Toronto's Streetcars

[lurkingknight]

 

New 5 sectional articulated car is coming into service this month. Looks a bit too ultramodern for my liking... the CLRV has been in service my entire life and to me, is an icon of toronto and canada as a whole... for30 or so years... I remember riding the old pcc cars when I was very young as well, those things were dark and hot inside in the summertime.

 

 

oh, and when they were testing them, this new feature blew my mind. Residents and frequent visitors of toronto will know what I'm talking about.

 

Edited August 5, 2014 by lurkingknight

[miyakoji]

I'm thinking a hybrid of Toyama and Keikyu . Anyway, I hope they're reliable and provide good service.  Bombardier?

[cteno4]

oh, and when they were testing them, this new feature blew my mind. Residents and frequent visitors of toronto will know what I'm talking about.

 

 

Turn signals??? Edited August 5, 2014 by cteno4

[Guest ___]

They look a LOT better on the video than they did on paper.

 

I see it. It had a traditional trolley pole, but when he reversed it (I wondered how he was able to reverse so fast) it has a pantograph.

 

Is the panto in case he drops the poll, or is that reserved for future upgrades?

Edited August 5, 2014 by Shashinka

[kvp]

As far as i can see it has both a pantograph and a pole. The pole was used for the parade but during the testing they used the pantograph. The reversing was fast, because it's a single direction car, so the driver just stopped, selected reverse and were driving the tram backwards. On the other hand, it's possible to back up with a trolley pole, just a bit harder.

 

ps: How to reverse an articulated trolley bus in a makeshift wye during construction work: http://index.indavideo.hu/video/troli_fordul

[Nick_Burman]

They look a LOT better on the video than they did on paper.

 

I see it. It had a traditional trolley pole, but when he reversed it (I wondered how he was able to reverse so fast) it has a pantograph.

 

Is the panto in case he drops the poll, or is that reserved for future upgrades?

 

Future upgrade I should say. It would make sense.

 

Cheers NB

[lurkingknight]

the CLRVs and PCCs could never reverse... so if there was ever an accident in front of it, any cars that could not get immediately notifed and rerouted would be stacked and stuck behind the accident.

 

reversing is a game breaker for toronto streetcars. lol.

 

 

And yes, bombarider 'won' all the contract bids for the new subway cars and streetcars.

 

 

One other addition is the new 5 sectional uses a digital bell ring... it sounds so much less authentic now compared to the older ones... the old cars had a real bell. The new one has audio samples of the old bells and plays over a speaker.

 

The top vid is closer to the service configuration, the reversing vid I think was an earlier test run, I dont' believe you can use a pantograph on most of the lines in toronto, The overheads might not be well suited for it.

 

edit:

ahh... they have both.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexity_Outlook_(Toronto_streetcar)

Edited August 5, 2014 by lurkingknight

[bill937ca]

 

I see it. It had a traditional trolley pole, but when he reversed it (I wondered how he was able to reverse so fast) it has a pantograph.

 

Is the panto in case he drops the poll, or is that reserved for future upgrades?

 

Only the first 30-40 cars will get trolley poles.  The system will be converted to pantographs with intersections being the bottleneck. Additional information here. More info here.

Edited August 6, 2014 by bill937ca

[bill937ca]

the CLRVs and PCCs could never reverse... so if there was ever an accident in front of it, any cars that could not get immediately notifed and rerouted would be stacked and stuck behind the accident.

 

reversing is a game breaker for toronto streetcars. lol.

 

 

This is wrong.  PCCs and CLRVs can reverse, but are not allowed to do without a TTC Inspector or Mobile Supervisor to supervise the backup move.  Additionally trolley poles with carbon insert shoes do not navigate frogs well and need to be guided by hand.  Because of this it has become rare to see streetcars wyed, but it may still rarely occur. A common location was Church and King.

 

I doubt streetcars will be reversing on the streetcars of Toronto anytime soon.

 

The testing video is with Bombardier engineers not TTC staff,with pay-duty police assistance.  I'm not sure if the first 3 LFLRVs have even been turned over to the TTC by Bombardier. As the Bombardier plant in Thunder Bay is on strike, the August 31 debut is in doubt. To enter service the cars still have to under go testing and operators need to be trained (which can't be done without cars).

Edited August 5, 2014 by bill937ca