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Sheppard Line 4 Subway Extension (Proposed)

The days of customization are over, and that's a great thing.
Hopefully ... but one looks at other places, and one sees bizarre decision. Such as the low-floor LRT relatively on the Ottawa subway, which makes a higher capacity vehicle in the future very difficult.

Hopefully no more rubber tires - though the Montreal system can handle both tighter curves and steeper grades than Toronto.
 
Hopefully ... but one looks at other places, and one sees bizarre decision. Such as the low-floor LRT relatively on the Ottawa subway, which makes a higher capacity vehicle in the future very difficult.

Hopefully no more rubber tires - though the Montreal system can handle both tighter curves and steeper grades than Toronto.
Well you have to look at why those places have weird stuff in the first place, and the motivations behind those decisions.

Ottawa runs on low floor LRVs because the scope of the project and what they wanted the project to be constantly changed. First they wanted the line to be like the Waterloo iON where it would run at grade on streets downtown, but after a bus crashed into via train, at grade was extremely unpopular so they tunneled the downtown segment. Then they justified low floor by saying that the extensions could be done at grade to save money in suburbs, but after the development company complained about the at grade segment at SJAM, phase 1 was cut back from Lincoln Fields to Tunney's Pasture, the line will now being tunneled under byron linear park, and now a design requirement for all future extensions is full grade separations. Unfortunately when all this happened it was too late to change the design of the system so Ottawa is stuck with low floor vehicles.

As for Montreal, they only have rubber tires because Jean Drapeau had a fetish for them.

None of these really apply to Ontario, and because of the P3 model as well as Doug Ford and Metrolinx wanting to build this thing as fast as possible, they have incentives to cut down on design barriers and try to go for as off the shelf as possible, so no weird gauges or weird proprietary technology.
 
Could be converted and joined with whatever technology the Ontario Line will be when the Ontario Line is extended north to Sheppard. By the 22nd century, at the pace we are going at with transit expansion.
Considering we just got funding confirmed for 4 subway extensions and an LRT yesterday, I think we should temper our pessimism.
 
Considering we just got funding confirmed for 4 subway extensions and an LRT yesterday, I think we should temper our pessimism.
yea i mean if you count the demolition that just started for the sse we currently have 4 new rail rapid transit projects under construction in the region (may be missing one). It may not be as much as we would like but this is the most transit expansion the city has seen.
 
They should use the upcoming OL vehicles on this. Would allow for a larger order.

Exactly. One reason we shouldn't be using pantos.

And using Metrolinx's capacity numbers for OL's theoretical technology Sheppard could be extended as 25m (1-car) trains. Maybe 2-car would be better to future-proof, but 1-car would suffice indefinitely.
 
Exactly. One reason we shouldn't be using pantos.

And using Metrolinx's capacity numbers for OL's theoretical technology Sheppard could be extended as 25m (1-car) trains. Maybe 2-car would be better to future-proof, but 1-car would suffice indefinitely.
You do know there are trains that operate with both pantographs AND third rail in different sections of their lines.

One of many...
 
It will also go to a standard Light Metro tech because its open tender so the consortium that builds it will more than likely choose a standard technology thats "off-the-shelf" as they say. There would be huge risk for them to build something custom.

Most manufacturers have things that are off-the-shelf for themselves but would require R&D for their competitors. That effectively makes any extension a non-competitive tender without added up-front cost.
 
Most manufacturers have things that are off-the-shelf for themselves but would require R&D for their competitors. That effectively makes any extension a non-competitive tender without added up-front cost.
Depends on what part and how its done. If you need a new trainset, if the entire system uses standardized off-the-shelf components (the overhead, track gauges, signaling system etc) it makes it a lot easier to get that specific manufacturers trainset to work on the line. If the line uses any custom, niche components (odd track guage, specialized unique signaling system, proprietary LIM motor system, rubber tyred system etc) it makes it much more cost.

Clearly nothing is drop into place plug and play, but there is definitely a standard for Light Metros that has become normalized and thats standard US rail gauge, 1500v DC overhead panto, with the IEEE 1474 standard for train control communications. Stick to that and it will be a lot easier for other manufacturers to bid on future work.
 

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