Streetcar News

[nfitz]

28 minutes ago, ttc rider said:

With the Honda Indy taking place this weekend and extra capacity provided on 511 Bathurst by using Flexities, we have hit a record of 73 Flexity cars in service concurrently in service this afternoon (out of 84 available): 22 on 504A, 8 on 509, 14 on 510, 12 on 511 and 17 on 512. This surpasses the previous maximum of 67 cars for a Saturday which was first hit last month on June 9.

Maybe ...

 

There seems to still be problems with the Nextbus data, which was showing bizarre 3-digit and 5-digit vehicle numbers yesterday. And even now on 501, shows 46 CLRVs and ALRVs (might be real), plus 36 buses (what?), 39 buses on 504, 2 buses on 509, 6 buses on 510, 3 buses on 511, and 9 buses on 512!

 

[ttc rider]

5 hours ago, nfitz said:

Maybe ...

 

There seems to still be problems with the Nextbus data, which was showing bizarre 3-digit and 5-digit vehicle numbers yesterday. And even now on 501, shows 46 CLRVs and ALRVs (might be real), plus 36 buses (what?), 39 buses on 504, 2 buses on 509, 6 buses on 510, 3 buses on 511, and 9 buses on 512!

 

 I am only interested in the geographical location of the vehicles as reported by the vehicle's GPS, which is why I am using Pocket Track. While it does use the same nextbus feed,  unlike most other apps, it only plots vehicle locations, and does not take into account schedules to calculate stop predictions. Notwithstanding the usual limitations of the nextbus output with some out-of-service vehicles reporting a location like (43.0, -79.1), which is the right location with the decimal part cut off, hence why they show up in the middle of Lake Ontario, Georgian Bay, or some other location they shouldn't be), I do not have to worry about all of the "ghost" buses which have been showing up in the raw output of nextbus for the past couple of days. Nor does it matter if the vehicle is invisible to the nextbus feed of a particular route because it is "signed up" onto the wrong route (which has been a big problem for the past couple of days) or on no route at all.

Most importantly, the output I have been getting from Pocket Track has exactly matched the scheduled service on the Flexity routes since this issue began two days ago, so I am quite confident the data is by and large, accurate.

[nfitz]

19 hours ago, ttc rider said:

Most importantly, the output I have been getting from Pocket Track has exactly matched the scheduled service on the Flexity routes since this issue began two days ago, so I am quite confident the data is by and large, accurate.

It hasn't exactly matched. Often there's been up to a 5-minute lag for some vehicles I observed, riding on 504 and 506. And that included Flexitys!

 

Many of the ghost vehicles are fictitious numbers. Right now on 501 there is 33 vehicles that aren't streetcars. Vehicle numbers include 235, 251, 3010, 647888, etc.

 

You can't say for sure that every one of those record 73 cars are real.They quite possibly are.

 

Looking at the data, it looks even worse today than yesterday! Highlights right now are vehicle 4475 on route 42. 4476 on route 89, and 4481 on the 116 Morningside!

[ttc rider]

3 hours ago, nfitz said:

It hasn't exactly matched. Often there's been up to a 5-minute lag for some vehicles I observed, riding on 504 and 506. And that included Flexitys!

By matching scheduled service, I meant tracking on a given route a total number of vehicles that corresponds to the number scheduled for service at that particular time of the day. Right now, for example, 12 Flexities are scheduled on 512, 11 of which are signed in normally. There is also car 4483 which has been tracking on 512 since this morning, even though it is incorrectly signed in onto 501, and thus it is invisible to the nextbus feed for route 512. In this case, I think it is very reasonable to assume that the rogue vehicle is in fact in service on 512, for a total of 12 cars on the route, which is what the scheduled service calls for. I have seen this pattern over and over again on all routes I've checked since this problem began on Thursday.

