[A 6264]

Regarding the issue of short and long trains, there was a time, decades ago, when the trains on our subway system ran short 4-car (rather than 6-car) trains in the evening, after rush hour. Sadly, we are no longer able to sit or stand at the very front of trains and look at the tracks during travel. But I used to see big black signs below track level, for the benefit of drivers, with a white number "4" or "6" printed on it. The "6" was always at the far end of the train, meaning a full 6 car train is to stop there. The "4" sign could be next to the "6" sign, if short trains are to stop at the far end of the station, or they may be a hundred feet back if the train is to stop at the end of the station where they came in. Even though these signs are long obsolete, they were still there last time we were allowed to look out the front of a moving train, pre covid, and they may still be there, at least on line 2.

Similar to what was said in a post above, when standing on the plaform waiting for a train, I used to get annoyed when a short train either went past me, or stopped short of where I was standing, so I had to run to catch it. I wished they would put up signs telling the public that the end of trains may not go past a certain point on the platform in evenings, rather than having hidden signs just for drivers.

So if they are going to run short trains again, I hope they put up signs warning which parts of the platforms may be beyond the end of a short train. To paraphrase a quote from Dr. Strangelove, "Why didn't you tell us?" "We were saving it for a surprise!"

 

[drum118]

Regarding the issue of short and long trains, there was a time, decades ago, when the trains on our subway system ran short 4-car (rather than 6-car) trains in the evening, after rush hour. Sadly, we are no longer able to sit or stand at the very front of trains and look at the tracks during travel. But I used to see big black signs below track level, for the benefit of drivers, with a white number "4" or "6" printed on it. The "6" was always at the far end of the train, meaning a full 6 car train is to stop there. The "4" sign could be next to the "6" sign, if short trains are to stop at the far end of the station, or they may be a hundred feet back if the train is to stop at the end of the station where they came in. Even though these signs are long obsolete, they were still there last time we were allowed to look out the front of a moving train, pre covid, and they may still be there, at least on line 2.

Similar to what was said in a post above, when standing on the plaform waiting for a train, I used to get annoyed when a short train either went past me, or stopped short of where I was standing, so I had to run to catch it. I wished they would put up signs telling the public that the end of trains may not go past a certain point on the platform in evenings, rather than having hidden signs just for drivers.

So if they are going to run short trains again, I hope they put up signs warning which parts of the platforms may be beyond the end of a short train. To paraphrase a quote from Dr. Strangelove, "Why didn't you tell us?" "We were saving it for a surprise!"

There are systems in the US that use marking on the platform edge to see where shorter trains will end. We will never see a 4 car subway train in Toronto on line 1 & 2 again..

As for Eglinton, the first car will stop at the far end regardless if it is one or 2 or 3 cars long from what I was told years ago. Then time has change for this line and never know what ML wants to happen now, TTC hasn;t run duel cars in service since the 60's that were PCC nor have they with the new fleet wiyj Line 5 being the first. The only places I have seen 2-3 cars LRV sets stop at the far end of the platform.

 

[urbanclient]

[...]Line 1 ran with 65/76 trainsets during peak in early 2020, so a low spare ratio is not entirely unheard of.

[...]95 minutes round trip is a safe figure. Let's assume 64 of 76 cars are used on 32 trainsets, that means peak headways of just under 3 minutes and peak capacity between 6000 and 10,000 passengers per hour per direction with each two-car trainset carrying 320 to 500 passengers (depending on density). Metrolinx forecasted 5,400 demand pphpd by 2031.
[...]
For reference, peak Line 2 peak demand was 23,000 to 26,000 pphpd and capacity was 24,000 to 38,000 pre-covid. Are we assuming Line 5 would only hit 20-25% of Line 2 demand and run with around 25-50% of Line 2 capacity? Fine.

Line 2 peak capacity is back to pre-covid levels as of a few weeks ago*

Before Covid, Line 1 had 65 trains in service at peak. And there are 76 train-sets. That's a 14.5% spare ratio.

Yeah, Line 2 has more spares - but this is because they got the old Line 1 and Line 4 trains, which does exceed more than they need for Line 2 operation.

I think you used the current number of Line 1 trains (56) which is still reduced since the post-Covid ridership drop, and more spread out peaks. If anything, this means that peak ridership on Eglinton could also be lower than originally predicted because the same changes would presumably apply to Line 5. On the other hand, perhaps not, as both Line 2 and Line 4 now have been restored to the pre-Covid number of trains (46 on Line 2).

If you math is correct, then that increases the capacity from between 5,600 to 8,800 to 6,500 to 10,200. If we are really lucky, demand IS higher, and that leaves the short-turn option while the next car order, that they are already planning, is received.

I arbitrarily chose 56 out of 76 for a safe buffer with @smallspy 's 20-25% ratio in mind. Yeah, subway usage recently is about 76% of pre-covid weekday boardings and 81% weekly total boardings according to TTC CEO's reports. Combine that with other factors like the population being about 13% greater than expected for 5,400 pphpd demand. People working from home more. More skyscrapers than expected etc...

