Miscellaneous TTC Discussion & Questions

[T3G]

Back in 2018, I heard a rumour that pantographs had already been purchased for the historical vehicles.

Given that it is now 6 years later and there seems to have been zero movement on the retrofitting of these cars with pantos, would it be accurate to presume that was bunk?

[Articulated]

32 minutes ago, T3G said:

Back in 2018, I heard a rumour that pantographs had already been purchased for the historical vehicles.

Given that it is now 6 years later and there seems to have been zero movement on the retrofitting of these cars with pantos, would it be accurate to presume that was bunk?

That they had pantographs purchased for the heritage fleet that far back? Yes, I think that was bunk.

However, speaking to some TTC staff at an open house event last year, they do still plan on retrofitting the cars with pantographs to enable operation on the new overhead. They need to undertake engineering studies of the existing cars first, however, to determine their structural ability to carry pantographs; that work is estimated to take a couple of years (not a priority project I imagine), and then retrofitting the cars one-by-one.

[buswizzard]

On 1/11/2024 at 12:42 PM, tomsbuspage said:

I have this shot at Kipling Station from September 2006:

I tried to get more info on the biobus thing but it seems it was a 9 month trial but I remember seeing these stickers for several years!

[wil9402]

2 hours ago, buswizzard said:

I tried to get more info on the biobus thing but it seems it was a 9 month trial but I remember seeing these stickers for several years!

The pilot project ran at Queensway in 2006, likely the 9 months you're referring to. It was then expanded to all divisions and in use until 2009. Here's a link to the Procurement Authorization Amendment to stop using Biodiesel in 2009 from the August 28, 2008 Board Meeting.

[Orion_II]

Has anyone here ever shot at Don Mills station? I'm looking at the wiki and it seems like a pretty decent place to go considering its near where i live, but the fact that its an underground terminal is making me hesitant to go there.

[T3G]

Why would the fact that the terminal is underground be significant? Plenty of sketchy folk ply their trade under the wide open sky.

That said, inside the station is not great for photos. No underground place is. Far better to stand outside one of the station exits (Sheppard and Parkway Forest, or Don Mills south of Leith Hill).

 

[Orion_II]

4 hours ago, T3G said:

Why would the fact that the terminal is underground be significant? Plenty of sketchy folk ply their trade under the wide open sky.

That said, inside the station is not great for photos. No underground place is. Far better to stand outside one of the station exits (Sheppard and Parkway Forest, or Don Mills south of Leith Hill).

 

The reason I was worried was because I shot at Eglinton for a bit and the whole being underground thing made photography a pain. I still need to get much better at panning before I go there. And thank you for the recommendations, I'll add them to the list of places to check out. You've honestly been a life saver for me: i checked out Sheppard West and Pioneer Village stations the other day and I got some great shots. I'm still relatively new to fanning in Toronto proper and York Region, so thank you.

[T3G]

Always happy to help.

One other thing I will add is that panning is a very imprecise type of photography. You can get better at it, you can get a feel of vehicle speed and have more success than someone trying out, but even if you're a senior photographer chances are you'll have more misses than hits. If you want to do underground bus terminal photography, you'd be better off trying to shoot stationary objects.

[Xtrazsteve]

Panning shots is cool with a blur background. That could be also be done with cheating on photoshoot.

Perhaps as AI editing software improves, one could easily separate the object from the background to imitate depth of field.

[Ed T.]

This answer may be in the wiki somewhere, but I don't know where to look.

What was the last revenue vehicle in service in the old maroon-and-cream colour scheme? One of the A16 PCCs in 1995?

And that leads me to speculate which revenue vehicle will be the last in the CLRV colour scheme. Will the 8000s outlast the last few CLRV NG HEVs? We will see.

[Cityflyer]

39 minutes ago, Ed T. said:

This answer may be in the wiki somewhere, but I don't know where to look.

What was the last revenue vehicle in service in the old maroon-and-cream colour scheme? One of the A16 PCCs in 1995?

And that leads me to speculate which revenue vehicle will be the last in the CLRV colour scheme. Will the 8000s outlast the last few CLRV NG HEVs? We will see.

Technically speaking all CLRV livery buses were gone by the early 2000s. When the turn of the century rebuilt buses came back, they weren't in the CLRV livery anymore.

The last delivered CLRV livery buses were the 1991 Orion Vs and any buses from this batch and older that went through a rebuild did not come back with the CLRV livery.

[Kumiko Oumae]

1 hour ago, Cityflyer said:

Technically speaking all CLRV livery buses were gone by the early 2000s. When the turn of the century rebuilt buses came back, they weren't in the CLRV livery anymore.

The last delivered CLRV livery buses were the 1991 Orion Vs and any buses from this batch and older that went through a rebuild did not come back with the CLRV livery.

Not really. The CLRV livery has two versions: The one with the red and silver used for bus deliveries from 1980 to 1994 while the variant (dubbed CLRV V2) with the red stripe on white with silver strips used for bus deliveries from 1995 to 2016; debuting in the 1996 Orion Vs with #8942 the first unit with it.

