News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 02, 2020
A Message to Our Readers
 11K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
EarthCam Time-Lapse Documents Rafael Viñoly-Designed New Stanford Hospital Construction
 43K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
Resort Town
 6.8K     0 
Bordercollie said:
Signals Upgraded for Finch West Line 6: Another False Start? | UrbanToronto https://share.google/0NQt3igqXOtnNfbwH

I don't understand, if the queen streetcar can hit 50kmph for stops that are shorter than the finch LRT in mixed traffic why can't the Line 6 trains reach this speed between stops. Why do they crawl along at 30kmph?

That curve near Humber is. Nowhere near the curves that legacy system navigates on a regular basis at speeds faster than 6kmph.

Yes the vehicles are different but that cannot be why trains need to travel at 30kmph on a straight section of track.

Is this just incompetence?
Click to expand...
One would wonder what ML is hiding for those vehicles...
 
yrt+viva=1system said:
The wheel profile on the Eglinton LRT seems to be very similar to the profile that the TTC uses for the subway.
Click to expand...
Yes, how is a wheel that is supposed to be angled towards the center of the rail making contact with that much of the width of the rail when the rail is new?? It also looks like sand and/or salt just sits on the rail.

I'm curious where that stray bolt came from on the Eglinton LRT :oops:
 
lastcommodore said:
I diverted my commute one hour and have taken my very first ride on 6 FW leaving Humber 12:02 EB, arrive 12:40
*Update: Turns out I lost less time than I would have if I took my usual commute, given Lakeshore West had a serious incident causing significant delays.

Will do some more analysis later on the data as ive taken a gpx, incl. theoretical times, but initial points:

38 mins end to end. 16.3kmh avg
18 greens and 5 reds. (Ped crossing not included- Green) Two greens were clipped (Tram slowed for a red then light turned green)
Every single red was clipped, followed by the left turn phase. All reds could have been avoided if left turns ran first, but then we would have caught some 5 reds waiting for lefts to go first... to literally nobody's surprise who paid attention to @reaperexpress, moving the left turn phase to after through traffic doesnt increase green time... We need phase rotation

Additional thoughts:
- I like the foamer window.
- The trams dont seem to take the humber curve nicely.
- Smooth, but feels more like rail thats been roughed in for some time, like on the streetcar network, not new rail like line 5
- Operators are incredibly cautious with speed. They are usually slowed down well before the intersection. Does the station slowzone apply to the the platform on the opposite direction???
- Whoever thought to install a big handbar right in front of the screens should have their sanity checked.
Click to expand...
About that analysis.

I compared real case I had with 3 ideal cases.
1. No red light or red clipping (Slow for red but turns green before stop)
2. Same as 1, with no intersection speed restriction (Remove all slowdowns crossing green intersections)
3. Same as 2, with the untimely demise of Stevenson, Duncanwoods, and Driftwood.
1774058555722.png

1774058601800.png

1774058683561.png


THE HEADLINE:
- 39m18s minutes current, 15.9kmh
1. NO REDS: 31m6s, 20.1kmh (+26% speed from base-- This alone puts the 6 faster than the bus at all times)
2. + NO INTERSECTION RESTRICTIONS: 29m59s, 20.8kmh (+31% speed from base, +3% improvement)
3. + DEATH OF STEVENSON, DUNCANWOODS, DRIFTWOOD*: 27m44s, 22.5kmh (42% speed from base, 6% improvement)

Important caveats:
1. GPS on a phone can be a little rough sometimes.
2. I believe i was very conservative on the intersection restrictions and i underestimated the benefits of removing it. This policy not only affects crossing greens, but also crossing platforms parallel on the other track (!?) and slows vehicles down before the stop at all, which is very difficult to gauge and fix from GPS points. I would probably bump this up to maybe 6% improvement just by gut feefees.
3. Only 6% improvement from nuking stevenson, duncan and drift surprised me.

To add onto the great work and graph by Steve Munro,

1774109334242.png

Edit: My original post accidentally had this graph above centred at 25 min, not 30 min. Thank you to @urbanclient for pointing it out. Silly mistake on my part.
 

Attachments

  • 1774059951998.png
    1774059951998.png
    383.6 KB · Views: 150
Last edited:
Remember the recent reports on how Torontonians can't get real time updates on Line 6 arrival times because of a "Metrolinx firewall"? TTCriders finally launched a petition calling on Metrolinx to release the data. Please sign and share.

www.ttcriders.ca

Tell Metrolinx to Release the Data

www.ttcriders.ca www.ttcriders.ca
 
TwoWheelPoli said:
Remember the recent reports on how Torontonians can't get real time updates on Line 6 arrival times because of a "Metrolinx firewall"? TTCriders finally launched a petition calling on Metrolinx to release the data. Please sign and share.

www.ttcriders.ca

Tell Metrolinx to Release the Data

www.ttcriders.ca www.ttcriders.ca
Click to expand...
They don’t even have the Vision system used to track surface vehicles. I’m sure it’s not that hard to figure out if they want to but I suppose the route manager uses the signaling system for location like the subway instead of gps for surface routes?
 
