General WTF Moments

[Wayside Observer]

On November 22, 2019 at 3:07 AM, Downsview 108 said:

To be honest, I had no idea that there was more than one kid hired as "interns" for GPS video. As I said, suspect as fuck. A bunch of teens going over to a middle aged man's house to work with VCRs? My mother and the mother of one of my transit friends at the time were a couple that did go ballistic.

The fact that the idea of a TTS Youth () was raised told me back then that there was some rift between the old farts and those of us who were teens and in our early 20s at the time. And LOL! I remember the first newsletter with "Living Colour". I think it was the January 2000 issue. Sorry, the January 20000 issue as there was a misprint. 5 figures and they couldn't afford to hire someone to proofread? LOL. It didn't help that the old farts wanted to veto every charter that would appeal to the younger fellows. Thank god there was the OTA at the time which was a charter group with mostly younger people. And those charters were cheap. Never more than $20 bucks.

There were at least four kids that I know of that got "hired" at different times.  Actually, I saw one interesting exchange at HCRR when Neilson was delivering tapes to the gift shop and a bunch of old codgers hanging around outside asked where the previous kid was and Ray's response was, "I fired him!" and that got a few laughs.  Even the old grumps at Halton observed and joked around about the staff turnover I guess you could call it.  And that was the extent of it and everyone went on making money which seems to be prime directive number one with the Toronto foam groups: suck money in by any means necessary.  Anything else is a number two consideration and by number two, a distant number two.

I forgot about that TTS Youth branch idea that got floated.  That idea seemed to wither on the vine almost immediately.  I actually saw a prepress copy of the TTS newsletter once back then in the early 2000s.  Every page was pasted up on pica spaced layout paper and that's what got turned over to the printing company.  I couldn't believe it.  I hadn't seen or done a pasteup job on layout paper since I was in high school and that's only because the transition was underway to digital well before that and the visual arts information design class I was in was still training everyone how to do it that way and how to do it online with Aldus Pagemaker running on a bunch of very early Power PC Macs since both methods were in use.  I'm glad I caught the transition between the old ways of doing things and the new and got to do a lot of both as the long tail of the end of the old technology played out until recently.  But, by the time I saw this going on at TTS, it that was thoroughly antique for new publication page layouts but physically handling the photos and the text and laying it out and then pasting it, that would've provided a lot of opportunity to see that typo.

On November 22, 2019 at 3:07 AM, Downsview 108 said:

Ugh. I am seriously weighing the benefits of going to the CLRV last run. Now that I hear the TTC is holding some kind of weird lottery to ride the last car, we may be faced with a horde of disgruntled foamers who are likely to come back wielding switch irons and tiki torches chanting "you will not replace us!".

I was talking with some friends wondering how the last CLRV run was going to be handled since the ALRV was packed like a sardine.  I caught the last ALRV as it was heading in at Queen & Bathurst and I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get on.  I smooshed myself in the rear door and made it though.  I guess we now have our answer on that and I guess there's the officially staged last run plus the last run for the public.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that other than take some rides of my own over the next few weeks.  I don't think foamers could handle either switchirons or tiki torches responsibly.  With respect to the tiki torches, I could see a foamer committing an act of self immolation except nobody would ever be able to determine if it's a deliberate act of protest or an accident.

On November 22, 2019 at 3:07 AM, Downsview 108 said:

I'll be honest. I always liked the T1s and when they came in I thought they shared a lot of similarities with the Gloucesters they "spiritually" replaced. Aside from the fleet numbers, like the G's they have less rounded windows, they re-introduced those metal hangers, the rollsign font was closer to the TTC Subway font, etc. I like them more than the H6s that's for sure. They have a clean, tidy appearance and that's what I like. I was literally in kindergarten the last time I remember riding the Gloucesters but even at that age and having not really ridden the subway that often, the seeds of foam were already planted and I preferred those cars to the others. H1s at that time were like riding the T1s today. Considered booooring. Plus back then they used to mix up the classes so you never knew what you were going to get. Don't like the H5s you're on, walk tot he middle car which is an H1. Door chimes I don't care about. I don't like them and I still miss the two whistles. Even though you couldn't even hear them on cars with the fans going.

