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Miscellaneous TTC Discussion & Questions


Orion V

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2 hours ago, smallspy said:

A new carhouse is entirely on the radar. Just because you don't know about it doesn't mean that it isn't happening.


Dan

If it really is happening, that is extremely exciting overall, but I can't help but wonder why even small details (or the idea as a whole) haven't been made public yet. If it's on the radar (as it should be), that seems to imply that information about them, general location considerations, cost analyses, and other preliminary engineering work has been completed. If so, why haven't details of that been made public? If these are general discussions between board members, that's a different story, but I have my doubts considering we can't get them to address the streetcar shortage issue. 

The public knew about Leslie Barnes being in the works way back in 2006 if I remember correctly, and sites were being planned in 2008, meaning details were public at least 9 years before the planned opening. If they are indeed planning on constructing a new carhouse, under the same general timeframe, the earliest it could open is 2028, 5 years after we supposedly max out storage. Carhouse expansion doesn't really seem possible based on the archived engineering drawings (https://www.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Projects/Leslie_Barns/project_history.jsp). 

Nevertheless, I genuinely hope that what you're saying is true. 

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27 minutes ago, Streety McCarface said:

If it really is happening, that is extremely exciting overall, but I can't help but wonder why even small details (or the idea as a whole) haven't been made public yet. If it's on the radar (as it should be), that seems to imply that information about them, general location considerations, cost analyses, and other preliminary engineering work has been completed.

The location and budget was listed in the most recent budget document at the start of the year. That doesn't mean it is really happening, but how is that not on the radar?

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5 hours ago, Bus_Medic said:

No, this is permanent.

 Open windows waste heat also.

Oh wow, this is so stupid. When the heat is cranked up, the novas are a freaking oven in the rear section. Even now its so stuffy in the bus with the AC not running on days where its like 15-20C. They need to allow the two rear windows in the Novas to open to ventilate. Not to mention when there's someone that stinks of cigarettes, perfume or just something else...

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2 minutes ago, MK78 said:

Oh wow, this is so stupid. When the heat is cranked up, the novas are a freaking oven in the rear section. Even now its so stuffy in the bus with the AC not running on days where its like 15-20C. They need to allow the two rear windows in the Novas to open to ventilate. Not to mention when there's someone that stinks of cigarettes, perfume or just something else...

?‍♂️

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14 minutes ago, Downsview 108 said:

The Orion IIIs in late 2000.

Orion Freeze!  (Long story.)

I guess the exception proves the rule although given the condition they were in, those probably should have stayed retired.  

They also started unmothballing Gloucester’s in the mid 80s when it became clear H6 deliveries and availability was the pits.  Now that was a nice reprieve that lasted almost four years long.  I just wish it could’ve been longer.  Now that I think about it a bit more, the Edmonton BBCs got put back in service for the remainder of their lease period too for that final, last gasp after the Lansdowne trolleybus lines were initially shut down.

Generally speaking though, management teams don’t like revisiting and revising decisions they’ve already made unless the circumstances are so dire that ignoring the changes would end up making them look worse than making a course correction in response would.

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1 hour ago, Streety McCarface said:

If it really is happening, that is extremely exciting overall, but I can't help but wonder why even small details (or the idea as a whole) haven't been made public yet. If it's on the radar (as it should be), that seems to imply that information about them, general location considerations, cost analyses, and other preliminary engineering work has been completed. If so, why haven't details of that been made public? If these are general discussions between board members, that's a different story, but I have my doubts considering we can't get them to address the streetcar shortage issue. 

The public knew about Leslie Barnes being in the works way back in 2006 if I remember correctly, and sites were being planned in 2008, meaning details were public at least 9 years before the planned opening. If they are indeed planning on constructing a new carhouse, under the same general timeframe, the earliest it could open is 2028, 5 years after we supposedly max out storage. Carhouse expansion doesn't really seem possible based on the archived engineering drawings (https://www.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Projects/Leslie_Barns/project_history.jsp). 

Nevertheless, I genuinely hope that what you're saying is true. 

The TTC has long known that storage of the streetcar system long-term is going to be a problem. The fleet size of the Flexities plus options - 264 - was picked because that was the absolute maximum that can be held at the trio of Leslie, Roncy and Russell. (And even that would not be totally optimal, as it would require storage of equipment on the maintenance tracks.)

 

And they have been working on plans for some time because they are already aware that had the 60 car option order be taken, it was only going to buy them to 2025 or so. More cars are going to be needed soon, one way or another, and that would require more storage.

 

There are a couple of different options being bandied about, but nothing is set in stone just yet.

 

Dan

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1 hour ago, Wayside Observer said:

Orion Freeze!  (Long story.)

I guess the exception proves the rule although given the condition they were in, those probably should have stayed retired.  

