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TTC: Flexity Streetcars Testing & Delivery (Bombardier)

We have spent millions on these cars, eliminated a large portion of the cars on King St but the TTC still can't get the 504 to work without bunching. This morning at 8:05 I saw 2 Flexities at Dundas West and another waiting at the Bloor St stop to get into the station.

The first driver was just sitting there not even trying to quickly get out of the station to reduce the bunching (and to let the 3rd LRT into the station)

How is there that much bunching even before the crunch of rush hour begins? Room for 600 people idle at the end of the line.

(and to top it all off I saw 3 505 buses all in a row head towards Dundas West)
 
The tracker for 4489 said it was last seen 18 hours ago and doesn't bow well for this car considering it been here 21 days so far. Still got to do its burn in yet and thats about 5 days.

Looks like 4488 is ready to enter service tomorrow after being here 27 days so far.

4490 and 91 in the service bay. 4490 could see service this week. As for 4491, hard to say if the pole issue was minor or major and should know more next week

3 Flexity on 511 today and rode one to Bathurst Station.

Saw 3 ALRV's on 501 in a matter of minutes in the west. The tracker has 5 out now and standard numbers these day for these cars. Couple look freshly painted.

Bunching can be found all over the place and it makes no different what it is. Looking at Nextbus App today, it made no different what route I was using or near me, headway was all over the place from 3 X within 5 minutes to a 15 minute gap behind the last X. None of the headway were equal space nor match schedule for X route.

Had a look at Gerrard/Broadview Intersection today, all the track work could/should be in place by the weekend. They where getting ready to off load a north to east switch when I was leaving. Double crossing and a number switches in place, but not bolted together.

All the track work on Broadview from Dundas to just south of Gerrard is completed. At this rate, work should/could be finish around Aug 15.

I noticed the overhead between Gerrard/Dundas/Queen needs to be rebuilt for Pans. The curve section at Bloor needs to be rebuilt as well.

King/Parliament intersection not rebuilt for Pans yet.
 
Last edited:
drum118 said:
Bunching can be found all over the place and it makes no different what it is. Looking at Nextbus App today, it made no different what route I was using or near me, headway was all over the place from 3 X within 5 minutes to a 15 minute gap behind the last X. None of the headway were equal space nor match schedule for X route.
Click to expand...

Routes with mixed traffic, bunching is pretty much an inevitability.

But it can even happen on right-of-ways.

The solution is better traffic light priority, like basically 100% streetcar priority (when it approaches the light for the opposing intersection turns red and the streetcar gets a green). People think this is a ridiculous request, but this is how real LRTs work, and they have literal gates that come down to stop cars!


Asking for simple "green always" for streetcars on ROWs is NOT unusual and it's NOT crazy.

The second thing that needs to be done is some kind of computer management when streetcars on ROWs get bunched together, by telling the lead car to hurry up and the cars behind to slow down.

What could even be done, if the tech was in place, would be to purposefully give the lead streetcar all green lights, and purposefully hold the streetcars behind with red lights to space them out. That would be quite the implementation though, basically you have an ATC signalling system at that point.

Another thing that could be done is have a dedicated drop off/pickup on streetcar stops, and have the lead car only drop people off, and not pick up, until its made better headway. Hard to enforce though.
 
robmausser said:
Routes with mixed traffic, bunching is pretty much an inevitability.

But it can even happen on right-of-ways.

The solution is better traffic light priority, like basically 100% streetcar priority (when it approaches the light for the opposing intersection turns red and the streetcar gets a green). People think this is a ridiculous request, but this is how real LRTs work, and they have literal gates that come down to stop cars!


Asking for simple "green always" for streetcars on ROWs is NOT unusual and its NOT crazy.

The second thing that needs to be done is some kind of computer management when streetcars on ROWs get bunched together, by telling the lead car to hurry up and the cars behind to slow down.

What could even be done, if the tech was in place, would be to purposefully give the lead streetcar all green lights, and purposefully hold the streetcars behind with red lights to space them out. That would be quite the implementation though, basically you have an ATC signalling system at that point.

Another thing that could be done is have a dedicated drop off/pickup on streetcar stops, and have the lead car only drop people off, and not pick up, until its made better headway. Hard to enforce though.
Click to expand...
A lot of bunching is caused by drivers for TTC who don't give a rat ass and want to be Sunday drivers. Seen too many cases where supervisors and other drivers have bitch to these Sunday drivers who gives them the fingers.

Traffic lights don't help ROW service to the point, it slows service down.

