TTC non-Fishbowl Fleet Nostalgia

[Bus_Medic]

I believe 6742 was cobbled back together after an interior fire. One of the dome light ballasts shorted and lit up.

[Cityflyer]

9 hours ago, York Transit said:

Does anyone remember the MCI classic that had an experimental paint scheme back around 1999/2000 or so.

It received the new livery but the back end remained white. I also think the front received a giant fleet number.

I think it was 6293 but I'm not sure if my memory is playing tricks with me and if this bus even existed. I cant find anything online.

Also does anyone know why 6742 had the 1990 CNG style interior complete with cream doors and different lighting? Was it manufactured like that?

You mean 6254?

Photo: ttc 6254f | TTC album | Esbdave | Fotki.com, photo and video sharing made easy.

[Ed T.]

 

On 8/2/2021 at 2:49 PM, Orion V said:

There's no rides this season at this place it seems but the admission price is 50% as a result.

Hopefully next year they'll open the rides back up.

 

On 8/3/2021 at 12:57 PM, Wayside Observer said:

It's Ontario.

I don't know what else to say.

All of the American trolley museums I know of are open and giving rides.  I don't know of any south of the border that are closed or open but not giving rides.  Fort Edmonton Park is open and giving rides.  Semipro football is going in the US.  The Alberta Football League is playing.  The Maritime league is playing and so is Quebec.  Not Ontario.  Last year, a bunch of guys relocated to Quebec because they played but this year their league banned players from Ontario.  The end result was that a bunch of players from the Greater Toronto Area who were able to carpooled to Alberta once they opened up and the season got scheduled and a bunch of teams have got large benches stuffed with guys who relocated from Ontario for the summer in order to be able to play.

And that's pretty much the bottom line.  It's down to how Ontario clamped down on everything so hard for so long, everything got cancelled with very little getting reinstated this year and the result's been the broad cancellation of summer 2021 on top of summer 2020.  The football example is perfect:  If you want to do summer stuff, you can, just not here.

I went there on Saturday August 14. 4178 was out and giving rides all day.

From my conversations, they had problems getting cars operating on the first weekend, but had given rides the weekend of August 7-8. And they plan to give rides for the rest of the season, hopefully on a greater variety of cars. It takes a while to get cars running after they have sat for a year and a half. It's nothing to do with 'Ontario restrictions'.

If you go, you will see the biggest CLRV fleet in the world, including six CLRVs sitting out in the back of the barn. It's as if they are getting ready to do the Long Branch route.

NOTE, you HAVE to buy your tickets in advance, online through the website. Driving up to the gates won't get you in. As I learned the previous weekend. (When I did see 4178 running around the west loop.)

 

 

[Turtle]

18 hours ago, Wayside Observer said:

Anyways, Toronto Rockets do have some unpowered axles but there is still enough horsepower installed on the train that it should be able to do it, so it's more a question of setup with those.  Someone told me several years ago that they thought the Toronto Rockets had purposely been detuned to run more slowly and save energy to be more green.  I have no idea if that's true or not and I'm deeply skeptical that that's the motivation behind the poor performance but wow, when you watch the lights in the tunnels pass by the side windows so slowly it's painful on those uphill runs, never mind COVID-19, you think you're going to die of old age before you get to Finch.

 

The end trucks on the TRs are unpowered. All other trucks are powered. TRs are heavier than the T1s. The TRs could be faster than they are, but they chose for whatever reason to give them that performance. Uphill north of York Mills a T1 will maintain 50+ km/h, where a TR will do 44km/h until it gets to a third rail gap, then it gets lurchy and really sucks. TRs take longer for their propulsion to recover from a third rail gap than a T1 or H series. I remember the H series flying up the stretch north of Eglinton as a kid, but that was people playing with high rate. On the H series, you didn't even need a key, you just needed a jumper wire on the back of the switch. 2" wire with two spring loaded clips is all you needed.

 

The greener argument seems valid, but I would suspect it would have more to do with the older electrical systems not being able to handle more current draw per train * more trains on the line. They are slowly upgrading electrical infrastructure.

