TTC: Flexity Streetcars Testing & Delivery (Bombardier)

[rbt]

thanks...and this is already budgeted for? seems that doubling capacty would help ease things a bit, yeah?

Nobody said they were doubling the line capacity. The individual cars are double the capacity but they will arrive half as often.

 

[officedweller]

Nobody said they were doubling the line capacity. The individual cars are double the capacity but they will arrive half as often.

Ugh. Sounds like the opposite of automated rapid transit (short trains, high frequency).

 

[nfitz]

Nobody said they were doubling the line capacity. The individual cars are double the capacity but they will arrive half as often.

If you look at the rollout schedule that Steve Munro published a while ago, they aren't cutting half the streetcars - or at least they weren't going to ...

As service requirement of 202 vehicles would be replaced with 150 vehicles. The 38-required ALRVs would be replaced by 36 new vehicles. And the 164 required CLRVs would be replaced by 114 new vehicles.

Certainly streetcars will be less frequent, particularly in rush-hour. This may be a good thing, given how much bunching you get on the routes that run every 2-4 minutes, with the leading car packed, and the trailing car spacious and invariably short-turned. Many routes will still be more frequent than the Sheppard Subway

 

[rbt]

Ugh. Sounds like the opposite of automated rapid transit (short trains, high frequency).

I might be mistaken. The original order was made to maintain minimum headways (fewer vehicles but still more space) but I'm pretty certain Ford adjusted it down as part of the tweeking in the TTC capital budget not that long ago to be equal standing capacity in the old/new fleet which means headways will double on many routes.

That said, it would be really easy to put those vehicles and more onto the tail end of the order if we find a few hundred million.

 

[nfitz]

That said, it would be really easy to put those vehicles and more onto the tail end of the order if we find a few hundred million.

Given the lack of any news releases by Bombardier about reductions in the order size, and that TTC only indicated they needed 180 streetcars in their pre-Ford rollout plan, I wouldn't be surprised if many of the remaining 24 vehicles were destined for future expansion of the network (Waterfront, etc.). They are only planning to axe 15 vehicles. I wonder if this is simply a shell game to transfer the cost off the TTC books onto Waterfront Toronto.

 

[APTA-2048]

The new car has very attractive styling. Green advance lights and a centre headlight are good, but I didn't feel any loss without them. Inside is bright with more use of white like the Rockets. I don't find the seating arrangement ideal, but I guess somethings can't change due to the low floor design. The section for bicycles will have lots of room, however, and TTC staff said they will have the same no bikes on board at rush hour policy as the subway. I prefer if the fare machines were at the stops instead as I think some might have trouble getting to them. When I rode the LRVs in Lisbon, I noticed had I not been using a pass, it would have been difficult to reach the fare machine on the crowded car.

There are signs to not lean on the bellows, but there is nothing preventing passengers from doing so. The TTC decided against perch seats like on the Viva buses in the joint. Staff also said the opening windows will be locked shut when the air conditioning is functioning, which I welcome as I hate it when passengers open the windows on the one air conditioned streetcar in the summer. The Legacy cars have all-powered bogies, which staff said will help with the hills, and the Transit City cars will have only a few powered. I believe he mentioned to save weight and the lack of hills along the route.

This set has two photos of the current mock-up and the mock-ups the TTC used in the years prior.

 

[Filip]

I went to the open house (tram?) yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised by the size of that thing. It feels so tall.

I heard a few people complaining about the lack of a centre light, all the TTC associates were taking these notes down. I was also told (which seems to go against what I read on Munro's site) that the streetcars will be evenly launched on all the routes. So when the TTC receives 50 sets in 2014, they will be distributed on ALL the lines, not just the waterfront lines/Spadina/Bathurst.

