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splendidwizardplayer

splendidwizardplayer

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Just now, DepthOfField said:

Does anyone know what parts the TTC strips the retired CLRVs/ALRVs of? 
Seeing that they're retiring the entire fleet in about a month, I'm wondering what parts they're actually salvaging, and why they're salvaging them? 
I can't see them being repurposed for any other use.
 

Say a CLRV TTC or HCRR is saving and a part stops working TTC has that part in stock to replace it.

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Wayside Observer

Wayside Observer

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47 minutes ago, splendidwizardplayer said:

Say a CLRV TTC or HCRR is saving and a part stops working TTC has that part in stock to replace it.

Outside of laying in a parts supply, some of the equipment is still relevant, believe it or not.  Actually, I was having a conversation about this sort of thing on the weekend.*  The Seltrac NA switch stuff is still used on the newer streetcars so the TTC would pull all that out of stuff heading to the junkyard, for example.  Same with the CIS Trump stuff (NO COLLUSION!) since I think that's - really not sure, haven't been paying attention to the Vision stuff - possibly still going too.

*  And about the bloody sodding flipping electronics.  I know there are kids on this forum so I'm not going to type out the words I was really thinking.  This subject has been spun so far out of control for so long by so many people that I question weather or not the BS can even be reined in at this point and I was standing there with one of my best friends who's an EET graduate and worked in the business for even longer than me and we were listening to nonsense about the CLRV electronics being unmanageable.

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T3G

T3G

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1 hour ago, DepthOfField said:

Does anyone know what parts the TTC strips the retired CLRVs/ALRVs of? 
Seeing that they're retiring the entire fleet in about a month, I'm wondering what parts they're actually salvaging, and why they're salvaging them? 
I can't see them being repurposed for any other use.
 

Not much, besides the NA antennas (which are accessed from behind the headlights) and maybe the communications equipment. From speaking with some operators, apparently the most recent CLRV retirements have even been able to drive themselves up to the loading ramp for the truck that would take them on to Langille's.

Anyway, here's a selection of photographs from today at Russell. I was hoping to get a photo of 4221 stripped, but they sadly parked it all the way at the back (behind 4195) so that didn't pan out. I can only hope that they won't be too eager to send them off to scrap and there will be another reshuffling in a few weeks' time, but I wouldn't count on it...

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Anyone else disgusted by the green trees in these photos?

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smallspy

smallspy

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1 hour ago, Wayside Observer said:

*  And about the bloody sodding flipping electronics.  I know there are kids on this forum so I'm not going to type out the words I was really thinking.  This subject has been spun so far out of control for so long by so many people that I question weather or not the BS can even be reined in at this point and I was standing there with one of my best friends who's an EET graduate and worked in the business for even longer than me and we were listening to nonsense about the CLRV electronics being unmanageable.

Indeed. I am involved in the maintenance of a very similarly aged piece of equipment - an MLW LRC locomotive - and for which suffers from the exact same issues. And we don't even have the benefit of several hundred parts donors to pull parts off of.

 

And you know how many of the 20+ control cards that are installed in each unit that we've had to replace in 5 years of running? Precisely one.

 

The electronics are not going to be an issue on the CLRVs, at least in terms of their long-term ability to run at Halton County, or anywhere else for that matter. Not only are there lots of spares, but there are also specialist companies for whom their sole existence is to recreate, rebuild and re-engineer control cards and hardware for antiquated but still operable machinery. I suspect that they are going to run into wheel issues and narrow flanges or scalloped treads - which are a humongous pain in the ass to fix on the CLRVs - before they run into electronics problems.

 

Dan

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Wayside Observer

Wayside Observer

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56 minutes ago, smallspy said:

The electronics are not going to be an issue on the CLRVs, at least in terms of their long-term ability to run at Halton County, or anywhere else for that matter. Not only are there lots of spares, but there are also specialist companies for whom their sole existence is to recreate, rebuild and re-engineer control cards and hardware for antiquated but still operable machinery. I suspect that they are going to run into wheel issues and narrow flanges or scalloped treads - which are a humongous pain in the ass to fix on the CLRVs - before they run into electronics problems.

Even then, doing a re-engineered board for a trolley museum malfunction is a pretty drastic course of action compared to doing a straight up component replacement of whatever's bailed out, but should the day come that that isn't possible, respin boards can definitely be done.

A handful of electronics problems have come up with preserved LRVs.  I'm personally familiar with two situations that have come up.  One was a card with a failed relay on it.  It doesn't get much more 19th century for a breakdown than that except for the fact it was mounted on a fibreglass circuit board.

The other one's unknown.  The bad card was identified by boardswapping with ones lifted out of another preserved card.  That was a good start except the museum involved sent the bad one out to an off site technician but didn't have a diagram which caused the technician to crash and burn.  The result was the museum involved reached out to one of my friends for help who then looped me in and sent along the pictures of the good and bad boards.  I did what I could from the pictures but I couldn't see enough around the IC packages to trace much out and the museum guy only photographed one side of the cards.  So, I worked up a list of components and determined what possible replacement families there are for them and compiled a discrepancy list between the two cards.  I don't know if they're different revision levels or a mid-run change or modified after the fact.  Sent that back and asked several months later if they wanted to send the card to me and the response was that the deadlocked technician still has it and that they were looking at buying (!) a replacement.  Three of us basically shrugged when we were talking about that a while ago because we did what we could but there doesn't seem to be much movement on the technician's end or on the museum's side to get it back from the outside technician.

