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I spotted, 4488 (I think it was 4488) westbound on Upper Gerrard near Woodbine, in service, as a 506 Coxwell. First time I've seen a streetcar on Upper Gerrard for a while. Presumably work at Main Station is complete (haven't been there since March - and it's walking distance!).

Perhaps a sign that the west end of 506 will see some streetcar service restored before near the end of the year after all.

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  • 2 months later...
On 8/11/2020 at 3:37 PM, nfitz said:

I spotted, 4488 (I think it was 4488) westbound on Upper Gerrard near Woodbine, in service, as a 506 Coxwell. First time I've seen a streetcar on Upper Gerrard for a while. Presumably work at Main Station is complete (haven't been there since March - and it's walking distance!).

Perhaps a sign that the west end of 506 will see some streetcar service restored before near the end of the year after all.

It was a Training car, doing In-Service training

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2 minutes ago, * Mr. Black * said:

It was a Training car, doing In-Service training

That means they are actually taking passengers (as this one was)?  I assumed it was a RAD car.

I've seen the occasional, apparently not-in-service car since ... not a surprise as training runs were always frequent up to Main.

 

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Just now, nfitz said:

That means they are actually taking passengers (as this one was)?  I assumed it was a RAD car.

I've seen the occasional, apparently not-in-service car since ... not a surprise as training runs were always frequent up to Main.

 

Yes, part of the training, is in service

 

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TTC Board endorses Fleet Procurement Strategy and Plan

Oct. 22, 2020

Today, the TTC Board approved a $550-million investment in new vehicles and transit system upgrades made possible by Toronto's City Building Fund.

"This is a great day," said TTC CEO Rick Leary. "This plan will see hundreds of new energy-efficient and zero-emission buses carrying TTC customers starting in two years to replace our aging fleet, advance the City's climate change goals and improve the customer experience while promoting economic prosperity and the social vibrancy of the city."

"This is a positive step forward for the future of Toronto transit. Investing in new vehicles and necessary upgrades will make sure our TTC is operating at its best and moving as many people as possible," said Mayor John Tory. "The plan approved by the Board today starts making those investments in key areas. Now it is also extremely important that Toronto's investments are in short order matched by the federal and provincial governments who both understand the importance of investing in transit, investing in Canadian-built vehicles, and investing in our post-COVID future."

As part of the Fleet Procurement Strategy and Plan the TTC Board gave the go-ahead to the purchase of:

- 600 new buses - 300 hybrids picking up passengers starting in 2022 and 300 new e-buses that - pending the results of the TTC's head-to-head study - would roll out starting in 2023.
- 70 new Wheel-Trans buses starting in 2022
- 13 more streetcars on our streets starting in 2023 with a commitment to buy 47 more if the other governments are willing to come to the table to support transit.

The plan also funds the start of work needed to purchase 80 new subway trains for Lines 1 and 2 to accommodate expansion and an upgraded signaling system on Line 2.

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1 hour ago, Matthew TTC 4120 said:

Oh yeah, as-retired junkers from the 1980s or very, very early 1990s like 1990 or 1991 at the absolute latest.  That interior, I can't believe all those advertisements and the info pamphlets are still there.  Wow, that brings back memories.

Do you guys think the upgraded B3 trucks on the one car offsets the drop in value from those being multiple unit cars but not having any/all of couplers* which rules out banging them together in a train?

* They were probably retired from the TTC without the couplers.  The A7s were a mess by the end with most cars missing one or both couplers.  It was the rare car that still had both on them.

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I was talking with two of my friends about those PCCs earlier today and had a couple of other thoughts:

-  They got the giant numbers on the front and at least the front couplers are gone which means they lasted a long time until near the end, maybe until the end when the last of the non-A15 rebuilds were pulled out of service.

-  These are now very rare.  Of the 1970s HRB cars, there are a couple of others that come to mind.  The one at the Shriner's fairgrounds that was running I think ended up at Gomaco a number of years ago along with the two MBTA PCCs that were with it along with it.  I don't think the two that ERRS has have run since they were retired by the TTC because of the gauge difference that knackers a lot of former TTC cars that end up elsewhere and would be the reason why the one car in the auction's sitting on a set of Clarke B3s to make it standard gauge.  The shell at Wagyu World on Highway 6 is the last farm field car that I know of that's still standing but it looks like it's just a carbody shell now, which is ironic in a sad way considering how these cars started out as body shells made by St Louis Car Co. and shipped to Canadian Car and Foundry to be fully built out.