[T3G]

3 minutes ago, Ed T. said:

 

 

I went there on Saturday August 14. 4178 was out and giving rides all day.

From my conversations, they had problems getting cars operating on the first weekend, but had given rides the weekend of August 7-8. And they plan to give rides for the rest of the season, hopefully on a greater variety of cars. It takes a while to get cars running after they have sat for a year and a half. It's nothing to do with 'Ontario restrictions'.

If you go, you will see the biggest CLRV fleet in the world, including six CLRVs sitting out in the back of the barn. It's as if they are getting ready to do the Long Branch route.

NOTE, you HAVE to buy your tickets in advance, online through the website. Driving up to the gates won't get you in. As I learned the previous weekend. (When I did see 4178 running around the west loop.)

 

 

I was informed the reason was that they blew a transformer shortly before the planned reopening, so a new one had to be procured.

I was surprised to see that the older cars were in use. I was told only the PCCs and CLRVs could be run for the time being, because the disinfectant materials would ruin the finish on the older cars.

Probably the cleanest the CLRVs have been in their entire lives.

[Cityflyer]

15 minutes ago, PCC Guy said:

I was informed the reason was that they blew a transformer shortly before the planned reopening, so a new one had to be procured.

I was surprised to see that the older cars were in use. I was told only the PCCs and CLRVs could be run for the time being, because the disinfectant materials would ruin the finish on the older cars.

Probably the cleanest the CLRVs have been in their entire lives.

CLRVs use more power than the other equipment HCRR has in their inventory that could run?

Wonder if they'll ever use that ALRV for rides or too troublesome.

[Wayside Observer]

1 hour ago, Ed T. said:

From my conversations, they had problems getting cars operating on the first weekend, but had given rides the weekend of August 7-8. And they plan to give rides for the rest of the season, hopefully on a greater variety of cars. It takes a while to get cars running after they have sat for a year and a half.

Some of us have had fun and ongoing fun with getting cars running that have been sitting for much, much longer than that.

1 hour ago, Ed T. said:

If you go

No, I don't think we need to worry about that.  But I have one shelved PCC waiting for attention somewhere else that hasn't seen 600 V since 2001.  Another's waiting for a truck change after some body work.  May or may not be getting involved in one that's got a serious ABR problem.  That's "limit relay" for people that have only known Westinghouse.  And I need to get off my butt and actually type out the long form notes to go with the MG set regulator card diagram I annotated.  That was fun trying to find parameters for this early silicon power transistor that was OEM'ed by Westinghouse which kind of stuck out because of the values in the bias circuit and what it could shove into the base so I do have some concerns about that.  Anyways, that's what's on my plate.  So, hopefully sometime after September 21st it can turn back into hands on assistance instead of text messages and emails and phone calls...

1 hour ago, Turtle said:

 

The end trucks on the TRs are unpowered. All other trucks are powered. TRs are heavier than the T1s. The TRs could be faster than they are, but they chose for whatever reason to give them that performance. Uphill north of York Mills a T1 will maintain 50+ km/h, where a TR will do 44km/h until it gets to a third rail gap, then it gets lurchy and really sucks. TRs take longer for their propulsion to recover from a third rail gap than a T1 or H series. I remember the H series flying up the stretch north of Eglinton as a kid, but that was people playing with high rate. On the H series, you didn't even need a key, you just needed a jumper wire on the back of the switch. 2" wire with two spring loaded clips is all you needed.

You know, I never saw it done with alligator clips, just key in the switch.  I'm not a fan of the TRs by any stretch.  I remember all the hype leading up to them and then the letdown and disappointment when they previewed one of the first trains to the public at Davisville and I got to see one up close for the first time and I'm standing on the platform looking at this piece of measure once, cut twice manufacturing on the carbody build and then it got worse from there with things like the doors recycle three times and then the train's computer crashes.  That's sloppy software design vs. the rigor that goes into designing finite state machines where each state and transition is specified, including catching and recovering from invalid ones.  The doors recycling three times and part of the system crashes so bad the train needs to be rebooted?  That's just bad.

