General Subway/RT Discussion

[smallspy]

13 hours ago, M. Parsons said:

I didn't realize that was who was doing the work on the TTC. 

In Edmonton, Alstom came in to supply a fixed block system to replace the Thales CBTC which was taking forever and not meeting specs (although it sounds like ETS kept moving the goalposts) 

An acquaintance of mine was involved in that project as they were booting out Thales, and until Alstom took over. He investigated what options they had for what was installed - right down to ripping it all out and starting from scratch with a fixed-block system with wayside indications.

 

While he agrees that the Thales product is likely superior in terms of operations, he doesn't have much good to say about them otherwise. Goalpost moving was the least of their problems - it sounds like the project was headed by their marketing department, rather than engineering.

 

Dan

[Wayside Observer]

1 hour ago, smallspy said:

it sounds like the project was headed by their marketing department, rather than engineering.

That's always a barrel of fun.  "We're committed to what?"  Cue the cringe-inducing memories of finding out about a new product when the marketing department publicly announced it complete with launch date, before any request to begin developing it came down.

[Cityflyer]

https://blog.metrolinx.com/2021/12/08/metrolinx-ceo-statement-on-refined-route-for-yonge-north-subway-extension/

Line 1 extension will now have 90 deg curves similar in sharpness as the two by Union Stn. It'll slow the speed of the trains. Is that a good thing?

[Wayside Observer]

1 hour ago, Cityflyer said:

https://blog.metrolinx.com/2021/12/08/metrolinx-ceo-statement-on-refined-route-for-yonge-north-subway-extension/

Line 1 extension will now have 90 deg curves similar in sharpness as the two by Union Stn. It'll slow the speed of the trains. Is that a good thing?

Maybe, maybe not.  It won't do travel time any favours.  Slower running might knock down noise and vibration but then shoving trains through sharp curves would push it back up again.  Outside of accepting Verster's claims at face value, which is pretty straightforward in terms of the lower number of homes and properties the revised routing passes under, it isn't so simple and there isn't any way to tell from that article whether shifting the tradeoffs like that will result in more, less, or similar levels of noise and vibration.

[Cityflyer]

Metrolinx puts out call for teams to work on Finch Station as part of Yonge North Subway Extension | Metrolinx News

[Shaun]

Is there anything on the other side of the tail tracks? Hopefully not so that they can extend the tracks without any problems.  

Afte ATC is implemented will there be less congestion at the end of the line? Even without returning to pre-pandemic service levels trains are at a crawl between York Mills and Finch.

[Tunnelrat]

I wouldn't count on less traffic into Finch. Even with ATC trains are backed up into VMC. I understand crew changes are at VMC but still.

[H4 5600]

Here is an interesting slide i found for sale on ebay. Looks to be some kind of utdc icts test train.

Link to the ebay listing:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/384426804898?hash=item59819f86a2:g:RWwAAOSwpvRhWmGk

[Mark Walton]

32 minutes ago, H4 5600 said:

Here is an interesting slide i found for sale on ebay. Looks to be some kind of utdc icts test train.

Link to the ebay listing:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/384426804898?hash=item59819f86a2:g:RWwAAOSwpvRhWmGk

Could be the original test car at Millhaven, near Kingston, but I can't be positive. I rode it at a June 1982 open house there.

[Wayside Observer]

3 hours ago, Mark Walton said:

Could be the original test car at Millhaven, near Kingston, but I can't be positive. I rode it at a June 1982 open house there.

It could be.  The test car I remember seeing more closely resembled a production Mk I car but that was later than 82.

Remember the library branch in Metro Hall that was a casualty of Rob Ford's cuts?  I was in there one day with time to kill and discovered that they had what looked like a full (if it wasn't, it had to be nearly complete) set of progress reports on the ICTS development program and everything I read in the time I had was fascinating  but it was all typewritten text.  There were very, very few photographs and I don't remember seeing this car in there.

They said they were going to house the collection of the urban affairs library at Metro Hall at the reference library on Yonge St. when they closed it down so the ICTS stuff should have ended up there.  I don't know if it did, and if it did, I don't know if it's out on the publicly accessible shelves available to browse, but that would be my first spot to go looking to dig into this car if I was to research it.