Similarly on route 511, there are two cars (4477 and 4478) that are signed in incorrectly onto routes 168 and 45, respectively. They've been there since this morning. I actually rode from Bathurst Stn down to Lake Shore and back earlier today and checked Pocket Track intermittently as I was doing so. The locations for both 4477 and 4478 were reported correctly by Pocket track and I certainly did see them both where they were supposed to be.  Again, 8 Flexities are signed in normally on 511, which together with the two cars signed incorrectly onto other routes (4477 and 4478) make a total of 10 cars, which is what is scheduled for a Sunday afternoon.

 Also on Friday, I did manage to ride one of those rogue cars on King (can't remember the vehicle number, but it was signed in onto 185 Don Mills Rocket). Again, the geographical location of the vehicle was being reported accurately by Pocket track, but obviously it wasn't showing into the raw nextbus data because it was not signed in onto the correct route.

So it seems whatever the glitch is with nextbus,  the physical locations of the vehicles as calculated by GPS  seem to be reported correctly at least for the Flexity fleet.

3 hours ago, nfitz said:

You can't say for sure that every one of those record 73 cars are real.They quite possibly are.

 

Looking at the data, it looks even worse today than yesterday! Highlights right now are vehicle 4475 on route 42. 4476 on route 89, and 4481 on the 116 Morningside!

I agree, nothing is better than a pair of eyes on the street. Unfortunately, that is not possible most of the time (at least not for me!) so we have to make do with whatever we have. Of those vehicles that you mentioned, by comparing the cars physically on the street with the scheduled service, we can make an educated guess that 4475 and 4476 are not in service at all (because they are tracking at Leslie and have been doing so since last night) and 4481 is in service on 504A.

[nfitz]

20 minutes ago, ttc rider said:

So it seems whatever the glitch is with nextbus,  the physical locations of the vehicles as calculated by GPS  seem to be reported correctly at least for the Flexity fleet.

This was not true on Thursday and Friday, when you can stand on the street, watching Nextbus telling you a Flexity was passing, when this was not the case. What it sometimes was reporting was that something had passed a few minutes earlier.

 

The lag had vanished Friday evening ... not sure how accurate it is now, as I haven't bothered to look out the window.

[Transit geek]

By now everyone should be aware of the splitting and diversion of route 504, with service between Distillery and Dundas West using Flexity cars, between Dufferin Gate and Woodbine/Queen using CLRVs, and to Broadview using bustitution.

Today when I was doing by usual browsing, I noticed a very similar situation taking place in The Hague in the Netherlands due to works in an underground tram tunnel shared by four of the busiest routes in the city. Starting today, route 3 is split into two sections, each operating with different vehicles. Route 4 also being split with a gap in between, filled by lines 2, 4, and 6, all diverting in the city centre.

 

[T3G]

Also, in Bratislava, all but two T3G pairs are out of service for the summer...

 

Seriously, what does this have to do with streetcars in Toronto?

[Doppelkupplung]

1 hour ago, Transit geek said:

By now everyone should be aware of the splitting and diversion of route 504, with service between Distillery and Dundas West using Flexity cars, between Dufferin Gate and Woodbine/Queen using CLRVs, and to Broadview using bustitution.

Today when I was doing by usual browsing, I noticed a very similar situation taking place in The Hague in the Netherlands due to works in an underground tram tunnel shared by four of the busiest routes in the city. Starting today, route 3 is split into two sections, each operating with different vehicles. Route 4 also being split with a gap in between, filled by lines 2, 4, and 6, all diverting in the city centre.

 

 

 

 

[dowlingm]

Have crossposted this elsewhere but tracking data was apparently messed up VISION data conflicting with CIS in the feed to Nextbus. The VISION feed has been turned off for now.

[nfitz]

With today's troubles on 501 this morning (overhead issues - apparently at Degrassi, but I saw the line truck working at Carlaw too while I was hoofing it), streetcars in the east, were looping back and forth between Neville/Bingham and Connaught.

