Streetcar News

[Turtle]

On 6/18/2022 at 1:54 PM, Xtrazsteve said:

They say 60km/h on Eglinton too even when the roadway only allows 50km/h.

Not sure if the communication department didn’t get the news correctly or LRVs don’t follow speed limits. Certainly it was designed for 60km/h since that was before vision zero kicked in.

It's interesting that they say 80 km/h is the maximum design speed of the Flexity Freedom, when the maximum design speed of the lflrv is 70km/h. I'm curious what the ride will be like on line 5, when they are super paranoid about tail whip on routes like St. Clair (for example)

[smallspy]

38 minutes ago, Turtle said:

It's interesting that they say 80 km/h is the maximum design speed of the Flexity Freedom, when the maximum design speed of the lflrv is 70km/h. I'm curious what the ride will be like on line 5, when they are super paranoid about tail whip on routes like St. Clair (for example)

 

The legacy fleet Flexities are limited to 70km/h. But have been tested - in both directions - in excess of 80km/h.

 

Dan

[Turtle]

56 minutes ago, smallspy said:

 

The legacy fleet Flexities are limited to 70km/h. But have been tested - in both directions - in excess of 80km/h.

Both directions? Like North and South? Or East and West?

[MRD10]

2 hours ago, smallspy said:

 

The legacy fleet Flexities are limited to 70km/h. But have been tested - in both directions - in excess of 80km/h.

 

Dan

High Speed Flexity Testing - Youtube

[nfitz]

1 hour ago, Turtle said:

Both directions? Like North and South? Or East and West?

I kind of assumed they meant backwards and forwards.

One evening when 501 and 504 service was suspended, I was walking up Parliament to find a streetcar, and came across them doing speed trials of Flexities loaded with sandbags from the hill to the Queen Street bridge over the Don, towards Parliament (and then a breaking test). I'd swear they were exceeding 80 km/hr going forwards.

[Xtrazsteve]

5 hours ago, Turtle said:

It's interesting that they say 80 km/h is the maximum design speed of the Flexity Freedom, when the maximum design speed of the lflrv is 70km/h. I'm curious what the ride will be like on line 5, when they are super paranoid about tail whip on routes like St. Clair (for example)

I would say most of the tunnels are rather straight unlike those streetcar loops. Storage tracks fit right in the middle without the mainline tracks swinging to each side unlike the cut and cover storage tracks on Line 2. Only on the surface, they would have to swing to avoid the storage tracks. 

The more interesting question is elevation swing but I think it'll just be like the TRs on line 1.

[Turtle]

3 hours ago, nfitz said:

[shared video of speed trials of lflrv]

seems reckless for them to be doing high speed tests of the lflrv on city streets. Imagine if something had gone wrong, how much damage they could have done.

[nfitz]

5 hours ago, Turtle said:

seems reckless for them to be doing high speed tests of the lflrv on city streets. Imagine if something had gone wrong, how much damage they could have done.

Roads were closed. Intersections were blocked. Police were everywhere. 

 

[Turtle]

2 hours ago, nfitz said:

Roads were closed. Intersections were blocked. Police were everywhere.

Of course, I was thinking more along the lines of random jay walkers or the vehicle derailing during a test or something. I would have thought the Queensway around High Park would have been an easier area to secure, and still close enough to a yard in case something went wrong

[Xtrazsteve]

18 minutes ago, Turtle said:

Of course, I was thinking more along the lines of random jay walkers or the vehicle derailing during a test or something. I would have thought the Queensway around High Park would have been an easier area to secure, and still close enough to a yard in case something went wrong

They had people standing every 50m or so on each side of the roadway. They must be going for the Darwin award to not notice that is going on.

[Turtle]

3 hours ago, Xtrazsteve said:

 They must be going for the Darwin award to not notice that is going on.

You never know what other people choose to do, just take a look at all those people who get hit by streetcars on Spadina or St Clair. Especially those who are under the influence of substances

[Xtrazsteve]

31 minutes ago, Turtle said:

You never know what other people choose to do, just take a look at all those people who get hit by streetcars on Spadina or St Clair. Especially those who are under the influence of substances

That's a fair point. Considering ML released this video today: https://blog.metrolinx.com/2022/06/20/shocking-new-video-shows-why-any-time-is-train-time-at-level-crossings/

However, I would think the cops would have stopped anyone appearing under the influence or completely unaware when they were doing this. All the precaution were in place for a high speed test

[smallspy]

5 hours ago, Turtle said:

You never know what other people choose to do, just take a look at all those people who get hit by streetcars on Spadina or St Clair. Especially those who are under the influence of substances

Or maybe you're making a big to-do about something that happened almost 10 years ago, and that you had no idea about until 2 days ago?

 

If it was as big a concern as you make it out to be, do you think that they would have done it?

 

Here is a not-rhetorical comment - move on. It wasn't a big deal then, and it's not a big deal now.

 

5 hours ago, Xtrazsteve said:

That's a fair point. Considering ML released this video today: https://blog.metrolinx.com/2022/06/20/shocking-new-video-shows-why-any-time-is-train-time-at-level-crossings/

 

Except that there are no parallels between the two events, other than trying to increase your post count.

 

Dan

[Doppelkupplung]

Man, how I wish TTC would run 80kph LRV service somewhere. 