The last actual delivered buses with the CLRV livery was the 2016 NovaBUS LFS. In total, the CLRV livery has lasted from 1980 to 2016 for bus deliveries.

[T3G]

18 minutes ago, Kumiko Oumae said:

Not really. The CLRV livery has two versions: The one with the red and silver used for bus deliveries from 1980 to 1994 while the variant (dubbed CLRV V2) with the red stripe on white with silver strips used for bus deliveries from 1995 to 2016; debuting in the 1996 Orion Vs with #8942 the first unit with it.

The last actual delivered buses with the CLRV livery was the 2016 NovaBUS LFS. In total, the CLRV livery has lasted from 1980 to 2016 for bus deliveries.

I really don't want to get bogged down in what is ultimately trivial semantics, but I can't help myself: why exactly is it that the 1980s version of the livery with its copious quantities of grey, and the 2000s version, without any grey, are considered to be variations of the same livery, but the new one, which is, at its core, basically an inverted version of the 2000s version of the livery, is no longer considered to be the same? I think that the original CLRV livery is way more distinct from the two that followed it. The only bus that looks truly, significantly, different in the present day livery is the OG Orion VII, which used way more black-grey in its millennial colours than did other bus models.

18 minutes ago, Kumiko Oumae said:

(dubbed CLRV V2)

Dubbed that by who? Seems pretty bland. We should aim for more interesting designations, like British Railways' blood and custard. To that end, I propose Suburban Grey, Kinder Egg, and Communism, in that order.

 

And to answer the original question: yes, it would have been the A15s. More specifically, 4611, which was the last PCC. By the time their retirement came around all the buses had long since been repainted.

[2044]

Since the livery came about with the State of Good Repair and Heavy Rebuild Program, a few people I know refer to it as the State of Good Repair or SOGR livery.

[Ed T.]

3 hours ago, T3G said:

I really don't want to get bogged down in what is ultimately trivial semantics, but I can't help myself: why exactly is it that the 1980s version of the livery with its copious quantities of grey, and the 2000s version, without any grey, are considered to be variations of the same livery, but the new one, which is, at its core, basically an inverted version of the 2000s version of the livery, is no longer considered to be the same? I think that the original CLRV livery is way more distinct from the two that followed it. The only bus that looks truly, significantly, different in the present day livery is the OG Orion VII, which used way more black-grey in its millennial colours than did other bus models.

And to answer the original question: yes, it would have been the A15s. More specifically, 4611, which was the last PCC. By the time their retirement came around all the buses had long since been repainted.

 

5 hours ago, Cityflyer said:

Technically speaking all CLRV livery buses were gone by the early 2000s. When the turn of the century rebuilt buses came back, they weren't in the CLRV livery anymore.

The last delivered CLRV livery buses were the 1991 Orion Vs and any buses from this batch and older that went through a rebuild did not come back with the CLRV livery.

 

4 hours ago, Kumiko Oumae said:

Not really. The CLRV livery has two versions: The one with the red and silver used for bus deliveries from 1980 to 1994 while the variant (dubbed CLRV V2) with the red stripe on white with silver strips used for bus deliveries from 1995 to 2016; debuting in the 1996 Orion Vs with #8942 the first unit with it.

The last actual delivered buses with the CLRV livery was the 2016 NovaBUS LFS. In total, the CLRV livery has lasted from 1980 to 2016 for bus deliveries.

 

Hmm, I should have looked at the label on the can before I opened it.

To me, the maroon and cream colour scheme was philosophically a single colour scheme, even though a PCC did not have the same painting pattern as a New Look....or a Flyer D700....or a D800 (they seemed pretty uncertain how to handle the back of those). The body designs were different enough that what worked on one (PCC say) did not work on another (New Look with aluminium side trim). And when they went through rebuilds, things changed.

And to me, the "CLRV" scheme (because it first showed up on CLRV 4001 or whatever) is philosophically another and distinct colour scheme, even if the proportions vary. Which is inevitable, because the body proportions of a low floor bus are definitely not the body proportions of a high floor rail vehicle....or a UTDC ICTS car....or.... And for what it's worth, the originial as-delivered colour scheme of the 8500-up New Looks and the 83-8400 Flyers was nicer than the similar colour scheme applied by the shops during rebuild. For example, the over-winidow side red strip applied to rebuilt New Looks was too wide, in my opinion.

I suppose that, philosophically, I will await which is the last philosophically CLRV revenue vehicle; I'm putting my money on the 8000s.

[CJ.]

Someone took off with a supervisor west from Warden Station and then a few hours later last night same said person tried to steal (8961?) which was parked next to the employee car lot at Birchmount. Tried starting it up but couldn't figure it out and then decided to smash the windows on a revenue protection car. I'm sure he thought he blended in casually smashing the windows of a TTC vehicle while wearing a supervisor vest. Ended up getting arrested shortly after and turns out they were part of a trespassing earlier that day and were homeless. This city really has gone to rock bottom sh1t.