They also started unmothballing Gloucester’s in the mid 80s when it became clear H6 deliveries and availability was the pits.  Now that was a nice reprieve that lasted almost four years long.  I just wish it could’ve been longer.  Now that I think about it a bit more, the Edmonton BBCs got put back in service for the remainder of their lease period too for that final, last gasp after the Lansdowne trolleybus lines were initially shut down.

Generally speaking though, management teams don’t like revisiting and revising decisions they’ve already made unless the circumstances are so dire that ignoring the changes would end up making them look worse than making a course correction in response would.

Yeah, I would never have been able to ride a G-train if that hadn't happened. ?

Those are definitely 3 weird exceptions. The first I can't remember. It just seemed like they needed all the Orion IIIs all of a sudden like a war had just been declared. 2. Was out of the TTCs control (sort of reprised with the current Flexity situation). 3. Was the TTC trying to pull a fast one on ETS? ?

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31 minutes ago, Downsview 108 said:

Yeah, I would never have been able to ride a G-train if that hadn't happened. ?

Those are definitely 3 weird exceptions. The first I can't remember. It just seemed like they needed all the Orion IIIs all of a sudden like a war had just been declared. 2. Was out of the TTCs control (sort of reprised with the current Flexity situation). 3. Was the TTC trying to pull a fast one on ETS? ?

Early production delays and not so small teething problems with the 9200s were definitely a factor in it.

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3 hours ago, Downsview 108 said:

3. Was the TTC trying to pull a fast one on ETS? ?

It wasn't such a fast one.  The TTC finished up with the trolleybuses at Lansdowne and then asked ETS to be let out of the lease early.  ETS said no and stuck the TTC to the letter of the contract which left the TTC paying for the leased BBC trolleybuses that weren't being used.  They managed to get the Ontario government to kick in some green money for environmentally friendly transit and put the BBCs back out on 4 Annette and 6 Bay for that last gasp we all remember so well.  It was just those buses on just those two lines though.  None of the mothballed Flyers including the rebuilt ones ran again and the BBCs never went on any of the other lines.  I don't think any charters took any of the resurrected BBCs on the other lines.  I think when the power was turned off, it stayed off on the other sections of wire.

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19 minutes ago, Wayside Observer said:

It wasn't such a fast one.  The TTC finished up with the trolleybuses at Lansdowne and then asked ETS to be let out of the lease early.  ETS said no and stuck the TTC to the letter of the contract which left the TTC paying for the leased BBC trolleybuses that weren't being used.  They managed to get the Ontario government to kick in some green money for environmentally friendly transit and put the BBCs back out on 4 Annette and 6 Bay for that last gasp we all remember so well.  It was just those buses on just those two lines though.  None of the mothballed Flyers including the rebuilt ones ran again and the BBCs never went on any of the other lines.  I don't think any charters took any of the resurrected BBCs on the other lines.  I think when the power was turned off, it stayed off on the other sections of wire.

I see. Thanks. As I understand it, a lot of the network remained up until about 1996 or so. Was the network at that point completely de-energized? Why did they keep it up for so long? 

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Just now, Downsview 108 said:

I see. Thanks. As I understand it, a lot of the network remained up until about 1996 or so. Was the network at that point completely de-energized? Why did they keep it up for so long? 

I'm not sure if it was totally de-energized or if some chunks that were closely tied in with the streetcar system had to be physically disconnected in order to de-energize them without taking out power to the attached sections of streetcar wire as well.  The wire for the Eglinton div. lines came down fairly quickly but it was pretty straightforward.  Other than at St. Clair station, decommissioning the Eglinton lines didn't involve disentangling power feeds from the streetcar system as well as wire junctions with streetcar overhead which had to remain up and in service, unlike a lot of the Lansdowne lines which crossed multiple streetcar lines in multiple places and had far more power integration with the rest of the TTC's 600 V systems.  It's been a few years since I've done this so I don't know if any more has been removed but even recently, you could walk through the junction area and see where 600 V power feed cable was kept in place.  Keele St. between the subway station and St. Clair was a prime example and I'm not sure if that had to be kept to feed part of the St. Clair streetcar off the substation at Keele station or if that was purely trolleybus remnants.

A lot of the Flyers hung around in dead storage for years after too.  I think I remember there were some illusions at the time that trolleybuses might be brought back if it was economically viable, which might have caused a little bit of postponement with taking down the wires, but everyone knew they were finished for good once the lease ran out on the Edmontons.  Nobody expected the TTC to resurrect any dead storage Flyers, especially the really clapped out red and cream ones that hadn't been rebuilt, and run them on lines where the infrastructure had also been mothballed and was in poor condition even before being shut down after the Edmonton BBC lease ran out.

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1 hour ago, Express Network said:

Small question: On the 40' LFS buses, why there are no large ad board frames on the right side of the bus? They could've used the smaller ad board frames found in most GM New Looks and D40s as pictured below.