Even if the lead X vehicle does only drop off, there will still be bunching one way or another.
 
drum118 said:
A lot of bunching is caused by drivers for TTC who don't give a rat ass and want to be Sunday drivers. Seen too many cases where supervisors and other drivers have bitch to these Sunday drivers who gives them the fingers.

Traffic lights don't help ROW service to the point, it slows service down.

Even if the lead X vehicle does only drop off, there will still be bunching one way or another.
Click to expand...

The opposite for traffic priority will happen with Doug Ford now in charge at Queens Park. Watch for requests NOT to improve transit priority at traffic signals from Doug. From link:

Doug Ford complains that it takes him over an hour to drive from his house in Etobicoke to Queen’s Park. “That’s unacceptable,” he says.
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Doug taking public transit? If it's not a photo op, forget it.
 
After being here 29 days, 4488 has enter service on 512. It left the yard at 5:42 am.

4492 at Hillcrest to be off loaded with 4493 maybe tomorrow if on the same train.
 
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TOareaFan said:
saw 4481 on Bathurst this morning....been a while since I saw one of the new vehicles on Bathurst.
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I just found out they are operating Flexity on 511 7 days a week since July 24 and will end in Sept when buses replace the streetcars then. Was taken back on Monday when I saw 3 of then that day, considering they only ran on the weekends in the past.

I think 4481 was on the route on Monday.
 
4491 was up on St Clair doing it first day of testing after 12 days and dealing with a damage pole in transit. It southbound on Bathurst St at Dundas St. NOTE: Heading to 509 for testing as it now on the Bathurst Bridge

Mean while, 4489 has yet to its first day of testing after being here 25 days so far. Been in and out of various service bays with a GPS having it all over the place outside of TTC system. Has spent days all over the yard and current on the track at the east end of the service bays.

No idea whats up with 4490, as its been on the service track in the yard for most of the week after being in the service bay a number of days after it last testing. At the rate it was going, expecting to be in service this week. It been here 17 days.

Both 4492 & 93 aren't tracking yet. 4492 off loaded Aug 2 and 4493 on Aug 03.
 
drum118 said:
4491 was up on St Clair doing it first day of testing after 12 days and dealing with a damage pole in transit. It southbound on Bathurst St at Dundas St. NOTE: Heading to 509 for testing as it now on the Bathurst Bridge

Mean while, 4489 has yet to its first day of testing after being here 25 days so far. Been in and out of various service bays with a GPS having it all over the place outside of TTC system. Has spent days all over the yard and current on the track at the east end of the service bays.

No idea whats up with 4490, as its been on the service track in the yard for most of the week after being in the service bay a number of days after it last testing. At the rate it was going, expecting to be in service this week. It been here 17 days.

Both 4492 & 93 aren't tracking yet. 4492 off loaded Aug 2 and 4493 on Aug 03.
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I wonder how the fires are affecting the delivery schedules?

Along that same line is it possible they are doing some preliminary work here relating to the defective weld situation while Northern Ontario burns?
 
Those last 2 cars delivery this week maybe the last for this month, depending if BBD has a crew working on a car or 2 while the plant is on a 2 week holiday. Not sure if this is the start of the 2 weeks, or when it starts.

I'm sure BBD will be off the hock if CP stops moving trains due to the fire. The only other way to get cars here is the long way by using the US route and add a lot more time in shipping time as well cost.

Does anyone have an idea when cars will be ship La Pocatière, QC and what number the first batch will be? If more than 2 being ship at a time, will have to catch a spot to shoot those X cars on an Montreal train.
 
drum118 said:
Those last 2 cars delivery this week maybe the last for this month, depending if BBD has a crew working on a car or 2 while the plant is on a 2 week holiday. Not sure if this is the start of the 2 weeks, or when it starts.

I'm sure BBD will be off the hock if CP stops moving trains due to the fire. The only other way to get cars here is the long way by using the US route and add a lot more time in shipping time as well cost.

Does anyone have an idea when cars will be ship La Pocatière, QC and what number the first batch will be? If more than 2 being ship at a time, will have to catch a spot to shoot those X cars on an Montreal train.
Click to expand...

There’s another car waiting to ship at the Bay. The fires seem to have been held just short of the rail lines and didn’t really impact rail operations - yet.

I have forgotten just how many cars La Pocatiere will produce, but assuming it’s in the order of 40-50 cars, we are roughly 2/3 through production at Thunder Bay..... not that anyone ever had expectations that it would last this long.

- Paul
 
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