1 hour ago, Turtle said:

The greener argument seems valid, but I would suspect it would have more to do with the older electrical systems not being able to handle more current draw per train * more trains on the line. They are slowly upgrading electrical infrastructure.

The green story I heard sounded almost like it was speculation.  It's possible but I don't know if it's true or not and you know how carhouse rumours are...  The electrical system might be a problem.  That whole high rate report I mentioned in one of the threads that talked about reinstalling negative cabling in order to allow high rate again sticks out but the unanswered questions there about what happened and why negative cabling was removed in the first place still stand.  Everything else being equal, the TRs are heavier, but then the line used to be packed with more trains back in the 80s when subway ridership hit its all time high and many of those were Gloucesters which weighed more per car than anything else including the TRs and added an additional two cars per train and ate electricity like nobody's business so I think the worst case scenario for power consumption on the line was back then instead of now, which really throws into question what happened to the power infrastructure if Toronto Rocket performance had to be detuned to accommodate it.

Apparently when the subway opened, the TTC's hydro bills exploded and when the Gloucesters were being retired, the drop was noticeable.  The kWh those trains chewed through were something else.

[Turtle]

2 hours ago, Wayside Observer said:

 That whole high rate report I mentioned in one of the threads that talked about reinstalling negative cabling in order to allow high rate again sticks out but the unanswered questions there about what happened and why negative cabling was removed in the first place still stand.  Everything else being equal, the TRs are heavier, but then the line used to be packed with more trains back in the 80s

High rate operation has been reserved for disablements for the past few decades, at least since they started being stricter with the rules because of the Russell Hill accident. I don't think you will see it returned to normal service practice anytime soon, regardless of the condition of the traction power systems in the tunnels. 

 

The only time you'll see it being used is on a train with two or more cars cut out, and that would be for a short time until it could be run in, even then they are reluctant to place them into high rate

[Orion V]

I remember a few months ago there was a link to someone's site on old TTC bus pics. One of the albums has the Classics model with the original 1987 rear number which was written in large white fonts on the black zigzag part of the rear. After a few years, they were moved to a little low to the white portion and the numbers became black.

This person's album had at least one pic showing the rear of the Classic with its original rear number placement. Does anyone know which site it is and the link to is?

[T3G]

CLRV 4045 westbound on Queen's Quay at York on December 14, 2008.

Count how many things in this photo can no longer be seen.

[Wayside Observer]

1 hour ago, PCC Guy said:

CLRV 4045 westbound on Queen's Quay at York on December 14, 2008.

Count how many things in this photo can no longer be seen.

I can't count that high but that's a great picture though.

[T3G]

8 minutes ago, Wayside Observer said:

I can't count that high but that's a great picture though.

Thanks. Photos from that era can be pretty hit and miss as it definitely didn't occur to me at any point to actually put some though into composition, so any usable photos are more of an accident than anything. Alas, the folly of youth!

[Orion V]

3 hours ago, PCC Guy said:

Thanks. Photos from that era can be pretty hit and miss as it definitely didn't occur to me at any point to actually put some though into composition, so any usable photos are more of an accident than anything. Alas, the folly of youth!

I cheated and went to streetview back and forth between 2021 and their oldest (2007/2009).

Amazing pic regardless!

[Xtrazsteve]

One thing is for sure. Transit is significantly slower on QQ now.

[Wayside Observer]

22 hours ago, PCC Guy said:

Thanks. Photos from that era can be pretty hit and miss as it definitely didn't occur to me at any point to actually put some though into composition, so any usable photos are more of an accident than anything. Alas, the folly of youth!

Everyone taking pictures started out like that, but accident or not, the composition's good and the exposure's perfect.

It captures what it's like to be out on a dreary late fall afternoon with the crummy weather, the last of the sun going quickly with the headlight and tail lights of the cars already brighter than the sky and the lit up interior of the streetcar is visible.  A lot of people didn't take pictures like this.  There's no shortage of beautiful blue sky spring/summer/fall day pictures out there but very few capturing what it was like to be out in the elements on that afternoon trip home while it's cold, wet, raw and gloomy going on getting dark quickly waiting for the next streetcar to come so you could get into the warmth and dry, find a seat and know you were going to be on your way.