Having grown up in the middle part of Toronto and riding the subway frequently, I was on Gloucesters all the time and the subway really was a meh experience after the last of those were retired.  Although, trains of mixed cars where everything from an M1 through an H6 could and did mix.  When the H6s were new, there were problems where trains of solid H6s would act up and the TTC got around that until the bugs were ironed out by dropping something else in between two H6 units.  Trains that were formed out of an H6-M1-H6 were wild to ride on if you were in the middle because the Montrealer would accelerate and brake quicker than the sixes.  The two M1 cars would go slam once as the train started and then sit pushed up as close to the leading H6 as the draft gear in the couplers would allow.  Then, during braking, the M1 would be slamming and shuddering like crazy while the H6s on either side of it would keep on cruising as they gradually slowed down, dragging the M1 that was trying to stop along for the ride the whole time.  I don't remember exactly when it happened or what the reasoning was but the TTC went from mixed bag subway trains as a rule to never mixing car classes as the new rule sometime in the late 1990s.

[Downsview 108]

1 hour ago, Wayside Observer said:

There were at least four kids that I know of that got "hired" at different times.  Actually, I saw one interesting exchange at HCRR when Neilson was delivering tapes to the gift shop and a bunch of old codgers hanging around outside asked where the previous kid was and Ray's response was, "I fired him!" and that got a few laughs.  Even the old grumps at Halton observed and joked around about the staff turnover I guess you could call it.  And that was the extent of it and everyone went on making money which seems to be prime directive number one with the Toronto foam groups: suck money in by any means necessary.  Anything else is a number two consideration and by number two, a distant number two.

I forgot about that TTS Youth branch idea that got floated.  That idea seemed to wither on the vine almost immediately.  I actually saw a prepress copy of the TTS newsletter once back then in the early 2000s.  Every page was pasted up on pica spaced layout paper and that's what got turned over to the printing company.  I couldn't believe it.  I hadn't seen or done a pasteup job on layout paper since I was in high school and that's only because the transition was underway to digital well before that and the visual arts information design class I was in was still training everyone how to do it that way and how to do it online with Aldus Pagemaker running on a bunch of very early Power PC Macs since both methods were in use.  I'm glad I caught the transition between the old ways of doing things and the new and got to do a lot of both as the long tail of the end of the old technology played out until recently.  But, by the time I saw this going on at TTS, it that was thoroughly antique for new publication page layouts but physically handling the photos and the text and laying it out and then pasting it, that would've provided a lot of opportunity to see that typo.

I was talking with some friends wondering how the last CLRV run was going to be handled since the ALRV was packed like a sardine.  I caught the last ALRV as it was heading in at Queen & Bathurst and I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get on.  I smooshed myself in the rear door and made it though.  I guess we now have our answer on that and I guess there's the officially staged last run plus the last run for the public.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that other than take some rides of my own over the next few weeks.  I don't think foamers could handle either switchirons or tiki torches responsibly.  With respect to the tiki torches, I could see a foamer committing an act of self immolation except nobody would ever be able to determine if it's a deliberate act of protest or an accident.

Having grown up in the middle part of Toronto and riding the subway frequently, I was on Gloucesters all the time and the subway really was a meh experience after the last of those were retired.  Although, trains of mixed cars where everything from an M1 through an H6 could and did mix.  When the H6s were new, there were problems where trains of solid H6s would act up and the TTC got around that until the bugs were ironed out by dropping something else in between two H6 units.  Trains that were formed out of an H6-M1-H6 were wild to ride on if you were in the middle because the Montrealer would accelerate and brake quicker than the sixes.  The two M1 cars would go slam once as the train started and then sit pushed up as close to the leading H6 as the draft gear in the couplers would allow.  Then, during braking, the M1 would be slamming and shuddering like crazy while the H6s on either side of it would keep on cruising as they gradually slowed down, dragging the M1 that was trying to stop along for the ride the whole time.  I don't remember exactly when it happened or what the reasoning was but the TTC went from mixed bag subway trains as a rule to never mixing car classes as the new rule sometime in the late 1990s.

I am almost positive I know who you're referring to or at least one of those "employees" but I will not name names. You're not kidding about Toronto foamer greed. Just look at some of the TTC memorabilia selling on eBay. I've seen CUT transfers from the modern era selling for like 10 bucks, current maps for 5 bucks, and other ridiculousness.

I remember the TTS meeting where the TTC Youth idea was raised only to be derided by the old farts. I didn't know Metro hall provided the room for free so a TTC Youth would have been perfectly viable. I think a better idea would have been to bring that idea to the OTA at the time who were mostly young people. The OTA could have their own meetings and we could charter vehicles manufactured post-1950 without the old geezers objecting like this was some jury trial.