 

[W. K. Lis]

While at the mock-up display today, I noticed all the (dummy) cameras on the OUTSIDE of the streetcar. I do know the real ones will be for the driver’s benefit, but I would guess they will also record. If so, couldn’t the driver “bookmark†an offence committed by a passing automobile or SUV driver? The police could then go through the recordings and at the “bookmarks†find the license plates and issue tickets through the mail or make a personal appearance for repeat offenders.

 

[MetroMan]

Absolutely. It would be a wasted opportunity not to record the outside cameras. The inside ones are already recorded so just hook the exterior ones into the system. Cars that zoom by closed doors are dangerous and should be fined and sent back to driving school.

This by the way reminds me of something I observed. The doors open parallel to the body of the streetcar, unlike the current ones that open facing drivers and have little stop signs not he doors. How will drivers know the doors are opening? A light? Anything more obvious?

 

[JoeParez]

I prefer if the fare machines were at the stops instead as I think some might have trouble getting to them. When I rode the LRVs in Lisbon, I noticed had I not been using a pass, it would have been difficult to reach the fare machine on the crowded car.

There will be "off board TVMs".
There was a display at the mock up viewing that explained that there will both.

 

[Paleo]

Given the lack of any news releases by Bombardier about reductions in the order size, and that TTC only indicated they needed 180 streetcars in their pre-Ford rollout plan, I wouldn't be surprised if many of the remaining 24 vehicles were destined for future expansion of the network (Waterfront, etc.). They are only planning to axe 15 vehicles. I wonder if this is simply a shell game to transfer the cost off the TTC books onto Waterfront Toronto.

The Waterfront cars are already on a separate budget. The "extra" vehicles are for covering the backlog in service requirements on the existing lines.

As for one-ride tickets, there was a display board that stated that there will be on-street ticket machines at stops with more than 500 daily boardings.

 

[nfitz]

The Waterfront cars are already on a separate budget.

I haven't seen a separate entry in the budget for any of the 204 streetcars. It all seems to come out of the same place. There is a separate entry for the 10 new subway trains for the Spadina extension. Ah ... but if you mean that separate cars above the 204 that are ordered ... yes, I think I have seen that.

The "extra" vehicles are for covering the backlog in service requirements on the existing lines.

And yet, in the pre-Ford TTC (or very early Ford) tables showing how the cars would be used, Steve Munro had only 180 are needed, and that 24 are "available for growth".

My guess on how this will go down, is that this "available for growth" cars will drop to 9, and suddenly we'll need 15 cars for the Waterfront routes, which will Waterfront Toronto will "pick up".

 

[CDL.TO]

I've read several comments in the past about how the heavy CLRVs and ALRVs caused premature wear and tear on the streetcar track. A few from Steve Munro's blog posts and comments...

[The new streetcars] were about 25% heavier than the PCC cars, mainly because they had been designed for high-speed suburban operation that they would never actually see. Moreover, the wheels on the cars were particularly good at transmitting low frequency vibrations into the ground, and this accelerated the demise of the track. That problem has since been fixed with the use of new wheels, but we are stuck with the weight.

Had the city and province built the LRT network and PCC like new streetcars we probably would have avoided the heavy CLRVs (which pretty much smashed up all the city’s streetcar system trackage)

If Toronto needs to have a vehicle heavier than ten elephants as is the CLRV, then the city is still stuck in the ’70′s.

But according to today's Post, the new streetcars will be 48.2 tonnes across 3 bogies (7 tonnes per axle), compared to 6.1 tonnes per axle on the ALRV and 5.7 tonnes per axle on the CLRV.

What does this mean for track maintenance?

 

[Fred.S]

What does this mean for track maintenance?

Steve Munro addresses this on his blog after talking to a TTC engineer. While the new LRV is heavier, the "unsprung weight" is less then on the CLRV/ALRV. On the current vehicles, the motors and other equipment is rigidly attached to the trucks. On the new vehicles, there are two sets sets of suspension between the wheels and the motors, gearing, etc, so in effect there is less weight being transmitted into the tracks.

 

[Markster]

So the at-rest weight is more, but the impact weight is less.