Unfortunately, when the TTC was done with the HRB cars at the end, they were in sad shape.  By the late 80s and early 90s when the last of them were retired, they had anywhere between 10-15 years of hard use on them since they were last rebuilt and most retirements were cars condemned due to "body rot" or "floor rot".  Add 30+ years of storage in various different environments, most of them were outside, on top of that and there are very few left, hence my bullet point about these now being very rare.  There are very few Toronto PCCs around now except for the A15 cars that were retired in 1995 that exist in preservation now because they were rebuilt and then retired not too too long after.  I really hope these two cars don't get scrapped and I mentioned that if the bodies could be stabilized and these made to run, it'd capture the end of the PCC era in Toronto perfectly:  A mix of worn out HRB junkers and the handful of newly rebuilt A15s that Hillcrest was turning out until the rebuild program got suspended/cancelled prematurely.

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1 hour ago, Wayside Observer said:

I was talking with two of my friends about those PCCs earlier today and had a couple of other thoughts:

-  They got the giant numbers on the front and at least the front couplers are gone which means they lasted a long time until near the end, maybe until the end when the last of the non-A15 rebuilds were pulled out of service.

-  These are now very rare.  Of the 1970s HRB cars, there are a couple of others that come to mind.  The one at the Shriner's fairgrounds that was running I think ended up at Gomaco a number of years ago along with the two MBTA PCCs that were with it along with it.  I don't think the two that ERRS has have run since they were retired by the TTC because of the gauge difference that knackers a lot of former TTC cars that end up elsewhere and would be the reason why the one car in the auction's sitting on a set of Clarke B3s to make it standard gauge.  The shell at Wagyu World on Highway 6 is the last farm field car that I know of that's still standing but it looks like it's just a carbody shell now, which is ironic in a sad way considering how these cars started out as body shells made by St Louis Car Co. and shipped to Canadian Car and Foundry to be fully built out.

Unfortunately, when the TTC was done with the HRB cars at the end, they were in sad shape.  By the late 80s and early 90s when the last of them were retired, they had anywhere between 10-15 years of hard use on them since they were last rebuilt and most retirements were cars condemned due to "body rot" or "floor rot".  Add 30+ years of storage in various different environments, most of them were outside, on top of that and there are very few left, hence my bullet point about these now being very rare.  There are very few Toronto PCCs around now except for the A15 cars that were retired in 1995 that exist in preservation now because they were rebuilt and then retired not too too long after.  I really hope these two cars don't get scrapped and I mentioned that if the bodies could be stabilized and these made to run, it'd capture the end of the PCC era in Toronto perfectly:  A mix of worn out HRB junkers and the handful of newly rebuilt A15s that Hillcrest was turning out until the rebuild program got suspended/cancelled prematurely.

I did a bit of research. Transit Toronto lists both units as active in April of 1989, but were missing by the summer of 1990. So they have been there for almost 30 years (depending on when they were shipped).

I too would like to see these units get preserved. It would be a shame to see them get scrapped.

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10 hours ago, Matthew TTC 4120 said:

I did a bit of research. Transit Toronto lists both units as active in April of 1989, but were missing by the summer of 1990. So they have been there for almost 30 years (depending on when they were shipped).

I too would like to see these units get preserved. It would be a shame to see them get scrapped.

Thanks for the information.  I didn't realize Transit Toronto had a list but that pretty much confirms what I suspected about these two lasting until almost the end for the HRB cars.  I'm going to have to look and see what they've got.  Going off memory, I think the last of them were retired in 1991.  The HRB cars were still in good shape for the early part of the 1980s but they all deteriorated pretty badly over the last half of the decade until they were retired.  The ALRV delivery in the late 80s decimated a huge swath of HRB PCCs.  The ones in the worst condition that were being condemned due to body or floor rot always went first when PCCs were retired.

After the ALRV delivery finished up, PCCs would be retired if they were condemned due to carbody issues or if they had a serious equipment breakdown because the TTC wasn't doing major repairs on them anymore, but there was also a surreal period of time that overlapped the end of the ALRV deliveries and a bit of time after when the A15 rebuild program was running before the TTC pulled the plug on the last bunch of HRB cars in one swoop.  During that window, every time Hillcrest finished rebuilding an A8 PCC car into an A15 and it was released back to one of the carhouses, it would replace one of the HRB cars that was still hanging on and for every beautifully, freshly rebuilt PCC car that Hillcrest turned out, as soon as it was accepted for service, it would send a red and cream junker to the scrap line.  Judging from the retirement date range you found for these two cars, there's a very good chance that's what happened to these two cars.  It wasn't the CLRVs, it probably wasn't the ALRVs, it doesn't look like it would've been rot since they'd be in far worse shape now 30ish years on than the pictures seem to indicate, but it was probably two rebuilt PCCs that finished these ones off.