Yeah, the TTS were sure proud of themselves when they put out that issue with the one colour page. It's was as if they just discovered colour copiers. Your $40 membership at work. I guess those newsletters don't even matter much anymore with there being way more information on the internet. I get all the info I need from this forum alone.

That's why I didn't bother going to the ALRV run. Glad I didn't. My last memory of seeing an ALRV was a nice quiet Sunday morning and I am happy to keep it that way rather than being squashed by foamers. I don't remember the last time I rode one, however. The museum has one so I'm cool.

I remember the mixed M1 trains! I remember them on the YUS up until 1990 or so. I remember them when I first started noticing the Identra coil when I was a kid wondering what it was. Doesn't surprise me that the M1s had better acceleration and braking to those H6s. They'd have been better off if they rebuilt the gloucesters and installed A/C. Back then they mixed everything willy nilly which couldn't have been that great in the summer when only 2/3 or 1/3 cars had A/C. Later on they only mixed similar classes. No camshaft with chopper cars. I remember 20 years ago they mixed H2's with H1's in mostly a H2-H1-H2 config on the YUS. When they just retired the M1s in may of 99 I remember riding a complete H1 train on the BD which probably hasn't happened in decades. Shortly after that they mixed the cars in the same H2-H1-H2 or even H2-H1-H4 configuration as the H1s lived out their final days. It was nice to ride an H1 on the B-D. The last time the TTC mixed classes I think was in 2000 when they mixed the H2s and H4s.

[Seashore_518203]

On 11/19/2019 at 12:50 PM, Wayside Observer said:

 I walked (ran?) away around 2001 for many of the same reasons.  Toronto Transportation Society?  No.  Uh-huh.  Absolutely not.  Do you remember how they used to print this obscene list of terms and conditions on their charter tickets telling you what you could and could not do with the pictures you took with the film and processing you paid for on the charter you paid for?  Multiple people got angry phone calls from Neilson about violations of that.  I took him to task on the double standard about that when he's cutting together film from the same charters and selling it for personal gain and got told that this was 'different'.  Of course it is.  Never mind all the other disgusting overreach the TTS tried to inflict on members personal lives in terms of what you can do, who you can be friends with (Can you say Alan Gryfe?  Can you say guilt by association?) and so on and so forth not to mention a lot of the other deeply unethical possibly stunts that got pulled that frankly, I don't want to get into.

Then you have the Halton County Radial Railway.  One of my friends adamantly swears up and down that it's different now from back then when it was a geriatric ward full of the most miserable, nasty geezers you could ever find.  You'd think HCRR and TTS would be like peas in a pod but no, the HCRR has a massive hate for the TTS.  I know this because I was with two friends from the Philadelphia area riding streetcars in Toronto a few years ago with some HCRR member who turned his attention towards me while the four of us were in the back of an ALRV and demanded to know if I was a TTS member.  I said no because I wasn't and this guy went off on me about how he was at a TTS meeting and blah blah blah and tore a hell of a strip out of me, meanwhile I have nothing to do with either group and I don't want to have anything to do with either group, and I'm sitting there thinking, "I can't believe I'm wasting a day off work listening to this shit."  So yeah, organized foam?  No.  Absolutely not.  No way.  Not signing up for that.  So, I'm either doing what I want to do on my own or with a couple of friends and that's it.  I've bitten my tongue and gone on a couple of charters, open houses, last runs and wow.  Just wow.  Wow.

Well, let's correct a few things here. For the TTS, you mention Ray Neilson (rest in peace) and Alan Gryfe as well as the year 2001. Well, things can change in 18 years and sometimes for the better, believe it or not.

The good thing about a free society is that people get to choose. If you do not want to attend charters, then don't ! It's that simple.  If you choose to attend, then you should realize there may be 35-40 other people attending the event. Not everybody will get along with everybody, but most people try to enjoy themselves for 4-5 hours. Yes, there are people that behave in a way that is offensive to you. Charter organizers try their best to keep them in line, but in some cases (like the specific names you mentioned), there are social issues that have to be considered. Autism is one example, so no matter how many times you tell someone to get out of the way of a photo, it does not sink in. Again, you have the option not to attend.

You mention the terms and conditions on the back of charter tickets. I agree that Ray was a little overzealous with the photo issue, especially since he sold videos. You will notice current tickets do not have that. There are terms and conditions though and that is done solely to protect the charter organizers. We are all volunteers and while we enjoy doing it, we would not want to lose any of our personal assets if an accident was to happen. We always stress safety, but in this day and age, you have to protect yourself against liability as much as possible.