[Turtle]

11 minutes ago, CJ. said:

Someone took off with a supervisor west from Warden Station and then a few hours later last night same said person tried to steal (8961?) which was parked next to the employee car lot at Birchmount. Tried starting it up but couldn't figure it out and then decided to smash the windows on a revenue protection car. I'm sure he thought he blended in casually smashing the windows of a TTC vehicle while wearing a supervisor vest. Ended up getting arrested shortly after and turns out they were part of a trespassing earlier that day and were homeless. This city really has gone to rock bottom sh1t.

That wouldn't have been the first bus ever to be stolen if they succeeded. Back in my day they sent a system wide message on the Trump unit to be on the lookout for a bus that had been taken for a joyride. They found it two days later parked in back of a school with damage from the "driver" not knowing their clearance in a turn. 

 

Shh, don't tell anybody how easy it is to steal one of those things. 

[Young]

Just now, Turtle said:

That wouldn't have been the first bus ever to be stolen if they succeeded. Back in my day they sent a system wide message on the Trump unit to be on the lookout for a bus that had been taken for a joyride. They found it two days later parked in back of a school with damage from the "driver" not knowing their clearance in a turn. 

Also 8156 was taken on a joyride from Birchmount division back in 2016 or 17

[CJ.]

20 minutes ago, Turtle said:

That wouldn't have been the first bus ever to be stolen if they succeeded. Back in my day they sent a system wide message on the Trump unit to be on the lookout for a bus that had been taken for a joyride. They found it two days later parked in back of a school with damage from the "driver" not knowing their clearance in a turn. 

 

thShh, don't tell anybody how easy it is to steal one of those things. 

That's interesting. This was before the buses were actually trackable? Anyone who steals these things can get caught right away (that is if they know its been taken on a joyride in the first place and its not some division guy just not signed in)

 

In September they charged teens with trespassing at another garage and they tried to steal a bus too. Apparently it was super ridiculous and funny, there was a ton of high school kids in backpacks walking around trying to get the buses to move. At least get the proper attire. Ended up with trespassing and property damage charges

[Turtle]

35 minutes ago, CJ. said:

That's interesting. This was before the buses were actually trackable? Anyone who steals these things can get caught right away (that is if they know its been taken on a joyride in the first place and its not some division guy just not signed in)

Lol, you are so delusional to think that the ability to track is a deterrent to theft, when there is nothing currently stopping anybody with sufficient knowledge from stealing one. I guess at least nowadays they may have a fairly accurate tracking of a stolen bus, just as long as vision is tracking correctly. As long as it isn't overcast or snowing they should know where that stolen bus is, within 100ft right?

 

35 minutes ago, CJ. said:

In September they charged teens with trespassing at another garage and they tried to steal a bus too. Apparently it was super ridiculous and funny, there was a ton of high school kids in backpacks walking around trying to get the buses to move. At least get the proper attire. Ended up with trespassing and property damage charges

Yes, security by trust, works for the most part, except when people are untrustworthy.  Except for the cameras onboard recording everything, there isn't much of a deterrent from stealing one. Anybody who knows how a straight truck works can steal one of those things, except for one specific thing being reversed.

 

How do you think that ghost bus rolling away and hitting the wall at bathurst station was set up?

[T3G]

1 hour ago, CJ. said:

That's interesting. This was before the buses were actually trackable? Anyone who steals these things can get caught right away (that is if they know its been taken on a joyride in the first place and its not some division guy just not signed in)

Wouldn't there have to be someone watching the GPS map with all the vehicles on it to notice this happening?

Considering how often buses bunch together, and stay bunched together for hours on end, if such a role does exist, I venture that they probably do not pay very close attention to what they are doing.

[CJ.]

8 minutes ago, T3G said:

Wouldn't there have to be someone watching the GPS map with all the vehicles on it to notice this happening?

Considering how often buses bunch together, and stay bunched together for hours on end, if such a role does exist, I venture that they probably do not pay very close attention to what they are doing.

My guess is it would be very difficult to find out if it ever happened unless an bus in service is stolen or a bus that was supposed to go somewhere/mech work/scheduled to be in service is missing

 

But once they find out its on a joyride, they should have no problem catching them instantly

[Orion V]

7 hours ago, Ed T. said:

I suppose that, philosophically, I will await which is the last philosophically CLRV revenue vehicle; I'm putting my money on the 8000s.

Or the 12-14xx NGs that weren't repainted after rebuilt?

[Turtle]

8 hours ago, CJ. said:

But once they find out its on a joyride, they should have no problem catching them instantly

Sure, if by instantly you mean somewhere in Manitoba two days later.

 

Haven't they learned anything from that Richard guy who stole a snowplow?

[Ed T.]

11 hours ago, T3G said:

Wouldn't there have to be someone watching the GPS map with all the vehicles on it to notice this happening?

Yeah, all they would need to do is check "Special Sightings" here for messages like "8765 is tracking in Algonquin Park LOL".