TTC: Other Items (catch all)

[rbt]

Maybe the TTC and the City are waiting for the real estate bubble to burst before selling or negotiating any land deals?

They're waiting for someone to want to build an office development.

Commercial properties attract ridership. Condos not so much (seriously, along Sheppard they're getting about 10%). 1200 units of condos (3 tall buildings for North York) is only a couple of bus loads of riders where a decently sized commercial office would fill a couple trains (that's pure profit ridership in this section).

 

[drum118]

TTC wants Eglinton, Islington and Sheppard to be redevelop as commercial, as it will generate a higher return on air rights than residential.

Over the years, TTC has gone to the market for commercial with only one bidder for Islington which fell apart. TTC is willing to wait 25 years+ to have commercial show up, but it very clear thats not going to happen.

On the south side of Sheppard across from TTC, that parking lot is for commercial and no one has yet step forward to have it built.

At some point, TTC will sell these lands for residential since there is more demand for them regardless of the less air rights.

Right now, Commercial is being built south of Front St that was never plan for except a few towers. 16 York is going to be built without any lead tenant which is rare and there already 5 unplanned towers there now with more to come.

None of the plan city centers have bare fruit as plan decades ago for development and going to be a few more decades for it come close to it, if at all.

 

[animatronic]

On the Wikipedia page for track gauge in Canada there is a throwaway, unreferenced line "However, only a few streetcars have ever been used on the subway system."

Is this true? Toronto gauge was used on the subway to permit potential dual usage but the lack of overhead wires, different platform heights/widths, lack of signal/safety hardware and station lengths have made this practically impossible.

Has there in fact ever been a streetcar on Line 1 or 2? Was there ever even a way to transfer a car from streetcar tracks to subway other than picking it up and dropping on the rails? Did they use an independently-powered streetcar for work duty, or maybe shunt streetcars around on the subway tracks? Without evidence this statement seems a bit suspicious.

 

[W. K. Lis]

PCC streetcars have been used as rail grinding cars on the subway tracks.

See link.

 

[rbt]

Has there in fact ever been a streetcar on Line 1 or 2?

A few old streetcars were converted into permanent work cars for the subway system and used on a regular basis for decades.

 

[animatronic]

PCC streetcars have been used as rail grinding cars on the subway tracks.

See link.

Thanks! So all work trucks - never unmodified cars.

Note that the link is for different rail grinders used on the streetcar surface routes, that still used overhead wires. Looks like power for RT14/15 came off the third rail from a pad instead of a wheel:

 

[kotsy]

oh wow! my mind is blown

 

[smallspy]

Thanks! So all work trucks - never unmodified cars.

Note that the link is for different rail grinders used on the streetcar surface routes, that still used overhead wires.

Quite a few of the work cars over the years can trace their origins back to the streetcar era. I think that it was finally replaced a couple of years ago, but RT3 - a flat-deck platform work car - started life as a streetcar dump car in 1922. The original RT4 was a large Peter Witt car that was heavily modified to become what was ostensibly a garbage car. RT5 was a single-truck Toronto Civic car that was repurposed as a railgrinding car before it was replaced by the PCCs.

Of course, the really interesting story is about subways on the streetcar network. The first two Gloucester subway cars were delivered to Hillcrest in the summer of 1953, rather than Davisville. While at Hillcrest they were inspected and measured, and then when it was time were towed down to the CNE and put on display there. After the CNE, they were towed up Yonge Street and into Davisville Yard via a temporary connection laid for the purpose. And until Greenwood opened in late 1965 (ahead of the opening of the rest of the line), all major repairs to subway cars were done at Hillcrest - although by that time they were trucked there, rather than towed.

Looks like power for RT14/15 came off the third rail from a pad instead of a wheel:

All third rail shoes in Toronto - and in most places that use a side-mounted third rail for power pickup - use a sliding shoe rather than a wheel. It allows for more surface area.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[animatronic]

All third rail shoes in Toronto - and in most places that use a side-mounted third rail for power pickup - use a sliding shoe rather than a wheel. It allows for more surface area.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

Did not know that - thanks!

Does that create a maintenance issue with ablative conductors like the carbon pads on trolley poles? Do they need to replace the pads every few days or is it a more robust system?

 

[W. K. Lis]

There were also specialty built cars (with a pantograph, not a trolley), like this one used to shuffle unmotorized streetcar trailers around the car yards.

 

[smallspy]

Did not know that - thanks!

Does that create a maintenance issue with ablative conductors like the carbon pads on trolley poles? Do they need to replace the pads every few days or is it a more robust system?