As for HCRR and TTS, the groups get along fine now. The current President of HCRR is also the Treasurer of TTS. Many members are in both groups and quite a few volunteer at HCRR. Here is an idea. Rather than being mad at the whole world, why not volunteer and try to help out this hobby? It might help you work out a bit of that anger that is built up inside you.

[splendidwizardplayer]

3 minutes ago, Seashore_518203 said:

Autism is one example

So you are saying that people with Autism don't do things like move if some asks. I my self have it and if someone asked me to move I will but I know what you mean but still don't just guess if someone with ASD will do that.

[Doppelkupplung]

Pardon the interruption, but I am literally scared shitless to go to my local library (UTM). Like genuinely, this freaks me out because I'm there almost every day. Part of me is freaked because first was UTSG, then York, I feel like he's moving westward if that even makes sense. Can't even imagine man...

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2019/11/26/another-person-assaulted-with-fecal-matter-monday-night-near-u-of-t.html

[81-717]

16 hours ago, Downsview 108 said:

Later on they only mixed similar classes. No camshaft with chopper cars.

Did they ever mix H5+H6 (i.e. while the H6's entered service and the H5's on line 2 were being moved to line 1)?

[Downsview 108]

5 minutes ago, 81-717 said:

Did they ever mix H5+H6 (i.e. while the H6's entered service and the H5's on line 2 were being moved to line 1)?

I am not sure about right when they were delivered but they absolutely did mix H5s and H6s. They mixed everything except (obviously) the Gloucesters.

[splendidwizardplayer]

8 minutes ago, Downsview 108 said:

I am not sure about right when they were delivered but they absolutely did mix H5s and H6s. They mixed everything except (obviously) the Gloucesters.

What is the point of mixing subway cars?

[81-717]

18 minutes ago, Downsview 108 said:

I am not sure about right when they were delivered but they absolutely did mix H5s and H6s. They mixed everything except (obviously) the Gloucesters.

I see, thanks for that. I figured there wouldn't be much opportunity for mixing H5's and H6's since the H5's were consolidated to line 1 for the rest of their lives once the H6's came in, and the H6's lived on line 2 their whole short life, so that would leave a relatively short time period (~1986-1990) when the H5's and H6's both ran on the same line (2). Special/rare sightings of H5's on line 2/H6's on line 1 in later years would be highly unlikely to result in mixing of the 2 car types, especially since they stopped mixing cars by then anyway.

In a way, because the Gloucesters came from overseas, it is tempting to think that they have no relationship whatsoever to the evolution of all the subway cars that came after them (they didn't even have compatible couplers and had to use adapters to be coupled to an H/M-car). One might argue that even the Toronto Rocket has more in common with the T1, since they have compatible couplers (but not compatible technology) and have been coupled together for towing. Recently I saw a photo of an M1 mockup based on the Gloucester design, thus suggesting that there may be more of an evolutionary link between the Gloucesters and M1's than it seems.

Contrast this to New York whose subway cars came from all over the world, and two nearly identical models may have been built by entirely different manufacturers. For example, the R62 was built by Kawasaki in Japan, while the R62A was built by Bombardier in North America (Quebec and NY).

[Downsview 108]

9 minutes ago, splendidwizardplayer said:

What is the point of mixing subway cars?

I guess with so many different classes back then (especially in 1989) it would take too much time to marshall them into their own classes. That was until they ran into problems like Wayside described above.

5 minutes ago, 81-717 said:

I see, thanks for that. I figured there wouldn't be much opportunity for mixing H5's and H6's since the H5's were consolidated to line 1 for the rest of their lives once the H6's came in, and the H6's lived on line 2 their whole short life, so that would leave a relatively short time period (~1986-1990) when the H5's and H6's both ran on the same line (2). Special/rare sightings of H5's on line 2/H6's on line 1 in later years would be highly unlikely to result in mixing of the 2 car types, especially since they stopped mixing cars by then anyway.

In a way, because the Gloucesters came from overseas, it is tempting to think that they have no relationship whatsoever to the evolution of all the subway cars that came after them (they didn't even have compatible couplers and had to use adapters to be coupled to an H/M-car). One might argue that even the Toronto Rocket has more in common with the T1, since they have compatible couplers (but not compatible technology) and have been coupled together for towing. Recently I saw a photo of an M1 mockup based on the Gloucester design, thus suggesting that there may be more of an evolutionary link between the Gloucesters and M1's than it seems.

