 3, 1952, was written by W.E.P. Duncan, Operations Manager, and it recommends among other things the acquisition of used streetcars from Cleveland and Birmingham.

There was one section that maybe of interest to this thread concerning the purchase of 75 streetcars from Cleveland and different gauges:

The cost delivered and ready for service at Toronto would be as follows:

Purchase price in Cleveland $20,000.00
Duty 20% 4,000.00
Freight 500.00
Sub-total $24,500.00

Sale Tax 10% 2,450.00
Conversion to Toronto gauge etc. 2,000.00
Cost delivered in Toronto each $28,950.00

Cost of 75 cars delivered 2,171,250.00
Cost of conversion to multiple unit
25 cars @ $6,000.00
150,000.00
Total for 75 multiple unit cars delivered $2,321,250.00

Less scrap value of 75 Witt cars not required at
$1,500.00 each
112,500.00
Net cost for Cleveland cars $2,208,750.00

Two points of interest: the cost of conversion to Toronto gauge etc. was $2,000.00 each, the cost of conversion to multiple unit was $6,000.00 each. Wonder what the etc. cost included in the price is?

Using the Bank of Canada's inflation calculator, the gauge conversion in 2009 dollars would be about $16,340.43, while the MU conversion in 2009 dollars would be about $49,021.28. If Transit City uses standard gauge, and the streetcar remains with the TTC gauge, that could mean spending $16,000 each time a LFLRV is transported between the two gauges.


BTW. The federal government made $4,000.00 on duty on each of the streetcars, at the time.

 

[Chuck]

The Eglinton line should definitely be built to TTC standards, however if it's not, it still wouldn't be the end of the world. New York also has two incompatible train divisions (as identified by numbered vs. lettered lines on the map), though to be fair, each on its own would still be 10 times larger than the Toronto subway.

 

[Darwinkgo]

^ What benefit would building to TTC guage have? If the line is ever converted to high floor HRT and an interconnection is built for some reason, you can change the sleepers and the guage when the third rail is being added. Not that big of a deal in the scope of that project.

The line will have its own yard and maintenance shop - they won't be trucking the LRVs around for maintenance like they need to do with the SRT vehicles.

 

[W. K. Lis]

They could always use dual gauge between St. Clair and the Black Creek yard, using either four tracks or three (depends on the actual dimensions of the tracks used).

Three tracks:

Four tracks:

 

[dunkalunk]

I think one possible advantage that is being overlooked concerning the decision of using standard gauge for transit city vehicles is the possibility of creating a true inter-urban rail system using existing lines. If GO's trend of purchasing rail lines within the GTA continues, GO will have access to scheduling along these lines and will allow them to run an s-bahn style system.

If CP mainline traffic can be diverted to the CN North York Subdivision by way of a new rail corridor following the 407, this would open up the CP mainline for all-day, bi-directional operation for GO service. With the same gauge, service could also be interlined with the eglinton crosstown LRT, Sheppard LRT, and even the Hurontario LRT.

 

[RedRocket191]

^ I'm guessing you're talking tram-trains - using equipment capable of running on the street and on the mainline railways.

It would not be possible under current railway safety regulations, but I believe that changes to these regulations are long overdue.

Some will say "can't be done in North America. Period." But, how many times have we gone from "impossible" to "yeah, I did that yesterday... No biggie..."?

 

[Justin10000]

^ I'm guessing you're talking tram-trains - using equipment capable of running on the street and on the mainline railways.

It would not be possible under current railway safety regulations, but I believe that changes to these regulations are long overdue.

Some will say "can't be done in North America. Period." But, how many times have we gone from "impossible" to "yeah, I did that yesterday... No biggie..."?

There will be a significant cost in upgrading the signal technology. I do not think Europe freight trains are anywhere near the length of North American trains. But it is definitely possible.

 

[smallspy]

Two points of interest: the cost of conversion to Toronto gauge etc. was $2,000.00 each, the cost of conversion to multiple unit was $6,000.00 each. Wonder what the etc. cost included in the price is?

Using the Bank of Canada's inflation calculator, the gauge conversion in 2009 dollars would be about $16,340.43, while the MU conversion in 2009 dollars would be about $49,021.28. If Transit City uses standard gauge, and the streetcar remains with the TTC gauge, that could mean spending $16,000 each time a LFLRV is transported between the two gauges.

That's not necessarily true. The PCC was a (more-or-less) standardized design - a car operating in Cleveland would have been structurally and mechanically similar enough to a car operating in Toronto that it was actually quite possible to consider changing gauge on used vehicles - and in fact, it was done on all of the second-hand cars that Toronto purchased (and was done elsewhere when Toronto cars were sold to places like Alexandria and Philadelphia).

The new streetcars are going to be highly customized to Toronto's specs. Depending on where they put the equipment around the trucks, and even how the "trucks" are built, it may not be economically practical to change the gauge once built.

That said, I'm sure that Bombardier is watching all this closely and is designing the cars with that ability in the future, since Metrolinx is looking at forcing the TTC to convert the streetcar system.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.