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  • 1 month later...

Those two cars ended up at San Francisco Muni in the early 1990s, where one was made standard gauge. 4472 is standard, 4404 is still toronto gauge. A man in south lake tahoe acquired them a short while later, and they've been in storage in south lake tahoe and now colfax since around 1995. I'm not too sure what condition the trucks are in on either, or if they're the originals on 4472. As to the body condition, its probably poor. We at muni stored them outdoors in the early 1990s, and they got battered by snow, and road salt in tahoe as the lot in south lake tahoe was right next to highway 50, and they were stored right on the fence with the highway. Storing them in a part of a forest didn't do them any favors either. They've been for sale for a little while now, maybe 2 years. To my recollection, 4472 is in a bit better shape than 4404, but not by a lot. 4404 has several windows missing and other massive rust issues, 4472 has all its windows but still a bunch of rust. 

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4472 got a brand-new front end in 1988 and some other work, so that's probably why it appears to be in better condition. 4472 was retired in November 1989, just before the last major group of HRB cars were retired in April 1990. I think 4404 was retired before that, probably in 1988.

The lower bodies would have 45 years of moisture and then 30 years of road salt to accelerate the corrosion. The fact that they're still in this condition is pretty remarkable.

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  • 2 months later...

As mentioned above, the 13 streetcars will be delivered alongside with the 60 new ones after the 204 cars were late. Delivery to end no later than March 31, 2024.

http://ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Commission_reports_and_information/Commission_meetings/2021/February_10/Reports/3_Liquidated_Damages_for_the_Supply_of_Additional_Streetcars.pdf

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44 minutes ago, Eren Jaeger said:

As mentioned above, the 13 streetcars will be delivered alongside with the 60 new ones after the 204 cars were late. Delivery to end no later than March 31, 2024.

As far as I understand it, the 13 streetcars are part of the 60 new ones. The construction of the other 47 is conditional on money from other governments, or the city finding more money.

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19 hours ago, nfitz said:

As far as I understand it, the 13 streetcars are part of the 60 new ones. The construction of the other 47 is conditional on money from other governments, or the city finding more money.

That's exactly correct.

 

This report is simply to reiterate that the Commission has fielded an outside organization to ensure that the terms, conditions and penalties listed in the new contract are amongst the strictest enacted in a North American public transit vehicle contract. It's the procedural equivalent of whipping it out in a measuring contest - in public.

 

Dan

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16 hours ago, Ed T. said:

I noticed today that there are still some old-style overhead hangers on College St., notably WB around Euclid. However, 506 is operating with pantographs. Would these hangers have been missed, or is it that a few of them don't make any difference?

So long as the bottom contact surface of the contact wire is below the hanger, there is nothing wrong with using the old hangers. An additional span wire or two may be required to prevent twisting, but that is all.

 

There are some really old designs of hanger where the contact wire was held at the same level as the span wires, but there were very few of them left in service even 10 years ago.

 

Dan

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On 2/18/2021 at 8:51 AM, smallspy said:

So long as the bottom contact surface of the contact wire is below the hanger, there is nothing wrong with using the old hangers. An additional span wire or two may be required to prevent twisting, but that is all.

 

There are some really old designs of hanger where the contact wire was held at the same level as the span wires, but there were very few of them left in service even 10 years ago.

 

Dan

It's been a long time since I've seen any of those upside-down U hangers in Toronto.  A lot of that really old ancient stuff went fast once they started doing state of good repair replacement work on the streetcar overhead in the late 1990s after city council found the funding for it, after that famous meeting at City Hall when David Gunn brought in a used overhead frog and a new one so everyone could see the difference.  A lot of people have forgotten or aren't quite old enough to remember that the streetcar wire infrastructure got heavily updated with new pole/trolley shoe hardware before the pantograph conversion started.

I don't think there's any left now, could be mistaken, but for maximum yikes, PAT in Pittsburgh proved you can even run pantographs on circular profile trolley wire as long as the ear and hanger assemblies shove it down below anything else that could foul the clearance of the pan sled.  This, notably,  even included pantographs that were retrofitted on to PCC cars.  Including air cars, even, which is a truly wild sight.  I'm trying to find a picture but the only one I've been able to turn up is an air car in the subway in the mid-80s and it doesn't show the pantograph well.

Edit:  Found one.  Yes, it has been done, you can even put pantographs on air PCCs.

