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TTC: Flexity Streetcars Testing & Delivery (Bombardier)

nfitz said:
The Toronto cars were already schedule to be delivered at 3 a month, or higher, until 2019. Much of the Waterloo, Eglinton, Finch, and Sheppard cars were scheduled to be delivered by then (also at about 3 a month), so presumably they thought that they can actually handle 6 a month. Though how much of that depended on the completion of the delayed TR car delivery being finished. They may not have been counting on the recent purchase of an extra 10 TR trainsets.
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While the delivery schedule of the TRs has slipped fairly badly up to now, even with the additional 10 trainsets I can't see them slipping so far as to severely impact the production of the Transit City/Flexity Freedom/Metrolinx order. There are 21 TR sets left to be delivered, and provided the get back up to the their previous rate - a set every two to three weeks - they should be fully delivered by the end of next year.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
smallspy said:
While the delivery schedule of the TRs has slipped fairly badly up to now, even with the additional 10 trainsets I can't see them slipping so far as to severely impact the production of the Transit City/Flexity Freedom/Metrolinx order. There are 21 TR sets left to be delivered, and provided the get back up to the their previous rate - a set every two to three weeks - they should be fully delivered by the end of next year.
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Good point, and they can probably bank on some more Finch, Sheppard, and even Eglinton delays. They really dodged the bullet, because as recently as December 2010 (4 years ago), the Sheppard East opening date was early 2014 with 35 vehicles.
 
Found this little tidbit at this link, The date was September 14, 2014, but I'm bookmarking the website.

4404 is near ready to ship. The rail companies not wanting to cross the line never came into play. CP or CN management would be the first ones to tell them to do their job or they would. To that note, a GO BiLevel car did ship last week by rail during the strike. 4405 & 4406 are currently in line spliced together have not had final assembly or any testing, 4407 modules are complete but not coupled, interior stuffed or trucked. Once the TTC received further cars 4401 & 02 will be returned for extensive modification (not just the D module underframe) program one at a time. They are still being used for training, both operator and maintenance. FYI, internally these cars are referred to "Legacy" platform, not Flexity.
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4402 testing on King as I was picking up lunch.....got behind traffic....front of vehicle got through intersection....rest of it blocked University for 2 light cycles waiting for traffic ahead of it to clear.....oops!
 
Consider that 4402 is a driver training vehicle. If any vehicles are going to be making that mistake, it's the ones training new drivers who don't fully appreciate how long these things are.
 
True. But in heavy traffic, what's the alternative? Staying put behind the intersection, waiting for space to clear up on the far side, which it may or may not, thanks to traffic turning into the lane, all the while holding up everything behind it. I'm just not sure how this is supposed to end well in mixed traffic, when the going gets tough.
 
Sir Novelty Fashion said:
I fear this is a sign of things to come.
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Markster said:
Consider that 4402 is a driver training vehicle. If any vehicles are going to be making that mistake, it's the ones training new drivers who don't fully appreciate how long these things are.
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I think. regardless of who's driving them, this will be somewhat of an issue going forward. These things are long....to be fair the one I saw today (EB on King) would have likely blocked the NB lanes of University even in and old streetcar (something you do see with relative frequency) but the new vehicle meant that, both, the NB and SB lanes were blocked (although a bit of driver creativity allowed some SB cars past as they veered as if going west on King then swung back around to go SB but move was only available to one SB lane).

In reality, streetcar drivers don't really have the ability to sit on one side of an intersection waiting for the lane ahead to clear....any opening would (using this case as an example) be filled with cars making right hand turns off of the NB University or left hand turns off of SB universtiy. No matter the experience level of the driver they are likely going to proceed through hoping to clear the intersection but not worrying if they don't....its just that with these new cars the length of the blockage will just be worse.

Keep in mind, this was around 1pm today....King is busy at 1pm but not anywhere near as busy as it is in morning and evening rush periods.

This will only be an issue where they operate in mixed use traffic and likely only really an issue on the really busy mixed routes (King and Queen for example). As good a vehicle as they are for separated routes...they probably are not ideal for routes like King and Queen but what are you gonna do? I just think we are going to see a fairly significant increase in intersections blocked by streetcars....and I think we are gonna have to learn to live with it.
 
Sir Novelty Fashion said:
True. But in heavy traffic, what's the alternative? Staying put behind the intersection, waiting for space to clear up on the far side, which it may or may not, thanks to traffic turning into the lane, all the while holding up everything behind it. I'm just not sure how this is supposed to end well in mixed traffic, when the going gets tough.
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They should get some retired Yonge streetcar (and trailer) trains and Bloor (MU coupled) streetcar trains operators to teach them the ropes on how to handle long vehicles.

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TheTigerMaster said:
It's "only" 15 feet longer, about 20% longer than the ALRV. The drivers should adjust soon enough.
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On certain routes (thinking mostly of King and Queen) I don't think they will adjust and, frankly, I don't think they should. Even car drivers can tell you of intersections that if you wait until there is a clear path out of an intersection before you enter it then you may never get through (due to turning traffic keeping the intersection "full" for long stretches). I think, again on King and Queen, streetcars currently do block intersections ocassionally, I think it will happen more often with the new longer vehicles....and I think it is something that we should just accept as a cost of using these high occupancy/large vehicles in a mixed use environment.
 
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