[FlyerD901]

On 8/23/2021 at 8:41 PM, Orion V said:

I remember a few months ago there was a link to someone's site on old TTC bus pics. One of the albums has the Classics model with the original 1987 rear number which was written in large white fonts on the black zigzag part of the rear. After a few years, they were moved to a little low to the white portion and the numbers became black.

This person's album had at least one pic showing the rear of the Classic with its original rear number placement. Does anyone know which site it is and the link to is?

There was a short clip of it in the Toronto Buses videos by Neilson when you get to the Classics section. you can briefly see it.

[Shaun]

On 8/23/2021 at 11:11 AM, Wayside Observer said:

Some of us have had fun and ongoing fun with getting cars running that have been sitting for much, much longer than that.

No, I don't think we need to worry about that.  But I have one shelved PCC waiting for attention somewhere else that hasn't seen 600 V since 2001.  Another's waiting for a truck change after some body work.  May or may not be getting involved in one that's got a serious ABR problem.  That's "limit relay" for people that have only known Westinghouse.  And I need to get off my butt and actually type out the long form notes to go with the MG set regulator card diagram I annotated.  That was fun trying to find parameters for this early silicon power transistor that was OEM'ed by Westinghouse which kind of stuck out because of the values in the bias circuit and what it could shove into the base so I do have some concerns about that.  Anyways, that's what's on my plate.  So, hopefully sometime after September 21st it can turn back into hands on assistance instead of text messages and emails and phone calls...

You know, I never saw it done with alligator clips, just key in the switch.  I'm not a fan of the TRs by any stretch.  I remember all the hype leading up to them and then the letdown and disappointment when they previewed one of the first trains to the public at Davisville and I got to see one up close for the first time and I'm standing on the platform looking at this piece of measure once, cut twice manufacturing on the carbody build and then it got worse from there with things like the doors recycle three times and then the train's computer crashes.  That's sloppy software design vs. the rigor that goes into designing finite state machines where each state and transition is specified, including catching and recovering from invalid ones.  The doors recycling three times and part of the system crashes so bad the train needs to be rebooted?  That's just bad.

The green story I heard sounded almost like it was speculation.  It's possible but I don't know if it's true or not and you know how carhouse rumours are...  The electrical system might be a problem.  That whole high rate report I mentioned in one of the threads that talked about reinstalling negative cabling in order to allow high rate again sticks out but the unanswered questions there about what happened and why negative cabling was removed in the first place still stand.  Everything else being equal, the TRs are heavier, but then the line used to be packed with more trains back in the 80s when subway ridership hit its all time high and many of those were Gloucesters which weighed more per car than anything else including the TRs and added an additional two cars per train and ate electricity like nobody's business so I think the worst case scenario for power consumption on the line was back then instead of now, which really throws into question what happened to the power infrastructure if Toronto Rocket performance had to be detuned to accommodate it.

Apparently when the subway opened, the TTC's hydro bills exploded and when the Gloucesters were being retired, the drop was noticeable.  The kWh those trains chewed through were something else.

There are a lot of good features about the TR's. They are quiet, the AC and heat work.  They are bright and the ride is smooth.

It may not be as interesting or as fast, but they are also reliable. 

Before the TR'S things where faster but the trains where dark and grimy. H1's use to sway side to side at high speeds making it hard to stand still. 

The H5's where great while they where new but even after rebuilt had problems with their AC and tend to lean too much scraping poles at Davisviile.  

The likely reason why they don't let them go as fast as they can is to save energy. 

[T3G]

Today marks 10 years since the retirement of the H4 cars.

I feel a million years old.

https://live.staticflickr.com/7438/9873694745_dd0708c795_h.jpg[/img]

[Kobayashi]

It’s time to add up some information regarding the 1996 Orion V diesel group expanded history thanks to @T3G's knowledge.

