Metroscapes
Active Member
With all due respect to all, I'd want to see / get a proper engineering assessment.
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- Thread starter drum118
- Start date
reaperexpress
Senior Member
Tables are definitely an important feature they should add to facilitate longer trips, but they need to be large and sturdy enough that they can comfortably support a laptop. If they switched to row seating they'd be able to have seatback traytables which provide that without taking up lots of space like the tables with quad seating.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
The signals for the Pearson spur deliberately prevent non-UPX trains from going onto it, presumably because it has a lower weight rating than would be required for a locomotive.
But if a DMU can run on it, an EMU could as well since they have the same axle weight.
crs1026
Superstar
The issue at Pearson is not weight, it's the GTAA's position that high-horsepower fuel-laden diesels have no business getting that close to an airport building.
I don't know if a light but powerful electric loco would raise similar concerns.
- Paul
I don't know if a light but powerful electric loco would raise similar concerns.
- Paul
AHK
Senior Member
From my perspective, the guideway's load bearing considerations would not be the major factor limiting other transit vehicle types, but the turning radius. Some background - when the Scarborough LRT opened in 1985, it incorporated a turn-around loop at the Kennedy end, allowing the LRT trains to travel in a continuous direction, without the operators having to switch between the two cab cars. The turn around loop was abandoned in short order, and replaced by a cross-over connection with the operator having to change ends of the LRT to make the journey to Scarborough. While designed and built to specification of the turn radius requirements for the LRT cars, in real life, operational, experience the tightness of the turn-around loop's curve ripped the guts out of the undercarriages. The vehicles were developed a major side-to-side wobble when they were moving.
Fast forward thirty odd years. While the Pearson guideway presumably would have been engineered and constructed in accordance with the turning radius requirements for the Nippon Sharyo DMU's - in real life operational experience, the curves are too tight and were causing major maintenance issues (aka by me as ripping out the guts) for the undercarriages. Anyone taking the UP Express in the past while would know first hand of the material speed reduction that has taken place in the guideway section - the trains now transit that section in little better than a waking pace.
Seeing the operator after arriving at Pearson, I asked what had happened, why the big slow-down. The answer was the damage being done to the undercarriages when travelling over the curved section at their original speeds.
So in terms of Yogi Berra's famous quote: "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice - in practice there is" - in theory one can design a section of track to the minimum turn radius specification of the equipment to be used, in practice, turn radii designed to the minimum requirements of the equipment is just not going to work well in actual operation on a sustained basis.
So before discussing weight limitations of alternative equipment on the Pearson loop - to me the first consideration would be could any of the equipment being suggested as an alternative even work properly with the existing guideway curves?
lenaitch
Senior Member
As opposed to the high-horsepower, fuel-laden aircraft on the other side of the fence.
crs1026
Superstar
WB62
Senior Member
RU479
Active Member
Well if we're looking at the used market, there are actually the 10 EXO F59s (that coincidentally are ex GO), that would be up for retirement by 2024 due to them being displaced by the Charger locomotives.
Metrolink also has their own list of F59s that they are retiring and putting up for sale, so you never know.
cplchanb
Senior Member
please god no. we cant be ghetto enough to purchase old surplus equipment that we sold off ourselves for being old and obsolete!
T3G
Senior Member
Why do you care so much about what kind of locomotives are running?
I'd get it if it were rolling stock you'd be riding on, even if I'd disagree, but a locomotive? Close your eyes and don't look when a loco is passing you.
As someone who presently uses the Milton line, I can assure you that GO trains will be far behind even a mediocre European operation until such time as we get serious about introducing 2 way, all day service to the corridor, even if the measly amount of trains the line runs today were electrified with the newest state of the art European EMUs. These fancy new toys you keep hyping up are mere window dressing. Where's the usable service?
Krypto98
Active Member
The crews I've talked to perfer the cab layout of the f59 over the mp40. (Probably Due to sightlines out the window), they also like the CEM cabs. Having operated wide cabs on a certain class 1 railway, I think I would much perfer running a f40 over the Siemens which I've heard have very tiny front windows. The VIA crews I've talked to also share that opinion.
Personally as a customer I couldn't care less as long as my seat is comfortable and the service is reliable.
As a railroader, I want to see out the front window so I can do my job properly
Bojaxs
Senior Member
Agreed. As long as the stations and trains are kept clean, and service is reliable, then what does it matter how old the equipment is? If the trains are kept in a state of good repair and get the job done, why replace them? Run them into the ground. Get as much money out of them as you would a Toyota Tacoma.
cplchanb
Senior Member
i dont care about looks. i care that we are wasting money on 40 year old equipment that we declared obsolete just to grovel back to them because we are cheap and desperate. i would rather invest on new equipment that can last for decades more than to continually waste money on life support for almost walking deads.
crs1026
Superstar
Obsolete? If you open the throttle and it moves, it isn't obsolete. The waste is in dashing to buy something new when the old something is still in good working order.
You sound like the type that camps out in front of an Apple store before the next model of iPhone launches. My old iPhone seems to still do the job.
- Paul