That spotlight on the lower starboard side of 4401, was that a retrofit or did it come like that from factory? I don't see it in any pics I searched up. 

[Turtle]

5 hours ago, smallspy said:

Or maybe you're making a big to-do about something that happened almost 10 years ago, and that you had no idea about until 2 days ago?

No big to-do being made over on my end about anything. I'm allowed to give my opinion, since it's pretty clear in this case it is my opinion 

[Turtle]

5 hours ago, smallspy said:

 

Except that there are no parallels between the two events, other than trying to increase your post count.

 

Dan

Are you still mad at me for correcting you about the horns on a 6-car TR?

[Turtle]

By the way, the reason they had to use that section of Queen for high speed panto testing, instead of The Queensway near High Park like I suggested they should have, is because The Queensway was strictly pole only back then (and still is to this day).

 

IMO (in my opinion for those who don't understand the following is my opinion), those videos appeared to show the lflrv doing 60km/h on Queen, not 80km/h like some people implied. This is an educated estimate based on the stopping distance shown in the video for a normal full service brake application.

 

My opinion.

[Xtrazsteve]

4 hours ago, Turtle said:

By the way, the reason they had to use that section of Queen for high speed panto testing, instead of The Queensway near High Park like I suggested they should have, is because The Queensway was strictly pole only back then (and still is to this day).

 

IMO (in my opinion for those who don't understand the following is my opinion), those videos appeared to show the lflrv doing 60km/h on Queen, not 80km/h like some people implied. This is an educated estimate based on the stopping distance shown in the video for a normal full service brake application.

 

My opinion.

Rumours even says they got close to 90km/h. It might not been filmed in a video as they did this for a couple of days.

I would think Queensway would been harder to close at it’s more problematic for traffic. Also it’s not as straight as Queen east.

[nfitz]

57 minutes ago, Xtrazsteve said:

Rumours even says they got close to 90km/h. It might not been filmed in a video as they did this for a couple of days.

It certainly looked faster than 60 - I see that often enough in a 50-zone. I think they were doing this for several nights in a row. Presumably they were trying several speeds; they weren't getting close to Parliament, which was the end of their zone; so could have gone faster than it did.

[Wayside Observer]

26 minutes ago, nfitz said:

It certainly looked faster than 60 - I see that often enough in a 50-zone. I think they were doing this for several nights in a row. Presumably they were trying several speeds; they weren't getting close to Parliament, which was the end of their zone; so could have gone faster than it did.

I wonder what the theoretical top speed of one of the LFLRVs is?  The new streetcars have three phase induction motors so it's pretty straightforward to compute top synchronous speed if you know the number of pole pairs the motors have and the top frequency the traction power inverters will provide.  Then work through what the drivetrain gear reduction ratio does to shaft speed and wheel diameter, then account for slip between synchronus speed and actual rotational speed under load and all that other blah blah blah nobody likes to deal with.  You can arrive at a computed top speed with a bit of work.  How close was that to what actual, real world proving tests measured?

AC motors are very different beasts from DC machines, especially series wound motors which have a theoretically unlimited top speed when they aren't loaded and are only limited by real-world factors like friction which is why traction adhesion isn't as good and why you can do some serious damage birdcaging them when you have wheel slip...

[Shaun]

6 hours ago, Wayside Observer said:

I wonder what the theoretical top speed of one of the LFLRVs is?  The new streetcars have three phase induction motors so it's pretty straightforward to compute top synchronous speed if you know the number of pole pairs the motors have and the top frequency the traction power inverters will provide.  Then work through what the drivetrain gear reduction ratio does to shaft speed and wheel diameter, then account for slip between synchronus speed and actual rotational speed under load and all that other blah blah blah nobody likes to deal with.  You can arrive at a computed top speed with a bit of work.  How close was that to what actual, real world proving tests measured?

AC motors are very different beasts from DC machines, especially series wound motors which have a theoretically unlimited top speed when they aren't loaded and are only limited by real-world factors like friction which is why traction adhesion isn't as good and why you can do some serious damage birdcaging them when you have wheel slip...

If you look at the ION trains in Waterloo there is a short section that allows for 75kmph running. They coast along fine at 60. I don't see any reason why they can run at that speed or faster. 

[Wayside Observer]

2 hours ago, Shaun said:

If you look at the ION trains in Waterloo there is a short section that allows for 75kmph running. They coast along fine at 60. I don't see any reason why they can run at that speed or faster. 

Well, I pretty much spelled out the math and physics in my post there.

Wheel diameter, more or less fixed.

Drive train gear ratio, fixed.

Pole pair count in traction motors, fixed.

Synchronous speed in RPM = (120*f)/number of poles is fixed.  Subtract some speed due to slip and the real value will be lower.

Whatever f tops out at from the traction power inverter is, is going to be one of the very serious limiting factors that will come into play and restrict top speed on these cars.

[smallspy]

On 6/20/2022 at 9:59 PM, Turtle said:

Are you still mad at me for correcting you about the horns on a 6-car TR?

Hey, if that's going to make you sleep better at night, you can go right ahead thinking that.

[MCIBUS]

How many Street Garages does the TTC have and what are their names?

[Byfold]

2 hours ago, MCIBUS said:

How many Street Garages does the TTC have and what are their names?

https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/Toronto_Transit_Commission