IRT_BMT_IND

Toronto should just make a deal with Mississauga to allow MiWay buses to carry passengers within Etobicoke for TTC fares at this point. It should be easy to do this with Presto.

If this change is permanent it would probably make sense to add one or two stops on Dixon road (at Carlingview maybe), as it's a pretty big employment area and is a long haul from the subway on the Lawrence West bus. I remember before this route had luggage racks, bags sometimes would go rolling everywhere when the bus made all the rapid lane changes in the 427/401 interchange. Didn't the TTC take this route off the 427 entirely for a bit because of that?

If GO was serious about serving London they would have run this train on the Dundas sub in the slot left by 82/83

The T1s aren't really than old, most "world class" cities known for their subway systems operate older rolling stock. One problem in terms of optics is that they really look older than they are, even when they were new they weren't exactly examples of cutting edge industrial design. The basic design of the T1s is really not that much different than the original Hawker cars (or even the MLW cars). It's telling that the Montreal Metro trains from the 60s and 70s felt more modern inside than the T1s which were still being built this century. The TTC hasn't done the best job keeping them nice inside either (like how a lot of them look dim inside because the light fixtures are all full of dust).

I'm guessing they'll be using the same route as the Canadian (backing onto the York sub from the Newmarket sub at Snider). The only other option would be the Weston sub onto the Halton sub with the north-to-east curve at Halwest.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is at least one of these left in the GTA somewhere (even if it isn't being used as a bus stop) that you could measure.

AFAIK the issue is that some LED signs "scan", like an old CRT TV. They look fine to the eye thanks to persistence of vision. The fix would be to use a shutter speed that's a factor of the scan rate (like shooting a TV screen at 1/30 or 1/60).

They did until the 1990s. Mexico has a highly competitive intercity bus system and low cost airlines that would make it hard for long distance passenger trains to compete.

The 8 minute headways on Bloor-Danforth at night are pretty bad, especially in practice there probably will be regular gaps of >10 minutes. Honestly, even pre-COVID the TTC could have gotten away with greater than 5 minute headways on the subway at night, at least on weekdays, but the TTC was always steadfast on 5 minutes or less on the subways at all times regardless of demand. I guess the TTC is finally moving away from this standard on the subway, which even survived the huge 90s service cuts.

The big downside of an orphan custom fleet. It should have been built to use the existing bilevel fleet.

That tunnel may have been the least attractive place on the TTC system, it always smelled musty and would get shoulder-to-shoulder packed during the busiest times of the summer.

It seems obvious to me that the TTC has become gun-shy regarding the streetcars at least partially due to a string of serious (and mostly well publicized) collisions, either streetcar-streetcar or streetcar-auto (even though most streetcar-auto collisions are not the TTC's fault AFAIK and instead mostly caused by drivers either ignoring signs or jumping lights). Is this because the TTC is self insured and sick of dealing with ever increasing insurance costs? And given typical GTA driving habits I can't imagine there won't be frequent auto-LRV collisions on the surface section, it really should have been designed like the LRT lines in Calgary and Edmonton with crossing gates at intersections.

You're in luck, because GO actually has the old timetables for the York Region local services (Yonge B and C as well as the Bayview local) on it's special 50th anniversary website. The Yonge C and Bayview services had their own flat fares (and accepted Richmond Hill transit and Markham transit transfers I think), while the Yonge B used the regular GO transit zone system (and I'm not sure if it carried local passengers south of Bernard). The Yonge C was very frequent, every 5-7 minutes in the peaks south of Major Mackenzie. The current Viva service on Yonge is barely any better 20 odd years later, and this is with heavy capital investment in dedicated infrastructure.

Full time service on the Kingston Road streetcar is a big deal. This route always felt like the most neglected streetcar line and I'm kind of surprised it's survived at all. The current service pattern where the Coxwell bus is extended up Kingston road on evenings and weekends is probably close to 100 years old.

The slow order on the southbound track just north of Bloor station is bad too, the train has to enter the station at a walking pace because of it.

Would this be for a shift change at one of the factories there? Traditionally that was a big reason the TTC operated a lot of seemingly "weird" or one-off services. They even used to advertise they would do it on request for large employers if the demand was enough.

The switch control problems are really the worst, and the TTC has been putting off replacing the switch electronics for what seems like 10 years. Didn't the TTC go as far as to get reverse engineered clones made of the old electronics because the original supplier (ITT/Lorenz?) no longer exists? It seems like even old school power on/off controls would be better at this point. And I'm surprised Tory didn't fire Rick Leary after the incident in the subway in early 2020.

In my experience I've seen the Gateway stores closed more than they've been open since the pandemic started.

The Cs (and the As were worse IIRC) had some terrible problems, like issues with road salt getting into the electrical system, and derailments with the (European designed I think) trucks not cooperating with the street trackage (some of which was in pretty rough shape in the early 80s) and the single point switches. Remember there was no internet and no real 24 hour news cycle in the 70s and 80s though so there would have been less discussion in the media, though you can find old newspaper articles about the problems online through the Toronto Public Library.

I think this is more snow in one day than 1999 (Though 1999 was more cumulative snow over several days IIRC) so it's not surprising.

Yep, they mostly operate freight service (I think mostly bulk commodities) now, and they interchange with CN at North Bay. There's a daily(?) CN interchange (trains 450/451) between the ONR in North Bay and Mac Yard. Historically the major customers were mines but I'm not sure this is true anymore. The provincial government has considered privatizing it on a few occasions but never went through with it. Currently their only passenger service is a remote access service to Moosonee, which has no road access, but they once operated an intercity train service between Northeastern Ontario and Toronto, and yes this was completely separate from VIA.

The washout is on the CP, not the CN line on the other side of the canyon, which apparently has washouts too, though if they're not as severe the CN side may go back into service sooner than CP. Aside from the former BCR the only other plausible detour is on BNSF via Chicago, which I suspect will be how containers bound for the GTA will get moved out of the Port of Vancouver if the Fraser Canyon is blocked for an extended period of time.

The TTC actually had live vehicle tracking as part of the old CIS system (I think it first went live in the early 80s and was rolled out on a per-division basis, someone here probably knows more details) through an IVR telephone system (and I think fax too). This was actually cutting edge technology for the time (A lot of it came from Bell and I think either Nortel or companies in Nortel's orbit) and the TTC was one of the first transit agencies in the world to have anything like this. It was shut down in the late 90s for Y2K compliance reasons and not replaced until the nextbus system went online in the 00s.

The new Toronto schedules are in extranet, schedules are 2761-2766, even numbers inbound from Toronto and odd numbers outbound. They do show a stop in Niagara Falls, though the website makes it seem as if you can't book this segment locally within Canada. Seeing how GLC is no more, I'm guessing American GLI drivers will take the buses all the way to Toronto, unless GLI is hiring or contracting out for Canadian drivers (FWIW American drivers would be exempt from all the COVID border measures going into Canada even if passengers aren't). The deregulation in Ontario means they could easily set up a subsidiary in Canada to hire drivers to take the buses into Canada, and they'd (probably) be allowed to carry local passengers without having to get running rights. The Greyhound website shows the old Bay and Front Union Station Bus Terminal (which no longer exists) as the stop in Toronto, which I'm assuming is an error and they mean the new one at Bay and Lakeshore, unless they're planning for curbside loading. I'd expect to see at least one pilot run with no passengers just so drivers can get familiar with the street layout and the new terminal.