I'm sorry for tagging you @smallspy, but I felt you were the right person to answer this question:

Is the ridiculous speed limit on the curve at Highway 27 the fault of bad planning, or the result of the cancellation of the Flexities in lieu of Citadis cars?

To a layman, I think the shorter modules on the Flexities could've negotiated the curve better.

Succintly, is the built form of Line 6 designed to Flexity or Citadis specs?

I don't think this has been answered before.
 
Mind_the_gap said:
I'm sorry for tagging you @smallspy, but I felt you were the right person to answer this question:

Is the ridiculous speed limit on the curve at Highway 27 the fault of bad planning, or the result of the cancellation of the Flexities in lieu of Citadis cars?

To a layman, I think the shorter modules on the Flexities could've negotiated the curve better.

Succintly, is the built form of Line 6 designed to Flexity or Citadis specs?

I don't think this has been answered before.
Click to expand...
The Ottawa LRT has tighter curves but has resulted in premature bearing failure so perhaps they are being overly cautious
 
pmacpherson68 said:
Ive been to China... its the most capitalist country ive ever been to, money buys you everything and anything. the communism is only the power side of the equation.
Click to expand...

Noo that can't be true, I have it on good authority (experts on Urban Toronto) that those red commies haven't discovered market capitalism... /s

“Americans Don’t Know How Capitalist China Is”

Weijian Shan was born in China and had his life upended by the Cultural Revolution. Educated in the United States, he worked for the World Bank and J.P. Morgan and taught at the Wharton School. Today he is the CEO of PAG, a $40 billion private equity firm based in Hong Kong. In this interview he...
hbr.org hbr.org
 
Mind_the_gap said:
I'm sorry for tagging you @smallspy, but I felt you were the right person to answer this question:

Is the ridiculous speed limit on the curve at Highway 27 the fault of bad planning, or the result of the cancellation of the Flexities in lieu of Citadis cars?

To a layman, I think the shorter modules on the Flexities could've negotiated the curve better.

Succintly, is the built form of Line 6 designed to Flexity or Citadis specs?

I don't think this has been answered before.
Click to expand...
The curve at Highway 27 is no sharper than can reasonably be traveled at a reduced speed by any generic LRV built to the "common standard", regardless of maker. It was never meant to be a full-speed curve, as that was never a reasonable option at that corner. If I had to point at a number, it seems to me that it should be able to be traversed at about 25km/h - but that's a guess and nothing more.

That said, yes, it does seem to me that they are operating through there slower than they absolutely need to. But then again, they are operating the rest of the line slower than they strictly need to as well.

Is that because of the many historic issues of the Citadis trams? Is that because of Mosaic still requiring the lowered speed limits on the line? I don't know, it may be both.

Dan
 
In theory, Metrolinx could truck a pair of Flexities to Finch, install and qualify the line’s safety equipment, and put them out on the FWLRT to compare performance. That would be a good way to know if there was any merit in tacking a bunch of cars onto the ECWE order and sending the Flexities to Hurontario. If they and the TTC were the only parties involved, it might even happen.

But Mosaic, having no public accountability, could simply say “we maintain the vehicles in our contract and will allow no other”

I reject (again) the notion a couple of pages up thread that Metrolinx were obviously wrong to order Citadis for FW.

1. At the time Citadis was a powerhouse in the LRT market in Europe, the Middle East and Australia.
2. Bombardier had carpetbombed its credibility by having City and TTC dutifully sign on their delivery assurances and having them contradicted within days. Recall also that a large chunk of the first 204 cars had to be pulled out of service and sent to Quebec for re-welding.
3. Citadis was under construction in Ottawa which gave some assurance that there would be sufficient vendor parts inventory in Canada to meet a usual amount of operational wear and tear.

What wasn’t anticipated was Alstom’s choice to use Citadis’ related but poorly selling product line as the base of the vehicle, and then adding a few more changes besides (see @smallspy’s message above). Even worse, instead of shaking out the initial bugs, new bugs (the bearing cartridges) showed up when the vehicles were out of their early service and should have been at the most reliable part of their lifespan.

Flexity had the advantage of years sitting around in depot as TTC figured out the nuance of the downtown cars and thus a knowledge base for a large degree of the uptown car’s needs, including vehicles with significant mileage, and came out of a production line and supply chain which was significantly more mature to the point that the TTC felt comfortable with going back to them for 60 more cars.

I think Canadian light rail is better off with a choice of vehicles *and* a choice of manufacturers - so the selection of Hyundai Rotem in Edmonton isn’t all bad if it helps keep Alstom honest. But I think any notion of Alstom saying “we don’t sell Flexity any more” should be strongly resisted, particularly for orders not yet signed. It will be interesting to see what kind of Citadis will be provided to SEPTA and maybe that is a big enough order that forces Alstom to come up with a retrofittable solution in Toronto and Ottawa, but until that’s true it is surely madness to consider more.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top