Contrast this to New York whose subway cars came from all over the world, and two nearly identical models may have been built by entirely different manufacturers. For example, the R62 was built by Kawasaki in Japan, while the R62A was built by Bombardier in North America (Quebec and NY).

Even if the Gloucesters had compatible couplers it wouldn't have been smart to mix them anyway since they had lower power motors. They had to flip the high rate switch on those to keep up with the other cars.

It depends on the design really. The R62s are like the CLRVs. Built to the same relative specs but by different manufacturers. The G2s actually were the demo for the M1s and they really only demonstrated the feasibility of using aluminum for the car body. I doubt they would have wanted to use the same equipment as the Gs because even at that time there were complaints about how slow the red trains were.

[Wayside Observer]

5 hours ago, Doppelkupplung said:

Pardon the interruption, but I am literally scared shitless to go to my local library (UTM). Like genuinely, this freaks me out because I'm there almost every day. Part of me is freaked because first was UTSG, then York, I feel like he's moving westward if that even makes sense. Can't even imagine man...

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2019/11/26/another-person-assaulted-with-fecal-matter-monday-night-near-u-of-t.html

Yuck indeed.  Yes, with two incidents at University of Toronto and one at York, I'd definitely be hesitant to set foot in the library if I was a U of T student too.  I was talking about this with someone at work last night and we were both puzzled about the choices of U of T and York given the geographic separation.  Ryerson's walking distance from U of T and somehow managed to escape unscathed so far.  Fingers crossed you don't cross paths with this clown.

21 hours ago, Downsview 108 said:

I remember 20 years ago they mixed H2's with H1's in mostly a H2-H1-H2 config on the YUS. When they just retired the M1s in may of 99 I remember riding a complete H1 train on the BD which probably hasn't happened in decades. Shortly after that they mixed the cars in the same H2-H1-H2 or even H2-H1-H4 configuration as the H1s lived out their final days. It was nice to ride an H1 on the B-D. The last time the TTC mixed classes I think was in 2000 when they mixed the H2s and H4s.

Do you remember when the H1s were near the end on the Bloor-Danforth line and buried in the middle of the train, most of them had a big banner of a sign across the inside of the cab windshield saying "DO NOT USE AS LEAD CAR"?  Those H1s that were restricted to middle unit duty only had their trip valves removed so there was no way for an automatic trainstop arm to stop a train passing a signal at danger with one of these at the ends, at least not without waiting for the third car to hit the stop arm.  What I don't remember is why the trip valves were removed when they got shifted down to Bloor-Danforth from Yonge.

One of my friends and I have wondered if I inadvertently caught the last run of a solid all H1 train on Yonge on my way home from the dentist's back in 1999 on a Friday during the evening rush.  I decided to stay on to Finch then ride back down which went fine until the train got taken out of service at Finch.  I asked the driver why it was out of service and he said it was broken.  I walked across the platform and caught the first train out and rode back down to Davisville.  I got off and waited a couple of minutes and that train of H1s came down screaming through the station and disappeared down the hill towards St. Clair.  The driver must've put it in parallel and kept it there as soon as the tail end got clear of the turnback switch south of Eglinton.  That was the last time anyone I knew saw an H1 on Yonge.

4 hours ago, splendidwizardplayer said:

What is the point of mixing subway cars?

 

4 hours ago, Downsview 108 said:

I guess with so many different classes back then (especially in 1989) it would take too much time to marshall them into their own classes. That was until they ran into problems like Wayside described above.

Exactly.  Grab three married pairs of subway cars that are fit for service, couple them together and you've got a train with minimal fuss.  And that's what the TTC did until they decided to group it into H5 (Yonge only), H6 (Bloor only) and camshaft.  Even then, towards the end, they started keeping the M1s together in solid trains which from a fanning perspective was nice.

4 hours ago, Downsview 108 said:

Even if the Gloucesters had compatible couplers it wouldn't have been smart to mix them anyway since they had lower power motors. They had to flip the high rate switch on those to keep up with the other cars.