It does create a wear point, yes, but certainly no worse than the carbon wipers or shoes used on trolley poles. They are designed to be easily replaced (and break-away in case of damage), and I believe that they are good for several months or so in regular TTC revenue service. On a work vehicle like this that sees far less use, the maintenance intervals would then increase accordingly depending on its level of use.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[steveintoronto]

Thanks! So all work trucks - never unmodified cars.

In the US, a number of operators used PCCs as commuter rail vehicles with third-rail shoes, one was an express operation, either Baltimore or Philadelphia area, memory fails me at this point, but Chicago's L made extensive use of streetcars:

[...]
In the 1950s, the CTA was taking delivery of the 6000-series railcars, based on the PCC technology originally developed for a new generation of streetcars. The first 200 6000-series cars were built from scratch using all electric PCC technology. These cars used the B-2 truck supplied by the Clark Equipment Company, chosen because these trucks were already being used on many PCC streetcars used in Chicago (specifically, those built by the Pullman Car Company), so there was ample experience and familiarity with the design. The Clark B-2 trucks for these first 200 6000s were built new and the design was adapted for rapid transit use, which included strengthening the frame and making provision for the gravity third rail shoes. Around the same time, CTA began to replace its streetcars with buses. Not wishing to waste the investment in the relatively new PCC streetcars, the CTA approached the Pullman Co. and St. Louis Car Co. with the idea of recycling the old streetcars into new "L" cars. The original concept of rebuilding the car bodies was found to be impractical and instead new car bodies were built utilizing many of the components and much of the equipment from retired streetcars.. Thus, the remaining 6000-series cars utilized various recycled streetcar components. An integral part of this plan was the reuse of the PCC streetcars' trucks, a very expensive component whose reuse brought a great deal of cost savings to the plan. Chicago's PCC streetcars used both Clark B-2 and St. Louis Car Company B-3 trucks, and while both would eventually be recycled onto "L" cars the decision was made to scrap and recycle the Pullman-built streetcars, with their B-2 trucks, first, since there was already experience using these trucks with the 6000-series cars. In an effort to reduce truck weight and reduce stress on the truck axle assemblies, a new type of third rail shoe and sleet scraper were specified. Instead of a long beam and gravity shoe, the new design featured a short stub beam extending from the truck frame with a spring-loaded "flapper" shoe attached. Redesigned into a package, the sleet scraper was also supported on a stub beam. This design was developed so that the current collection equipment would not parallel the rubber-mounted joint of the truck torque arm and axle assembly. Shortly after entering service, the loading spring on the third rail shoe was found to be undesirable and was removed. The original thin paddle shoe was also soon changed to a thicker casting to increase its life. This design was used on cars 6201-6510. After building these 310 6000-series cars all of the Pullman PCC streetcars had been converted, so the CTA moved on to scrapping and recycling the St. Louis-built PCC streetcars. The St. Louis streetcars had B-3 trucks, which could be modified to accommodate the "L"'s standard suspended-link gravity third rail shoes and sleet scraper arrangement, so the remaining 6000s as well as the 1-50 series cars using recycled streetcar components reverted to this design.9
[...]

http://www.chicago-l.org/operations/power/index.html

There's a real irony in that simple, modern electronic control devices (SCRs and IGBTs, for instance) would have rendered PCC and earlier streetcars even more powerful today, not the least by 'chopping' the power, rather than using series connection and resistive ballast to control power/speed at the expense of torque.

 

[Tuscani01]

What is that arm sticking out the side of the PCC rail grinding car for?

 

[drum118]

What is that arm sticking out the side of the PCC rail grinding car for?

That was to tell riders on the platform what train was arriving at the station. You still see a few flip boxes around on some platforms that used to tell the rider where the subway was going before decommission.

The Line 2 was to tell riders if the train was going to Union or being a straight through line until the WYE was close. Can't recall when the arms came off the subway trains like the PCC, but others will know.

 

[smallspy]

That was to tell riders on the platform what train was arriving at the station. You still see a few flip boxes around on some platforms that used to tell the rider where the subway was going before decommission.

The Line 2 was to tell riders if the train was going to Union or being a straight through line until the WYE was close. Can't recall when the arms came off the subway trains like the PCC, but others will know.

To flesh this out a bit more....

They were called Identra Coils, and as Drum noted, they were used in concert with signage on the platform to indicate where the train was destined to. They were finally removed with the installation of the OneStop displays about 15 years ago, and were still in use up to that point every morning on the YUS to indicate the scheduled short-turn trains to St Clair West. In theory they could have also used them to automate train routing in the system, but to the best of my knowledge they were never used for that in Toronto.

At the base of the loop was a circular dial with 10 or 12 positions. Each position indicated a potential destination. Before leaving the terminal, the operator would turn the dial to the correct position - the large loop was the antenna which then broadcast that signal to a wayside receiver located about 30 to 50 feet before each platform.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.