I don't know where this one stands other than I did reiterate my offer to put it on the bench here.  Honestly, why this guy didn't trace out the 5V power and ground for the TTL logic back to the connector and chase the chip inputs back to the connector either and light it up off a bench power supply and make sure there's no excessive current draw and check for power and ground continuity to all the chips, then feed in some input off a function generator and check outputs with a scope to make sure they're doing what you'd expect is kind of puzzling to me.  You don't need a diagram to get started on this but what do I know, I'm just some dumbfuck jock that plays football.  The frappucino guzzlers and trolley geezers are the real electrical engineering experts.

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Wayside Observer

Wayside Observer

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...and my vacation is over.

So, this morning, upon returning to the land of douchebag condos, yappy toy dogs, amateur taxi cabs that are even worse than legitimate taxi cabs and try to play bumper cars with real vehicles, overpriced boutique coffees, yuppies, and the handful of remaining operating CLRVs.

I saw 4132 and 4155 on Bathurst on my way into the plant this morning.

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Doppelkupplung

Doppelkupplung

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7 minutes ago, Wayside Observer said:

...and my vacation is over.

So, this morning, upon returning to the land of douchebag condos, yappy toy dogs, amateur taxi cabs that are even worse than legitimate taxi cabs and try to play bumper cars with real vehicles, overpriced boutique coffees, yuppies, and the handful of remaining operating CLRVs.

You missed the bit with the idiots who don't clear the snow and ice off their cars. And then proceed to clog up traffic because they thought the winters that they drove on all year long would be good for this season. 

Just my two cents.

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smallspy

smallspy

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13 hours ago, Wayside Observer said:

Even then, doing a re-engineered board for a trolley museum malfunction is a pretty drastic course of action compared to doing a straight up component replacement of whatever's bailed out, but should the day come that that isn't possible, respin boards can definitely be done.

Oh, absolutely.

 

But the point is that today we have more options than a simple component replacement. If we wanted to have a board re-engineered for more capability or reliability, it can be done. And the same goes for Halton County.

 

Dan

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CLRV4002

CLRV4002

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1 hour ago, Orion VI said:

Can 4010 not move under its own power?

3ED1360D-F79F-41B3-AF9E-D3F6474BED15.thumb.jpeg.858d414b6852172d5483c632c3c49097.jpegC79D2C63-6FE4-4118-80B3-768B223D4E4A.thumb.jpeg.60c348ef8349e1da1447fefe562c918e.jpeg

The day it got there and thereafter it was moving under its own power, but for some reason it wasn’t working when they were bringing it into the barn. They say 4204 will be on display (not sure where) and it sounds like 4039 may be outside running, but that’s not confirmed yet. Maybe others will interpret these tweets differently. 

1 hour ago, Ultimate said:

Back out today, on the 511

In which case I’d like to put my bets on it being one of the last cars to run in December. Just a hunch. 

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Wayside Observer

Wayside Observer

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22 hours ago, Doppelkupplung said:

You missed the bit with the idiots who don't clear the snow and ice off their cars. And then proceed to clog up traffic because they thought the winters that they drove on all year long would be good for this season. 

I probably missed a lot.  So anyways, after work, I headed over to the people's place who were looking after my cat to pick him up.  The view from their condo is to the south, east, and west so from there you can see Spadina and Bathurst streetcars off to the two sides and Go trains to the south.  For now.  There are a number of other buildings going up or planned that will probably change that in a few years but from the dinner table facing west, it's easy to watch streetcars on Bathurst and pretend the end isn't right around the corner for the CLRVs.  Even at that distance, you can tell 4178 when it goes by and I saw it a couple of times.  Also saw 4193 after leaving with the cat.

This morning on the way in I saw:  4133, 4155 4184.

23 minutes ago, CLRV4002 said:

3ED1360D-F79F-41B3-AF9E-D3F6474BED15.thumb.jpeg.858d414b6852172d5483c632c3c49097.jpegC79D2C63-6FE4-4118-80B3-768B223D4E4A.thumb.jpeg.60c348ef8349e1da1447fefe562c918e.jpeg

The day it got there and thereafter it was moving under its own power, but for some reason it wasn’t working when they were bringing it into the barn. They say 4204 will be on display (not sure where) and it sounds like 4039 may be outside running, but that’s not confirmed yet. Maybe others will interpret these tweets differently. 

My interpretation is:  Not working in what way?  That's pretty damn vague.  Actually, as a fault description, it's totally useless.  If garbage like that came across my desk at work, I'd send it back and go for a coffee while it gets clarified.

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smallspy

smallspy

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30 minutes ago, Wayside Observer said:

My interpretation is:  Not working in what way?  That's pretty damn vague.  Actually, as a fault description, it's totally useless.  If garbage like that came across my desk at work, I'd send it back and go for a coffee while it gets clarified.

My understanding was that it tripped out an internal breaker. They've decided not to fix the issue until the spring, as it was determined that it wasn't an urgent issue and that the car can sit in that state without causing damage.

 

All that said - a tweet is communication to the public. They don't need to let us know what the exact problem is, so long as they are aware of it.

 

Dan

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CLRV4094

CLRV4094

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7 hours ago, CLRV4002 said:

3ED1360D-F79F-41B3-AF9E-D3F6474BED15.thumb.jpeg.858d414b6852172d5483c632c3c49097.jpegC79D2C63-6FE4-4118-80B3-768B223D4E4A.thumb.jpeg.60c348ef8349e1da1447fefe562c918e.jpeg

The day it got there and thereafter it was moving under its own power, but for some reason it wasn’t working when they were bringing it into the barn. They say 4204 will be on display (not sure where) and it sounds like 4039 may be outside running, but that’s not confirmed yet. Maybe others will interpret these tweets differently. 

In which case I’d like to put my bets on it being one of the last cars to run in December. Just a hunch. 

I'm at least glad to hear 4003 will be used a lot. What a workhorse it is to be used 41 years after being delievered by a museum. 

 

As for 4094, it's still out on 511 so I still have high bets it will be one of the last.

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