The Gloucesters didn't have load weighing to tell the control package how much passenger weight was on board to adjust acceleration the way everything that came later did and they had a three way low/medium/high rate switch the train driver was supposed to set based on how well or not his train was taking off from stops.  The problem was, these were so overweight, that switch got left in high and the TTC eventually hardwired the Gloucesters in high and left it at that.  On the later cars, the high rate switch was really a switch toggling between what was supposed to be the new normal and a derated, Gloucester compatible mode to avoid severe bunching except that didn't last past the end of high rate on the Bloor-Danforth line in the early 1980s and it's never come back.  Every plan to do so has been aborted for various reasons.  Back in the late 1990s, they were saying that the Yonge line would go to high rate operation to improve capacity when it was all T1 and rebuilt H5s.  Now it's all Toronto Rockets and it's unclear if high rate's going to come even once the new signalling system's fully rolled out.  Mixing Gloucesters with any of the later cars would've been pretty pointless proposition for many reasons.  Apart from the couplers, you're looking at interfacing the control systems between the two, the mismatch in performance characteristics even with newer cars in low rate, and then how do you mix pairs of 57 foot cars with pairs of 75 foot cars and make effective use of a 500 foot platform without coming in too short or too long?

4 hours ago, 81-717 said:

In a way, because the Gloucesters came from overseas, it is tempting to think that they have no relationship whatsoever to the evolution of all the subway cars that came after them (they didn't even have compatible couplers and had to use adapters to be coupled to an H/M-car). One might argue that even the Toronto Rocket has more in common with the T1, since they have compatible couplers (but not compatible technology) and have been coupled together for towing. Recently I saw a photo of an M1 mockup based on the Gloucester design, thus suggesting that there may be more of an evolutionary link between the Gloucesters and M1's than it seems.

That's an interesting photo.  I've never seen the M1 mockup before and I didn't realize it started out life as a three door 57 foot car.  I thought Montreal Locomotive Works and the TTC went to the idea of a 75 foot car pretty quickly and the idea of doing another 57 foot car got as far as being mocked up.  I wonder if this is the mockup that I heard about that had half fluorescent lighting and half Gloucester/PCC style bullseye incandescent lights. 

4 hours ago, 81-717 said:

Contrast this to New York whose subway cars came from all over the world, and two nearly identical models may have been built by entirely different manufacturers. For example, the R62 was built by Kawasaki in Japan, while the R62A was built by Bombardier in North America (Quebec and NY).

Well, what the New York MTA and predecessor companies have done for a lot of their larger car orders over the years is issue a specification that the winning bidders have built to.  The R62/R62A split was repeated with the R142/142A order and there's been others like the huge mishmash of SMEE cars they had before those and the AMUE cars before those.  Kind of like how the TTC specified that everything else that came after the M1 had to be compatible with the Montrealers so roughly the same performance characteristics, the same 75 foot form factor, the same couplers including the same pinouts and signal levels on the electrical heads, the same air connections etc.  Setting out a specification to be met by carbuilders is why everything built over a 25 year period with equipment from four vendors, five different traction motor vendors, different gear ratios, and a major change in technology between camshaft and choppers all worked together fine if you're willing to accept that some mix and match combos like the H6-M1-H6 I mentioned were a bit rougher than others.

[Downsview 108]

2 hours ago, Wayside Observer said:

Yuck indeed.  Yes, with two incidents at University of Toronto and one at York, I'd definitely be hesitant to set foot in the library if I was a U of T student too.  I was talking about this with someone at work last night and we were both puzzled about the choices of U of T and York given the geographic separation.  Ryerson's walking distance from U of T and somehow managed to escape unscathed so far.  Fingers crossed you don't cross paths with this clown.

Do you remember when the H1s were near the end on the Bloor-Danforth line and buried in the middle of the train, most of them had a big banner of a sign across the inside of the cab windshield saying "DO NOT USE AS LEAD CAR"?  Those H1s that were restricted to middle unit duty only had their trip valves removed so there was no way for an automatic trainstop arm to stop a train passing a signal at danger with one of these at the ends, at least not without waiting for the third car to hit the stop arm.  What I don't remember is why the trip valves were removed when they got shifted down to Bloor-Danforth from Yonge.

One of my friends and I have wondered if I inadvertently caught the last run of a solid all H1 train on Yonge on my way home from the dentist's back in 1999 on a Friday during the evening rush.  I decided to stay on to Finch then ride back down which went fine until the train got taken out of service at Finch.  I asked the driver why it was out of service and he said it was broken.  I walked across the platform and caught the first train out and rode back down to Davisville.  I got off and waited a couple of minutes and that train of H1s came down screaming through the station and disappeared down the hill towards St. Clair.  The driver must've put it in parallel and kept it there as soon as the tail end got clear of the turnback switch south of Eglinton.  That was the last time anyone I knew saw an H1 on Yonge.

