TTC Trolley Coach reminescing

[Orion VI]

On 11/25/2018 at 4:42 PM, Downsview 108 said:

Here's a video of Hamilton TCs. At 1:08 you can see one being operated with the battery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x4mJ8I5ZjE

Here's a comment on that video: 

As a former HSR trolley operator I can tell you that the 7800 was not operating on battery power. The 7800's were equipped with motor-generator sets (APU's) that powered the traction motor when the poles were locked down. The 700's were pushed into and around the Wentworth garage...a somewhat dangerous practice for the obvious reason the push vehicle driver couldn't see what the trolley driver could and that lead to a few minor collisions leading to removing the 700's from service.

 

 

 

 

[Ed T.]

When the old trolley coaches were rebodied to become the E700 Flyers*, what happened to the weight of the coach? Did it drop or go up?

* Was the old frame even kept? Or was it a new body, with the old electrical equipment installed? I'm not sure if the technical details of the 'rebodying' are online somewhere. I imagine Flyer produced an empty rolling chassis, then put in the electrical propulsion and controls from the old coaches.

[Wayside Observer]

1 hour ago, Ed T. said:

When the old trolley coaches were rebodied to become the E700 Flyers*, what happened to the weight of the coach? Did it drop or go up?

* Was the old frame even kept? Or was it a new body, with the old electrical equipment installed? I'm not sure if the technical details of the 'rebodying' are online somewhere. I imagine Flyer produced an empty rolling chassis, then put in the electrical propulsion and controls from the old coaches.

It was a whole new body and empty bodies were shipped to the TTC from Flyer, and the TTC did the equipment transplant at Hillcrest.

[Ed T.]

7 minutes ago, Wayside Observer said:

It was a whole new body and empty bodies were shipped to the TTC from Flyer, and the TTC did the equipment transplant at Hillcrest.

Okay, makes sense. I just have heard 'rebodied' thrown around, and wanted to make sure I knew what really happened.

Still interested in the weight differences between the Brill/CanCar TCs (which I believe were the main donors) and the Flyer TCs. I'm interested because I'm wondering which may have been lighter, and thus had higher performance.

[Downsview 108]

5 hours ago, Ed T. said:

When the old trolley coaches were rebodied to become the E700 Flyers*, what happened to the weight of the coach? Did it drop or go up?

* Was the old frame even kept? Or was it a new body, with the old electrical equipment installed? I'm not sure if the technical details of the 'rebodying' are online somewhere. I imagine Flyer produced an empty rolling chassis, then put in the electrical propulsion and controls from the old coaches.

The only non flyer equipment I believe were the motors and control equipment. 

[Wayside Observer]

3 hours ago, Ed T. said:

Still interested in the weight differences between the Brill/CanCar TCs (which I believe were the main donors) and the Flyer TCs. I'm interested because I'm wondering which may have been lighter, and thus had higher performance.

It's an interesting question for sure but I don't have an answer for that one and I'm curious as well.  I doubt the weights would've been too far apart though but if anything, the Flyers were a touch light and lightly loaded coaches were known to handle poorly in bad weather and they could take a while to stop when at speed.  It happened to me on one of the downhill sections of Avenue Rd. a couple of times where the driver couldn't get a fast moving Flyer stopped in time for my stop and I'd end up getting dropped off at the next one.  There were two crosswalks where there are traffic lights now and traffic wasn't as heavy either so they could and did get moving in places once they turned off Eglinton.

If I remember correctly, Flyer shipped the bus bodies in primer and the TTC did the final paint jobs on them in house at Hillcrest along with the equipment transplants from the donor CCF Brills.  My understanding is that the original motor generator sets were replaced with motor alternator sets to power the AC ballast fluorescent lighting on the Flyers with a rectifier stack to make DC for the control power and battery charging circuits.  The 1970s PCC rebuild program didn't get started in earnest until the CCF Brill -> Flyer project was done because of the shop time and space it was occupying at Hillcrest.

Speaking of Flyers on Avenue Rd. at speed, there was a park a bit less than a block in from Avenue Rd. and after dark on warm summer and fall evenings once traffic died down you could still barely hear the Flyers passing by.  When there was no other traffic, and any other engine sound buried it, if you listened carefully, you could hear the whirring sound of the tires briefly as it passed by but that was it.  The subtlety of how quiet those buses were at full speed was impressive. 

[smallspy]

16 hours ago, Ed T. said:

Still interested in the weight differences between the Brill/CanCar TCs (which I believe were the main donors) and the Flyer TCs. I'm interested because I'm wondering which may have been lighter, and thus had higher performance.

I still haven't found my old TTC pamphlets - I'm still looking for them - but it looks like Transit Toronto may have put some of the information from them up on their website, including things like weights.

 

CC&F coaches - https://www.transit.toronto.on.ca/trolleybus/9502.shtml

Flyer coaches - https://www.transit.toronto.on.ca/trolleybus/9503.shtml

 

Dan

[Ed T.]

13 hours ago, Wayside Observer said:

Speaking of Flyers on Avenue Rd. at speed, there was a park a bit less than a block in from Avenue Rd. and after dark on warm summer and fall evenings once traffic died down you could still barely hear the Flyers passing by.  When there was no other traffic, and any other engine sound buried it, if you listened carefully, you could hear the whirring sound of the tires briefly as it passed by but that was it.  The subtlety of how quiet those buses were at full speed was impressive. 