[Wayside Observer]

It’s Friday.  Let’s have some fun:

What’s this mystery subway tool for?

[smallspy]

On 12/15/2021 at 6:13 PM, Mark Walton said:

Could be the original test car at Millhaven, near Kingston, but I can't be positive. I rode it at a June 1982 open house there.

It is absolutely the original ICTS test car.

 

I don't know how long it lasted, but by the end of 1983 the later versions that looked more like the ones that made it into service started making their appearance at the facility.

 

Dan

[Wayside Observer]

On 12/17/2021 at 1:20 PM, Wayside Observer said:

It’s Friday.  Let’s have some fun:

What’s this mystery subway tool for?

...nobody?

[Byfold]

15 minutes ago, Wayside Observer said:

...nobody?

Reverse key. 

[Wayside Observer]

11 hours ago, Byfold said:

Reverse key. 

We have a winner!  Do you want to go for the extra points by identifying which equipment it was for?

[Byfold]

2 hours ago, Wayside Observer said:

We have a winner!  Do you want to go for the extra points by identifying which equipment it was for?

G Car I would assume.  The ones for hawkers were much smaller as I have a couple of them. 

[Wayside Observer]

37 minutes ago, Byfold said:

G Car I would assume.  The ones for hawkers were much smaller as I have a couple of them. 

Correct once again!  It’s a reverser key for the British Thompson-Houston master controller on the G cars.

Oddly, I’ve seen these and seen the H car ones, but I never actually saw one for the GE controllers on the Montreallers out of the control stand.  I don’t know if it was the same or different given how BTH was the actual General Electric entity in England (not to be confused with the General Electric Company that used the stylized GEC marking which was a completely different and unrelated company but registered that name there first).

[Cityflyer]

Seems they have added back the 5th station in the Line 1 extension to RHC.

Keith Irish on Twitter: "I'm plsed to share news the provincial govt has added a Royal Orchard station to its Yonge North Subway Extension project. This is good news for #Thornhill. However, this area will likely be designated a “Transit Oriented Community” and we must brace for the impact that'll have. https://t.co/PLzHk9iGGK" / Twitter

[MK78]

Any idea why the TTC would be doing "mainline storage" of trains on LIne 2 during overnight where there isn't any snow in the forecast? Is it because of temperatures that will be into the -20s, are they worried of some Greenwood yard switch issues for the morning rollout?

[smallspy]

11 hours ago, MK78 said:

Is it because of temperatures that will be into the -20s, are they worried of some Greenwood yard switch issues for the morning rollout?

Yes.

 

Dan

[Toro]

On 1/28/2022 at 10:24 PM, MK78 said:

Any idea why the TTC would be doing "mainline storage" of trains on LIne 2 during overnight where there isn't any snow in the forecast? Is it because of temperatures that will be into the -20s, are they worried of some Greenwood yard switch issues for the morning rollout?

Is this in the storage tracks or in the subway stns?

[MK78]

12 hours ago, Toro said:

Is this in the storage tracks or in the subway stns?

Its in the underground sections, in stations. They leave trains parked in the stations at end of service instead of running into the yard, then operators pick the trains up from the stations next morning instead of in the yard. I was aware of them doing it during snow events obviously, but never heard it happening due to simply extreme -20C or below temps. Not sure what the threshold the TTC has for that.

[MK78]

Listening on the TTC radio, and I've just heard dispatch advise operators on Line 2 to reduce speeds to 30km/h in the open cuts, and 40km/h on the Scarborough RT due "High Wind Protocol".

I have a hard time figuring out why. It's not like the winds are gonna tip the train over. What are they worried about?

[T3G]

20 minutes ago, MK78 said:

Listening on the TTC radio, and I've just heard dispatch advise operators on Line 2 to reduce speeds to 30km/h in the open cuts, and 40km/h on the Scarborough RT due "High Wind Protocol".

I have a hard time figuring out why. It's not like the winds are gonna tip the train over. What are they worried about?

Flying debris, maybe?

[MK78]

2 hours ago, T3G said:

Flying debris, maybe?

I dunno but i just came back on the BD in the Vicpark/Warden open cut and the train was going 60km/h according to GPS speed on the phone...