 

Exactly.  Grab three married pairs of subway cars that are fit for service, couple them together and you've got a train with minimal fuss.  And that's what the TTC did until they decided to group it into H5 (Yonge only), H6 (Bloor only) and camshaft.  Even then, towards the end, they started keeping the M1s together in solid trains which from a fanning perspective was nice.

The Gloucesters didn't have load weighing to tell the control package how much passenger weight was on board to adjust acceleration the way everything that came later did and they had a three way low/medium/high rate switch the train driver was supposed to set based on how well or not his train was taking off from stops.  The problem was, these were so overweight, that switch got left in high and the TTC eventually hardwired the Gloucesters in high and left it at that.  On the later cars, the high rate switch was really a switch toggling between what was supposed to be the new normal and a derated, Gloucester compatible mode to avoid severe bunching except that didn't last past the end of high rate on the Bloor-Danforth line in the early 1980s and it's never come back.  Every plan to do so has been aborted for various reasons.  Back in the late 1990s, they were saying that the Yonge line would go to high rate operation to improve capacity when it was all T1 and rebuilt H5s.  Now it's all Toronto Rockets and it's unclear if high rate's going to come even once the new signalling system's fully rolled out.  Mixing Gloucesters with any of the later cars would've been pretty pointless proposition for many reasons.  Apart from the couplers, you're looking at interfacing the control systems between the two, the mismatch in performance characteristics even with newer cars in low rate, and then how do you mix pairs of 57 foot cars with pairs of 75 foot cars and make effective use of a 500 foot platform without coming in too short or too long?

That's an interesting photo.  I've never seen the M1 mockup before and I didn't realize it started out life as a three door 57 foot car.  I thought Montreal Locomotive Works and the TTC went to the idea of a 75 foot car pretty quickly and the idea of doing another 57 foot car got as far as being mocked up.  I wonder if this is the mockup that I heard about that had half fluorescent lighting and half Gloucester/PCC style bullseye incandescent lights. 

Well, what the New York MTA and predecessor companies have done for a lot of their larger car orders over the years is issue a specification that the winning bidders have built to.  The R62/R62A split was repeated with the R142/142A order and there's been others like the huge mishmash of SMEE cars they had before those and the AMUE cars before those.  Kind of like how the TTC specified that everything else that came after the M1 had to be compatible with the Montrealers so roughly the same performance characteristics, the same 75 foot form factor, the same couplers including the same pinouts and signal levels on the electrical heads, the same air connections etc.  Setting out a specification to be met by carbuilders is why everything built over a 25 year period with equipment from four vendors, five different traction motor vendors, different gear ratios, and a major change in technology between camshaft and choppers all worked together fine if you're willing to accept that some mix and match combos like the H6-M1-H6 I mentioned were a bit rougher than others.

So that's what society's come down to, huh? All the technology, all the information, all the "enlightenment" of the "millennium" and we have people so dissatisfied with life, the only pleasure they get is from throwing poo around?

You know what, those "Do not use as a lead car" signs in the cab were around before they put those cars on the B-D. I always wondered what it was for and I didn't know those particular cars had the trip cocks removed. Not sure why they'd do that but it definitely preceded their final days. I always thought they converted those cars to trailers or something. Maybe removed some equipment to save money and/or weight. Someone told me back in 1999 that the reason why they put the H1 unit in the middle was because driver's hated them. By that time those cars rode like a stagecoach. Pretty rough. I remember catching 5371 on the Spadina line and the train felt like it was derailing. They rocked harder than Led Zeppelin.

I am not sure the last time I rode and H1 on the Y-U-S but I do remember riding one from Downsview all the way to Finch and back again close to their final days. This is when I was young, skinny and flexible enough to keep my head turned out the railfan window while seated for any length of time. If I tried that now I'd need a chiropractor for the rest of my life.

 

 

 

Thanks for the refresher course on the G's. I forgot that the high rate switch on those was to compensate for the lack of the load weigh. I seem to remember the high rate switch on the M1s being behind a piece of glass or plastic that you'd have to break to use it. Or at least that's what I think it was. I also didn't know the later cars switched to conform to the Gs rather than the other way around. I have a better understanding of why they chose to get rid of them. I bet if they had better motors and some forced air ventilation they'd have kept them longer. They were really non standard cars which is odd being the first cars. I wonder what the TTC was thinking when they chose those over the PCC subway cars they wanted initially.

[T3G]

8 hours ago, Doppelkupplung said:

Pardon the interruption, but I am literally scared shitless to go to my local library (UTM). Like genuinely, this freaks me out because I'm there almost every day. Part of me is freaked because first was UTSG, then York, I feel like he's moving westward if that even makes sense. Can't even imagine man...