I was thinking "Avenue Road never had trolley coaches" and then I remembered Nortown. There was often also a sibilant twanging sound from the overhead as they passed by.

 

32 minutes ago, smallspy said:

I still haven't found my old TTC pamphlets - I'm still looking for them - but it looks like Transit Toronto may have put some of the information from them up on their website, including things like weights.

 

CC&F coaches - https://www.transit.toronto.on.ca/trolleybus/9502.shtml

Flyer coaches - https://www.transit.toronto.on.ca/trolleybus/9503.shtml

Thanks! That shows that the Flyers were a bit heavier than the CanCars, though not by much.

An original Can Car back in the late '40s would have given the typical passenger car of the day a very good run for its money.

I was poking around Transit Toronto yesterday and didn't come across the above, but I did contact James to update some stuff on the Trolley Coach FAQ page.

[Wayside Observer]

1 hour ago, smallspy said:

I still haven't found my old TTC pamphlets - I'm still looking for them - but it looks like Transit Toronto may have put some of the information from them up on their website, including things like weights.

Same here.  I can't find some of mine and I wonder if they got split up the last time I moved.  I'll have to take a look at the site.  It's been a few years and I'm sure it's been updated several times at least.

1 hour ago, Ed T. said:

I was thinking "Avenue Road never had trolley coaches" and then I remembered Nortown. There was often also a sibilant twanging sound from the overhead as they passed by.

The wires would also sometimes sing before the coach arrived too.  Whatever ears or switches the poles were passing by upstream would twang and it would carry down the wires so in some locations, you had fairly reliable audible cue that your bus was coming soon even if it was still out of sight around a corner.  Yes, Nortown.  Just due to location, I ended up using the Eglinton div. trolleycoach lines all the time but rarely ever set foot on the lines that ran out of Lansdowne, which seems to be the opposite of most people who rode Lansdowne trolleycoaches but not the three lines out of Eglinton.  Unfortunately, it's way, way too late to do anything about that now.

[Mark Walton]

On 1/15/2019 at 8:43 PM, Wayside Observer said:

It's an interesting question for sure but I don't have an answer for that one and I'm curious as well.  I doubt the weights would've been too far apart though but if anything, the Flyers were a touch light and lightly loaded coaches were known to handle poorly in bad weather and they could take a while to stop when at speed.  It happened to me on one of the downhill sections of Avenue Rd. a couple of times where the driver couldn't get a fast moving Flyer stopped in time for my stop and I'd end up getting dropped off at the next one.  There were two crosswalks where there are traffic lights now and traffic wasn't as heavy either so they could and did get moving in places once they turned off Eglinton.

If I remember correctly, Flyer shipped the bus bodies in primer and the TTC did the final paint jobs on them in house at Hillcrest along with the equipment transplants from the donor CCF Brills.  My understanding is that the original motor generator sets were replaced with motor alternator sets to power the AC ballast fluorescent lighting on the Flyers with a rectifier stack to make DC for the control power and battery charging circuits.  The 1970s PCC rebuild program didn't get started in earnest until the CCF Brill -> Flyer project was done because of the shop time and space it was occupying at Hillcrest.

Speaking of Flyers on Avenue Rd. at speed, there was a park a bit less than a block in from Avenue Rd. and after dark on warm summer and fall evenings once traffic died down you could still barely hear the Flyers passing by.  When there was no other traffic, and any other engine sound buried it, if you listened carefully, you could hear the whirring sound of the tires briefly as it passed by but that was it.  The subtlety of how quiet those buses were at full speed was impressive. 

To standardize around GE, TTC got abut 20 used Brills from Halifax and Cornwall. After the rebuild was finished in May or June 1972 they retired all the Marmon-Herringtons, which had Westinghouse motors.

[GrandeWest_B35G]

When was the last day of Brill coach operation?

[Wayside Observer]

14 hours ago, Mark Walton said:

To standardize around GE, TTC got abut 20 used Brills from Halifax and Cornwall. After the rebuild was finished in May or June 1972 they retired all the Marmon-Herringtons, which had Westinghouse motors.

I was talking with a friend about this over coffee a couple of weeks ago in the context of Ray Corley who got started at Canadian General Electric before going to TTC.  The TTC used to be primarily a Westinghouse shop.  All 745 PCC cars they bought, the H1-4 cars, were all Westinghouse motors and controllers except for some of the later H cars that had the WH controller but third party motors.  The only things post-Peter Witt cars that came to mind that were CGE instead of CWL were the trolleybuses and the Montrealers.

14 hours ago, Imgursdownvote4love said:

When was the last day of Brill coach operation?

I don't know for sure but in that same conversation, we were talking about how once the North Yonge extension opened and killed the Yonge trolleybus, that decimated the non-Flyer fleet for sure if it didn't kill it off outright.

[Mark Walton]

On 5/29/2019 at 6:27 PM, Imgursdownvote4love said:

When was the last day of Brill coach operation?

Probably around the time the rebuild finished.

[GrandeWest_B35G]

1 hour ago, Mark Walton said:

Probably around the time the rebuild finished.

That is very helpful, thank you.