Does anyone have any idea why they wouldn't have been looping to Leslie instead? I didn't see any streetcars stranded until I got near Carlaw, so I assume the overhead was live. (the thought crossed my mind, as I walked past Leslie, thinking that would have been a shorter walk.

Must have been chaos with Queen East down for 3 hours, just after morning rush hour! (I jumped a 72 bus, and headed downtown - so I don't know where all the streetcars were parked - cut off from both Leslie and Russell yards!)

[TTCOpITM]

3 hours ago, nfitz said:

With today's troubles on 501 this morning (overhead issues - apparently at Degrassi, but I saw the line truck working at Carlaw too while I was hoofing it), streetcars in the east, were looping back and forth between Neville/Bingham and Connaught.

 

Does anyone have any idea why they wouldn't have been looping to Leslie instead? I didn't see any streetcars stranded until I got near Carlaw, so I assume the overhead was live. (the thought crossed my mind, as I walked past Leslie, thinking that would have been a shorter walk.

 

Must have been chaos with Queen East down for 3 hours, just after morning rush hour! (I jumped a 72 bus, and headed downtown - so I don't know where all the streetcars were parked - cut off from both Leslie and Russell yards!)

I don’t think they’d ever make streetcars loop at Leslie. The reason is, they’d all have to operate through Leslie Yard if they were looping there. Due to the special switches in the yard and the fact that they are operated by the yard controller, it would be chaos for every streetcar entering the yard to report to yard control before they can enter the yard and make certain that their route through the yard is properly set.

[nfitz]

5 hours ago, TTCOpITM said:

I don’t think they’d ever make streetcars loop at Leslie. The reason is, they’d all have to operate through Leslie Yard if they were looping there. Due to the special switches in the yard and the fact that they are operated by the yard controller, it would be chaos for every streetcar entering the yard to report to yard control before they can enter the yard and make certain that their route through the yard is properly set.

That's unfortunate they didn't design it so there was an easy way to loop.

 

Especially given the lack of shuttle buses yesterday!

[smallspy]

6 hours ago, TTCOpITM said:

I don’t think they’d ever make streetcars loop at Leslie. The reason is, they’d all have to operate through Leslie Yard if they were looping there. Due to the special switches in the yard and the fact that they are operated by the yard controller, it would be chaos for every streetcar entering the yard to report to yard control before they can enter the yard and make certain that their route through the yard is properly set.

 

The other issue is that the operators don't operate the cars in the yard - they give them to shedmen to do it, much as they do in the subway yards.

 

This is also the reason why the TTC avoids at all costs any short turns involving Greenwood Yard.

 

Dan

[Ed T.]

2 minutes ago, smallspy said:

The other issue is that the operators don't operate the cars in the yard - they give them to shedmen to do it, much as they do in the subway yards.

Streetcars going out of service certainly entered Roncesvalles under the control of their operator, and they leave going into service under the control of the operator. I think I've also seen them short turn in the yard for whatever reason.

[smallspy]

28 minutes ago, Ed T. said:

Streetcars going out of service certainly entered Roncesvalles under the control of their operator, and they leave going into service under the control of the operator. I think I've also seen them short turn in the yard for whatever reason.

I was referring specifically to Leslie. Russell and Roncesvalles operate under the same rules as before.

 

Dan

[nfitz]

1 hour ago, smallspy said:

This is also the reason why the TTC avoids at all costs any short turns involving Greenwood Yard.

Cars were all turning left on Connaught (heading west). Is there a way of turning back east without entering the yard?

 

If same in both, then not sure why they were choosing to turn at Connaught  instead of Leslie. Especially in an absence of shuttle buses.

[WoodbineSecondExit]

3 hours ago, nfitz said:

That's unfortunate they didn't design it so there was an easy way to loop.

 

Especially given the lack of shuttle buses yesterday!