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Wasn't there two stages of overhead work? The initial stuff in the late 90s was SOGR to replace life expired Ohio Brass parts with Wabco/IMPulse. The pantograph conversion was later in the 2000s as part of the fleet replacement. I remember the upside down U shape fittings on some special work into the mid 2000s. Also the OB design insulators were standard until about 10 years ago.

And wasn't the 510 built (at least partly) with "modern" overhead from the start.

 

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11 hours ago, IRT_BMT_IND said:

Wasn't there two stages of overhead work? The initial stuff in the late 90s was SOGR to replace life expired Ohio Brass parts with Wabco/IMPulse. The pantograph conversion was later in the 2000s as part of the fleet replacement. I remember the upside down U shape fittings on some special work into the mid 2000s. Also the OB design insulators were standard until about 10 years ago.

And wasn't the 510 built (at least partly) with "modern" overhead from the start.

 

Yeah, most of the system was rebuilt in the late 1990s and early 2000s with Wabco/IMPulse.  Those companies bought the Ohio Brass catalogue some time in the past which meant it was almost a like for like rebuild and not pantograph compatible.  My recollection is the same, that the last of the really old junk including the U shaped hangers held on in special work and on some of the infrequently used stretches of diversion track and short turn loops the longest.  It felt like it was almost the day after they finished all that, they announced having to retool the overhead to be pantograph compatible for the new cars and the modification project started.  It's well along now but it hasn't been finished yet.

The overhead hardware for 510 was different.  Some of it looked like it would be pan friendly but the special work wasn't.  It wasn't built with the hardware that pushes pan sleds down and guides them by underneath the frogs, so 510 wasn't pan ready even though less of it needed modification than other lines.

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17 hours ago, Wayside Observer said:

I don't think there's any left now, could be mistaken, but for maximum yikes, PAT in Pittsburgh proved you can even run pantographs on circular profile trolley wire as long as the ear and hanger assemblies shove it down below anything else that could foul the clearance of the pan sled.  This, notably,  even included pantographs that were retrofitted on to PCC cars.  Including air cars, even, which is a truly wild sight.  I'm trying to find a picture but the only one I've been able to turn up is an air car in the subway in the mid-80s and it doesn't show the pantograph well.

Edit:  Found one.  Yes, it has been done, you can even put pantographs on air PCCs.

The overhead wire in San Fran for many years was a weird mix of stuff as they transitioned from the PCCs to the Boeing-Vertols. And even before that, it was done in many places in Europe, although frequently with lyres rather than pantographs early on.

 

As for pantograph retrofits, yes, it's absolutely possible. But it also requires a bit of strengthening in the roof across the ribs to stiffen the structure against the additional dead weight and loads.

 

Dan

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37 minutes ago, smallspy said:

The overhead wire in San Fran for many years was a weird mix of stuff as they transitioned from the PCCs to the Boeing-Vertols. And even before that, it was done in many places in Europe, although frequently with lyres rather than pantographs early on.

 

As for pantograph retrofits, yes, it's absolutely possible. But it also requires a bit of strengthening in the roof across the ribs to stiffen the structure against the additional dead weight and loads.

 

Dan

Don't forget Boston.  They had the same transition from PCC to Boeing that SF did.  My family lived there for about a year in the early 1980s in the last days of green line PCCs when it was a mix of PCCs and Boeings before the Arborway line got cut back and PCCs were retired.  Multiple unit trains of air cars in the subway were cool.

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2 hours ago, Wayside Observer said:

Yeah, most of the system was rebuilt in the late 1990s and early 2000s with Wabco/IMPulse.  Those companies bought the Ohio Brass catalogue some time in the past which meant it was almost a like for like rebuild and not pantograph compatible.  My recollection is the same, that the last of the really old junk including the U shaped hangers held on in special work and on some of the infrequently used stretches of diversion track and short turn loops the longest.  It felt like it was almost the day after they finished all that, they announced having to retool the overhead to be pantograph compatible for the new cars and the modification project started.  It's well along now but it hasn't been finished yet.

The overhead hardware for 510 was different.  Some of it looked like it would be pan friendly but the special work wasn't.  It wasn't built with the hardware that pushes pan sleds down and guides them by underneath the frogs, so 510 wasn't pan ready even though less of it needed modification than other lines.

Google street view has almost complete set of photos of the 510 before the big rebuild and you can clearly see K&M overhead on the tangent sections that was probably pan compatible. Not so for the special work though.

I think the TTC was considering buying new LRVs from Europe for the line before the service cuts created a streetcar surplus, so maybe the TTC was thinking about pantograph compatibility at one point?

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