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2019/11/26/another-person-assaulted-with-fecal-matter-monday-night-near-u-of-t.html

This story is absolutely batshit insane. And how the fuck have they still not caught him after three incidents?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Do lunatics carrying buckets of liquid shit somehow blend in to the Toronto streetscape?!?!?!?!??!??! Fucks sake!

Times like these I'm glad I don't work downtown anymore.

[Doppelkupplung]

6 minutes ago, PCC Guy said:

This story is absolutely batshit insane. And how the fuck have they still not caught him after three incidents?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Do lunatics carrying buckets of liquid shit somehow blend in to the Toronto streetscape?!?!?!?!??!??! Fucks sake!

Times like these I'm glad I don't work downtown anymore.

UTMs library has had multiple theft incidents so there are cameras everywhere now. Buddy's smiling in the photos too. 

And I'm at the library right now lol

All I'll say is I saw a photo of a table and what looked like a coffee cup, laptop, chair and jacket....and they were all shining. Steezus

 

[Downsview 108]

9 minutes ago, PCC Guy said:

This story is absolutely batshit insane. And how the fuck have they still not caught him after three incidents?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Do lunatics carrying buckets of liquid shit somehow blend in to the Toronto streetscape?!?!?!?!??!??! Fucks sake!

Times like these I'm glad I don't work downtown anymore.

And where is he getting that poo from?

[Doppelkupplung]

3 minutes ago, Downsview 108 said:

And where is he getting that poo from?

It was on sale, didn't you get the flyer?

"Liquidation"

[Downsview 108]

6 minutes ago, Doppelkupplung said:

It was on sale, didn't you get the flyer?

"Liquidation"

[2044]

 

 

[Wayside Observer]

15 minutes ago, Downsview 108 said:

And where is he getting that poo from?

That's one of the other things the guy at work and I were talking about.  The level of effort required to pull this off once is something else but three times?  That takes some over the top effort.

One of the day shift guys came into work in the morning and told me there was a crazy guy outside the building cursing and swearing and every second word was "chicken".  He couldn't make sense of the nonsense that was coming out of this guy's mouth.

And so level the bar is set at keeps drifting lower and lower every day.

[Doppelkupplung]

7 minutes ago, 2044 said:

 

 

Phew. 

I can stress, quite literally, shitless now. 

[Downsview 108]

6 minutes ago, Wayside Observer said:

That's one of the other things the guy at work and I were talking about.  The level of effort required to pull this off once is something else but three times?  That takes some over the top effort.

One of the day shift guys came into work in the morning and told me there was a crazy guy outside the building cursing and swearing and every second word was "chicken".  He couldn't make sense of the nonsense that was coming out of this guy's mouth.

And so level the bar is set at keeps drifting lower and lower every day.

Maybe he was researching his character for some weird, flip flopped version of the movie Carrie. The school dance scene.

[Bus_Medic]

9 hours ago, Downsview 108 said:

And where is he getting that poo from?

In the age of the internet, everything is for sale. 
Yet others would volunteer that freely.

9 hours ago, Downsview 108 said:

Maybe he was researching his character for some weird, flip flopped version of the movie Carrie. The school dance scene.

-Rule 34.

[Downsview 108]

2 hours ago, Bus_Medic said:

In the age of the internet, everything is for sale. 
Yet others would volunteer that freely.

-Rule 34.

Just because he bought what he thought were the contents of Elvis' septic tank on eBay doesn't give him the right to do what he did. It was his $30Gs and therefore his problem.

[J. S. Bach]

19 hours ago, Downsview 108 said:

And where is he getting that poo from?

Maybe he is one of those that opens the Cologard boxes when they arrive at the lab!

[Greatcoinz]

Sent a final notice to my current employer that I'll be leaving the company after nearly six years in January. I notified one of two bosses that my resignation letter is in the office. The guy looks at me, and says harshly, "that doesn't concern me" and walks away. 

Told my colleagues what happened and they tell me, after six years, this is how they treat me? Well it as much as I'm insulted, I'll be laughing on my last day which is in three weeks at time of post, knowing I'll never have to see this a$$hole again.

Also, going home from work. Took the bus to the suburbs. There's dirty needles on the ground of the bus. Come on.. I get there's a opioid crisis and it's become a issue. At least take your paraphalia with you so no one else gets accidently stabbed and infected. Yes I told the driver.