msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) (08/05/89)
The following is mostly based on a report in the August 2 Toronto Star. This article is crossposted to tor.general and rec.railroad. Followups are directed to rec.railroad, but those of specifically local interest should probably go to tor.general instead. Background: The Toronto transit system had been gradually converting from streetcars to buses (and building subways) as a matter of policy for years, but this was stopped in the 1970's when only the busiest streetcar routes remained and the capacity advantage of streetcars was realized. But as a result of the past policy, the streetcar fleet had been allowed to decrease by attrition. All that remained were the newest models of cars, the PCCs, but even these dated mostly from the 1940's (some acquired secondhand from other cities, some new). Now Ontario's long-lived Conservative government believed in subsidizing city transit, but in return for this they sometimes demanded controls over the transit systems' purchases. In 1979 when the TTC decided it was time to buy a new generation of streetcars, they ordered them to buy them from the Urban Transportation Development Corporation, a company that the province had created. (They also ordered the TTC to stop buying perfectly good buses from GM and start buying inferior ones from the Canadian company Flyer, but that's another story.) (Oh -- we now have a Liberal government in the province and the UTDC has been privatized.) In due course the UTDC delivered about 200 CLRVs -- "Canadian Light Rail Vehicles". And TTC chairman Al Leach has now described these as the "Edsel of the streetcar system." They were supposed to be air conditioned, but the air conditioning proved insufficient and openable windows were installed. They make much more noise than the PCCs. They have had braking problems and rust problems. And now the gearboxes are already beginning to fail, far short of their expected lifetime but after the expiry of the maker's warranty, and the repairs for this alone will cost 4 to 5 million Canadian dollars. (The manufacturer of this component is West German, by the way; it wasn't the UTDC that did that.) It's also said that Cleveland has had problems with the CLRVs that they purchased. There are now 63 PCC streetcars left in service, but judging by the frequency with which I see them, most must be on rush hour or occasional duty only. At the TTC meeting this week, a report was presented saying that 40 of these are past their useful life and should now be scrapped. But the transit lobby group Streetcars for Toronto, supported by TTC vice-chairman Mike Colle, opposed this, calling the older cars a symbol of Toronto, and asked that ways to save them be investigated. Colle was given two weeks to inspect the 40 cars with an engineer and report back. In the past couple of years there has been a pilot program to rebuild PCC cars, but I think only about 5 have been done so far. So we may hope that many of the surviving cars will be similarly rebuilt. Unfortunately in my opinion, in the rebuild the cars lose their old paint scheme and also lose their comfortable seats, something the TTC no longer believes in. In a companion article, the Star reports that the TTC has proposed that a citizens' advisory board be created. For 70 years the Commission included "citizens" or "appointees" (choose the word according to how you view the topic), but the Metro Toronto government abolished this practice 4 months ago, saying that a budget of $500 million (Can.) per year of tax money ought to be in the hands of elected politicians. The advisory board is supposed to provide a "rider's perspective"... Mark Brader, Toronto "It's been proven. Places stay clean until somebody utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com drops the first piece of litter." -- TTC poster
msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) (08/06/89)
Again this is posted to tor.general and rec.railroad with followups directed to the latter. (Hey, Followup-To lines are only advisory...) Recently I wrote of Toronto's CLRV streetcars: > They have had braking problems ... I didn't know it at the time, but this had apparently been dramatically demonstrated not 24 hours before I posted the article. If the driver's assertions are accurate and accurately reported, a CLRV car suffered a failure of *all three* braking systems, ran downhill backwards, and collided with a trolleybus, which was pushed sideways into an automobile. The trolleybus was a write-off, but all injuries were minor. The newspaper report I saw referred to the car "running off the rails", but as nothing else was said about that, I took it that either they used the words as a metaphor for "out of control", or that it was derailed by the collision itself or else on the sharp curve within the intersection immediately before the collision. Judging from the damage pictured, the speed could not have been great; I'm only posting this at all because of the coincidence of timing with my earlier message. (Hmm, just like the newspapers who report every little yard derailment for a few days after a major rail accident...) Nothing was said, either, about why the driver could not have applied power to stop the car from rolling back. However, it would obviously be difficult to come to a stop safely after doing so. I also wrote that the rebuilt PCC cars > lose their old paint scheme which I am informed is not true in every case. -- Mark Brader "Inventions reached their limit long ago, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto and I see no hope for further development." utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com -- Julius Frontinus, 1st century A.D. This article is in the public domain.
soley@moegate.UUCP (Norman Soley) (08/08/89)
In article <1989Aug5.050846.431@sq.sq.com>, msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) writes: > > They make much more noise than the PCCs. They are also much heavier which has necessitated the complete rebuilding of the streetcar tracks the older tracks and bedding just couldn't take the abuse. With this summers work along Gerrard St. this now appears to be complete. They also cause vibration problems, living on a street with a streetcar line is a little like living with a constant mild earthquake, we have freinds who live on Broadview and their dishes rattle every time a streetcar goes by, they're so used to it they don't even notice. > They have had braking problems As indicated by this weekend's accident where a CLRV lost power and slid backwards into a trolley bus? The newspaper described three braking systems which all failed, The primary braking is done electically through the motors, the secondary brakes are air-pressure driven and the third is some sort of magnetic system that's supposed to grab the rails. I'm just speculating but it seems likely that either the magnet is actually an electromagnet (plenty of redundancy in the case of a power loss!!) or the car had already jumped the rails before the third system was tried (from the photo in the newspaper it looks like it travelled some distance after leaving the rails) > There are now 63 PCC streetcars left in service, but judging by the > frequency with which I see them, most must be on rush hour or occasional > duty only. Actually they tend to get used on the night routes and in routes that run through more residential areas in an effort to curb the noise. > In the past couple of years there has been a pilot program to rebuild > PCC cars, but I think only about 5 have been done so far. So we may hope > that many of the surviving cars will be similarly rebuilt. I recall reading a report on that pilot, seems the rebuild costs about 1/3 the cost of a new CLRV and adds to the lifetime of the PCC about 1/2 the life expaectancy of a CLRV, if this is true is makes good sense to me. -- Norman Soley - The Communications Guy - Ontario Ministry of the Environment soley@moegate.UUCP or if you roll your own: uunet!attcan!ncrcan!moegate!soley The Minister speaks for the Ministry, I speak for myself. Got that! Good.