Toronto_Transit_Commission_6500-a.jpg

I love the pic used! I wish one of our old girls were kept a float somewhere...

Anywho, I guess that was an option that we opted against given that when a side impact collision would happen, the body panels and possibly the frame would suffer from the hit. Also, causing the the image of the vehicle to look poorly maintained. I don’t believe I’ve seen a transit agency using the small ad racks on the curb side on any buses lately for that matter...

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1 hour ago, bus_7246 said:

I love the pic used! I wish one of our old girls were kept a float somewhere...

Anywho, I guess that was an option that we opted against given that when a side impact collision would happen, the body panels and possibly the frame would suffer from the hit. Also, causing the the image of the vehicle to look poorly maintained. I don’t believe I’ve seen a transit agency using the small ad racks on the curb side on any buses lately for that matter...

Nah, those things are like tissue paper. Even the wellnuts that hold them on are designed to give.

Theres not reason not to other than aesthetics. Really, with the proliferation of wrap decals nowadays, ad frames really aren’t necessary 

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1 hour ago, Bus_Medic said:

Theres not reason not to other than aesthetics.

 

Well, no. Aesthetics doesn't come into play when talking about advertising.

 

If they didn't fit a large ad frame, it's because they couldn't. I suspect that the large one would interfere with the fueling door, and thus they needed to use a smaller one.


Dan

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56 minutes ago, smallspy said:

If they didn't fit a large ad frame, it's because they couldn't. I suspect that the large one would interfere with the fueling door, and thus they needed to use a smaller one.

Other transit agencies specified large frames on their buses and it didn't seem to interfere with the fuel door, though it looks as if OC Transpo did specify small frames on their 90xx D40s:

APTA2028.jpgNFTA9309.jpgOak894.JPG

OC9030.jpgOC9207.jpgYRT8922.jpg

EDIT: On further inspection, it looks as if it may have had something to do with the TTC's extra turn signal, which none of the above agencies specified:

TTC6619.jpg

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Large ad racks also will not fit on the TTC spec Nova, large rear doors take up majority of the real estate there if you compare it to the picture of a STM LFS 

A cheaper option and a more common option companies use these days are just to slap the ad to the bus itself and remove when the campaign is done ( see example below I just took. ) I can’t even remember the last time I’ve seen Pattinson bring ad racks into the garage 

 

2CE2BEB5-D256-4795-B0B4-62117479BEFD.png

D7327F5E-3ABA-4C5D-9F8C-4916C2382EFF.jpeg

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On 9/12/2019 at 4:50 PM, Bus_Medic said:

?‍♂️

I wonder if all new vehicles will come with simple one-piece non-potentially-opening windows? Or will it look like maybe they can be opened, but really can't be?

I will miss the CLRVs, last TTC vehicles with usefully opening windows. After riding the last scheduled CLRV from Long Branch a few weeks ago, I rode back on a Flexity where someone ate some spicy food and of course everyone else gets to smell it too because you can't open a window and get fresh air.

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5 hours ago, Ed T. said:

I wonder if all new vehicles will come with simple one-piece non-potentially-opening windows? Or will it look like maybe they can be opened, but really can't be?

I will miss the CLRVs, last TTC vehicles with usefully opening windows. After riding the last scheduled CLRV from Long Branch a few weeks ago, I rode back on a Flexity where someone ate some spicy food and of course everyone else gets to smell it too because you can't open a window and get fresh air.

I was thinking about that earlier this week as well. When I was in BC, I rode some of their newer LFS hybrids and the windows were 50/50 between single pane and tip-in. They did have signs on the windows indicating to only open in emergency. Anyone here know what the cost difference is between tip ins and one piece windows? Quick search found that on a sprinter single pane windows were cheaper than sliders, wonder if the case is the same for transit buses. 

I've never looked, but are the tip in windows on the flexities drilled shut too? 

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On 9/13/2019 at 1:23 PM, tomsbuspage said:

Other transit agencies specified large frames on their buses and it didn't seem to interfere with the fuel door, though it looks as if OC Transpo did specify small frames on their 90xx D40s:

APTA2028.jpgNFTA9309.jpgOak894.JPG

OC9030.jpgOC9207.jpgYRT8922.jpg

EDIT: On further inspection, it looks as if it may have had something to do with the TTC's extra turn signal, which none of the above agencies specified:

TTC6619.jpg

I always thought that these buses looked like they where 35ft rather than 40.  But the ones with the Cummins engine looked longer, even though they are the same. Maybe it's due to the windows?

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17 hours ago, Shaun said:

I always thought that these buses looked like they where 35ft rather than 40.  But the ones with the Cummins engine looked longer, even though they are the same. Maybe it's due to the windows?

I can't really answer that question, but here's a broadside photo of 6482:

TTC6482.JPG

Definitely looks forty feet long to me.  It could also be the angle of the buses in the photos above.

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