#7000-#7134 were delivered in 1996 as replacements for the Orion IIIs at first. From the beginning, Malvern division had #7000, #7004, #7031, #7032, #7035, #7036, #7039, #7040, #7042, #7044-#7046, #7068-#7134 delivered while Arrow Road originally had #7001-#7003, #7005-#7030, #7033, #7034, #7037, #7038, #7041, #7043, #7047-#7067 delivered there. The first 11 buses from Malvern group were transferred to Arrow in September 1996 with #7000 joined Arrow Road in December 1996. Buses #7068-#7073 joined them later, in the spring of 1997, and #7074-#7076 at the end of that summer thus the allocations were as follows in March 1998:

- #7000-#7076 at Arrow Road (77) - assigned to routes 36, 46, 60, 84*, 108
- #7077-#7134 at Malvern (58) - assigned to routes 21, 39, 53, 57, 85*, 128
* - Accessible services eliminated on September 6, 1998 from routes 84 SHEPPARD WEST and 85 SHEPPARD EAST east of Brimley during weekday periods.

From April 1998, #7065-#7076 were transferred to Malvern to increase then later replace some of the retiring 1987 D40 and some Orion III buses and Arrow gained buses #7065-#7072 by January 2000. By 2001, buses #7000-#7087 were equipped with the UWE heating system for the preparation of the opening of New Eglinton Garage, which opened in April 2002 and 88 buses moved there. Starting in 2003, #7072-#7078, #7080-#7087 were transferred to Malvern (as of February 1, 2003) to replace the retiring 1990 D40s with the remainder of the batch from New Eglinton: #7000-#7071, #7079 moved there when the 2003 Orion VIIs arrived and thus consolidating the entire 135 Orion V batch at Malvern, where it remained until February 13, 2015.

If anyone here like @Shemar or @Xtrazsteve can edit the wiki to include this information, that would be appreciated.

Here in this photo taken in January 2013, #7042 a Malvern bus delivered there, operates on route 199 FINCH ROCKET:

[Shaun]

On 2/21/2022 at 1:47 PM, Kobayashi said:

It’s time to add up some information regarding the 1996 Orion V diesel group expanded history thanks to @T3G's knowledge.

#7000-#7134 were delivered in 1996 as replacements for the Orion IIIs at first. From the beginning, Malvern division had #7000, #7004, #7031, #7032, #7035, #7036, #7039, #7040, #7042, #7044-#7046, #7068-#7134 delivered while Arrow Road originally had #7001-#7003, #7005-#7030, #7033, #7034, #7037, #7038, #7041, #7043, #7047-#7067 delivered there. The first 11 buses from Malvern group were transferred to Arrow in September 1996 with #7000 joined Arrow Road in December 1996. Buses #7068-#7073 joined them later, in the spring of 1997, and #7074-#7076 at the end of that summer thus the allocations were as follows in March 1998:

- #7000-#7076 at Arrow Road (77) - assigned to routes 36, 46, 60, 84*, 108
- #7077-#7134 at Malvern (58) - assigned to routes 21, 39, 53, 57, 85*, 128
* - Accessible services eliminated on September 6, 1998 from routes 84 SHEPPARD WEST and 85 SHEPPARD EAST east of Brimley during weekday periods.

From April 1998, #7065-#7076 were transferred to Malvern to increase then later replace some of the retiring 1987 D40 and some Orion III buses and Arrow gained buses #7065-#7072 by January 2000. By 2001, buses #7000-#7087 were equipped with the UWE heating system for the preparation of the opening of New Eglinton Garage, which opened in April 2002 and 88 buses moved there. Starting in 2003, #7072-#7078, #7080-#7087 were transferred to Malvern (as of February 1, 2003) to replace the retiring 1990 D40s with the remainder of the batch from New Eglinton: #7000-#7071, #7079 moved there when the 2003 Orion VIIs arrived and thus consolidating the entire 135 Orion V batch at Malvern, where it remained until February 13, 2015.

If anyone here like @Shemar or @Xtrazsteve can edit the wiki to include this information, that would be appreciated.

Here in this photo taken in January 2013, #7042 a Malvern bus delivered there, operates on route 199 FINCH ROCKET:

These buses were fast. Didn't smoke as much as the New Flyers. I think the EGR's smoked more than these did. 

[T3G]

April 22, 2017. The unrefurbished ALRVs that time forgot. 4235, 4244, 4251.