They had bus shuttles running yesterday. I'm not sure how service was disrupted for hours because of one "downed wire" and if it was Degrassi it's not the first time there's been trouble there.

Today due to a collision somewhere along the line, the entire eastern half of the 501 and 504 were shut down in the morning for the second day in a row.

[nfitz]

33 minutes ago, WoodbineSecondExit said:

They had bus shuttles running yesterday. I'm not sure how service was disrupted for hours because of one "downed wire" and if it was Degrassi it's not the first time there's been trouble there.

Today due to a collision somewhere along the line, the entire eastern half of the 501 and 504 were shut down in the morning for the second day in a row.

I saw one or two buses heading eastbound. But I walked over 2 km westbound from Woodfield to Carlaw, without seeing one - despite there being something heading east at Woodfield! And there were a lot of people already waiting at Woodfield when we got booted off there, so I was concerned that I'd be able to squeeze on a bus, if one came. The incident was 45-minutes old (and probably longer given that the alerts take a while) when I got to Woodfield!

 

Looking at the TTC alerts, today's 501/504 issues were reported clear 4 minutes after the first alert. It was 2 hours 45 minutes yesterday from 9:52 AM to 12:37 PM!

[smallspy]

2 hours ago, nfitz said:

Cars were all turning left on Connaught (heading west). Is there a way of turning back east without entering the yard?

From the west (eastbound), a car can turn without running through the yard. From the east (westbound) however, cars have to operate through a track left open through the yard, usually track 12.

 

But again, the rules for operating into and out of Russell and Roncy are different than at Leslie, and regular crews can operate through the two of them.

 

2 hours ago, nfitz said:

 

If same in both, then not sure why they were choosing to turn at Connaught  instead of Leslie. Especially in an absence of shuttle buses.

Again, regular crews are not allowed to operate in Leslie Yard. Thus running short-turns through there would be an added complication.

 

Dan

[dowlingm]

Coxwell loop appears to be unavailable at present - there was some sort of construction going on when I was nearby on Sunday but was unable to stop for pictures

[WoodbineSecondExit]

3 hours ago, dowlingm said:

Coxwell loop appears to be unavailable at present - there was some sort of construction going on when I was nearby on Sunday but was unable to stop for pictures

Does that really matter at this time when the only route that can use that loop is being served by buses?

[dowlingm]

53 minutes ago, WoodbineSecondExit said:

Does that really matter at this time when the only route that can use that loop is being served by buses?

Ah - I have never looked that hard at Coxwell loop’s layout so I assumed Queen cars could use it. My mistake.

[skyfirenet]

2 minutes ago, dowlingm said:

Ah - I have never looked that hard at Coxwell loop’s layout so I assumed Queen cars could use it. My mistake.

I don't think it's possible for the loop to connect to Queen without making the curve radius worse.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.6664225,-79.3162558,3a,60y,284.59h,73.97t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sqOdWdCn6UrNr9YughoX2bQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

[ttc rider]

On ‎7‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 12:39 AM, Tom1122 said:

I wonder if 4408 will be one of the first cars to go back to fix the welding problems since it's out of service anyway?

4408 was damaged in a collision. Bombardier is recalling the first 67 cars in order to fix a manufacturing defect. Unless car 4408 was so severely damaged that it cannot be repaired by the TTC in Toronto (which I doubt is the case), I see no reason why Bombardier would be responsible for performing  an unscheduled repair as a result of an accident that had nothing to do with the welding defect in the first place.

[skyfirenet]

5 hours ago, ttc rider said:

4408 was damaged in a collision. Bombardier is recalling the first 67 cars in order to fix a manufacturing defect. Unless car 4408 was so severely damaged that it cannot be repaired by the TTC in Toronto (which I doubt is the case), I see no reason why Bombardier would be responsible for performing  an unscheduled repair as a result of an accident that had nothing to do with the welding defect in the first place.

Or the TTC would complete the repairs and then send it to Bombardier.