It really is hard to say how high ridership will be.

 

[SaugeenJunction]

This morning I went into my backyard in Richmond Hill and from my deck I could get a glimpse of 16th avenue and I saw a huge truck pass by transporting what seemed to be the end carriages of the line 5 train

What you saw is likely are Hurontario LRT or Ottawa LRT trains coming from Alstom Brampton.

 

[Undead]

I know this is off-topic, but I wonder if and when we will catch up to/surpass Los Angeles.

Hopefully never.

 

[urbanclient]

I know this is off-topic, but I wonder if and when we will catch up to/surpass Los Angeles.

In many ways, we are already caught up. We have a much, much denser downtown core with 3 times the skyscrapers and more than 5 times the subway/LRT (rapid transit) ridership. The 87,940 sqkm Greater Los Angeles area has 18 million people but is also 1/10th the land area of Ontario. Greater LA's outer exurbs, are more populated than neighbouring areas of the GTHA, but when looking at the core areas 630 sqkm Toronto, 8,200 sqkm GTHA, Toronto is clearly denser.

 

[ThenWhat]

[…] If we are really lucky, demand IS higher, and that leaves the short-turn option while the next car order, that they are already planning, is received.

The "short-turn option" keeps coming up in these discussions, as a solution to one problem or another. It would likely be a regular automated short turn protocol, where for example every second or every third train runs a shorter loop.

As this creates new, perhaps never tried, sequences of events for the control, a question: Have the short-turn protocols been tested as part of the ongoing revenue service demo / bedding?

 

[JasonParis]

Never. LA county is bigger population than all
of Ontario. Toronto will
Never get there as we don’t have the ECONOMY of LA to support such massive growth.

Toronto is only 800,000 people behind L.A.-proper. We could surpass it as North America's third larget city in our lifetimes. It's unlikely we'd ever pass L.A.'s metro though.

 

[EllaW]

I had to drive back and forth the extent of the above ground track today, and whatever the trains were doing (I saw maybe 6), it was not RSD.

 

[urbanclient]

Toronto is only 800,000 people behind L.A.-proper. We could surpass it as North America's third larget city in our lifetimes. It's unlikely we'd ever pass L.A.'s metro though.

We were only 600k behind LA proper as of last year at just under 3.3 million vs. 3.9 million (sources below). The gap may have been closer to 400k when accounting for undercounted NPRs. The more pertinent issue is density. Toronto proper is 630 sqkm, LA proper is 1,290 sqkm.

Therefore, Toronto has the more densely-populated downtown or core city proper by US standards. However, the larger GTHA is much less populated than the smaller Los Angeles--Long Beach--Anaheim census urban area. None of the area sizes line up neatly, so apples to apples comparison is difficult. Whether or not you think Toronto is the bigger "city" depends on your definition of city.

Agree with the second point though. Southern California has 24-25 million people vs. Ontario 16-17 million and the whole state has a much larger everything than us.

Population estimates, July 1, by census division, 2021 boundaries

Annual population estimates as of July 1st, by census division, single year of age, five-year age group and gender, based on the Standard Geographical Classification (SGC) 2021.

www150.statcan.gc.ca

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/dashboard/losangelescitycalifornia/LFE041219

 

[zang]

Toronto is only 800,000 people behind L.A.-proper. We could surpass it as North America's third larget city in our lifetimes. It's unlikely we'd ever pass L.A.'s metro though.

I dunno. It depends on how bad climate change gets.

 

[smallspy]

As this creates new, perhaps never tried, sequences of events for the control, a question: Have the short-turn protocols been tested as part of the ongoing revenue service demo / bedding?

While they haven't done any testing for the purposes of the RSD as it is not going to be part of the revenue service plan on day 1, they have operated and tested into the spare tracks at Laird many times and under many scenarios. The maneuver is sound.

I had to drive back and forth the extent of the above ground track today, and whatever the trains were doing (I saw maybe 6), it was not RSD.

They are still not able to build up to the amount of service that they need to in order to resume the RSD.

Dan

 

[pleaseLRT]

While they haven't done any testing for the purposes of the RSD as it is not going to be part of the revenue service plan on day 1, they have operated and tested into the spare tracks at Laird many times and under many scenarios. The maneuver is sound.


They are still not able to build up to the amount of service that they need to in order to resume the RSD.

Dan

Wait, RSD hasn't been resumed yet? Based on the posts here (page 1894), I thought it resumed back on Saturday, October 25. I've been seeing a bunch of trains run back and forth today as well - none of this is RSD?

If RSD is still paused, then I assume an opening by the Dec 21 board period is hopeless then

 

[A 6264]

Wait, RSD hasn't been resumed yet? Based on the posts here (page 1894), I thought it resumed back on Saturday, October 25. I've been seeing a bunch of trains run back and forth today as well - none of this is RSD?

If RSD is still paused, then I assume an opening by the Dec 21 board period is hopeless then

RSD is a state of mind, apparently.

 

[urbanclient]

They are still not able to build up to the amount of service that they need to in order to resume the RSD.

Dan

Here we go again...