By the same day the next year, all of these units were retired.

[Ed T.]

First-person reminiscences:

https://www.blogto.com/city/2021/09/streetcars-yonge-st-toronto/

We're getting very close to the end of people being able to recall riding the Yonge streetcars. If you figure that they should be say 8 years old to remember a whole lot, they'd have to be born right around the end of World War II, and that's getting to be 77 years ago. And they would only have memories from the last days of the carline.

[tomsbuspage]

6 hours ago, Ed T. said:

First-person reminiscences:

https://www.blogto.com/city/2021/09/streetcars-yonge-st-toronto/

We're getting very close to the end of people being able to recall riding the Yonge streetcars. If you figure that they should be say 8 years old to remember a whole lot, they'd have to be born right around the end of World War II, and that's getting to be 77 years ago. And they would only have memories from the last days of the carline.

My dad was born in 1945 and would be right in that age group.  He lived on Bathurst Street in the early 1950s and remembered how the nearest car stop was more than a mile away before Metro Toronto was created in 1954, but there were buses passing by his front door soon after.  He also told us about Hurricane Hazel--the storm, not the mayor--and about riding the streetcars and subways at the time.  We visited Toronto when I was young boy in 1981, and he mentioned how much lower the handholds seemed to be on the subways and the streetcars.

Dad's long gone now but I still think of him when I see articles like this one.

[Wayside Observer]

I had a surprise shoot the breeze this afternoon just as the weather was getting crummy when I hoofed it up the street to the store and back home to get a couple things I forgot.  There was a couple sitting on their front porch under an awning and we started talking, and it turns out all three of us all lived northwest of Yonge and Eglinton towards the end of the trolleybus era.

We had a laugh about how we probably crossed paths on the rush hour 61 Nortown back in the day without realizing it.  But mostly, we were reminiscing about the Nortown trolleybus and Eglinton station as hub in between starting or finishing trips on the trolleybus and the bulk of the journey on the subway, especially back when Gloucesters were in heavy rotation.

Eglinton station was great back then, pretty much up until a couple of years before the bus bay concrete slab cracked and they built the temporary terminal.  You had almsost everything you could need with two convenience stores (Garfield plus another place), a full grocery store (Kitchen Table) next to the Second Cup, the pizza place, Cinnabon, the shoe repair shop, Sketchley cleaners, a couple of small clothing shops, a shoe repair shop, and a few other businesses all inside the fare paid area which was important before timed fares where you couldn't jump out and back in unless you were in a location where the transfer rules could be bent unless you had a Metropass.

Also being a crummy fall day today, we were talking about how the Duplex Ave. token/Metropass entrance was a lifesaver after bus service got slashed and more often than not we'd end up walking to the subway.  Having a Metropass and being able to jump in that entrance out of the cold and wet when the weather was yucky was great and then being able to stop for something warm at the pizza place or Second Cup or Cinnabon was fantastic when time wasn't tight before continuing on the rest of the way.  The same applied going the other way back home before heading down the long hallway and waiting for the light to flash when the trolleybus arrived - or seeing the light flashing way, way down and tearing down almost the whole length of the bus bay hallway at full speed hoping the flashing light wouldn't go out partway there.  Or worse - getting all the way there, flying through the doors and racing up the stairs just in time to see the ends of the two poles disappearing around the corner.  We had a great laugh at that, all of us having been there and done that.  But a pizza slice or a cinnamon bun or hot coffee on a crappy fall evening before climbing into a warm Flyer and crashing into one of the comfortable bench seats for the final leg of the trip home purring along Eglinton and then booting it up Avenue Rd. used to hit the spot perfectly.

[Wayside Observer]

I forgot to mention Ticketmaster.  Uggghhh, retch, Ticketmaster.  There was a Ticketmaster outlet in Eglinton station too for the longest time which was the most convenient place, I think might have been the only place, in the neighbourhood at the time to buy tickets to events that were being sold through Ticketmaster.  I saw more than one argument between people who wanted to visit Ticketmaster without paying a fare because they weren't going to be travelling anywhere on the TTC but needed to get inside the station to visit the business.