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I think this is the last order Toronto will make for catenary streetcars. As battery technology advances, they will eventually become the only option. Even if risk-avoidance Toronto, wanted to keep their catenary system they would simply find that there are no more suppliers. Kind of like standard transmissions on cars, even if you want one, no one produces them so the decision has been made for you.

I don't see a scenario where the city pulls them down wholesale. Replacements streetcars will be phased in so I think the City will simply not repair/rebuild new ones. Wires and poles are costly to build and maintain as well as being a blight on the urban landscape, their days are numbered. This is very much going to be the case for Vancouver's trolleys as well. They no longer have a raison d'etre.
 
I'm planning another trip to England. One of the cities I want to check out is Birmingham where their trams are not just powered by overhead wires, but are also battery powered. Is this something we could consider for Toronto's streetcars?


 
In theory the pantograph module on a Toronto car, or perhaps an adjacent one, could be swapped out for one with a motive battery pack, but there would be implications for weight distribution.

Back when Bombardier owned PRIMOVE there would have been the option of procuring that wireless power system, but that was not done and it is now owned by IPT. I don’t think Alstom APS would work well in the salt regime Torontonians employ, and I’m not sure how strongly it’s marketed these days
 
Battery streetcars are not going to happen overnight but catenary systems are very much on their way out. Toronto's fleet is still quite young but by the time they have to start retiring them in 20 or 30 years, battery technology will have increased so much that catenary systems will begin to phase out. The batteries will recharge much faster, be smaller, lighter, and more weather resilient. It's not the catenary are bad but simply that they found something better. Steam locomotives worked fine but then they switched to diesel because it was simply a better technology.

This is why I strongly support GO battery trains. By the time ML manages to put up a single pole in a decade, battery trains will be so advanced and so common that there really won't be any reason to put up catenary poles.
 
DSCToronto said:
Yes, there are 'wires, and then there are wires'. As long as one has streetcars one will have overhead wiring (yes, some can be undergrounded but never all of it.) There are also hydro wiring (both distribution and street lighting) plus phones and cable and traffic lights.

About a decade ago the St Lawrence Neighbourhood Association and the BIA worked with the City to put 90% of the wires on Front Street between Jarvis and Parliament underground. This was done during a complete reconstruction of Front and was paid for partly with Section 37 funds. There were no streetcar wires but we had lots of overhead street lighting wires (all buried and new 'Victorian' fixtures installed), some hydro distribution wires (almost all buried) some higher voltage hydro wires (at the Front/Sherboune intersection) and lots of traffic light wires - which were all buried. The few distribution wires not buried were serving buildings slated for redevelopment (what is now the Whitfield) and have now been buried. The major distribution wires at Front/Sherbourne were supposed to be buried by the developers of what is now Time & Space but the City (or Hydro) did not press them on this so they remain. The City's traffic light wires were all buried but subsequent installations (e.g. Front & Frederick) have (new) overhead wiring because the City is too poor to bury them (similar mess at Front & Scott).
Click to expand...
Colour me surprised!

Despite my comments last week, Toronto Hydro have now removed the overhead wiring on the south side of Front Street East at Time and Space - between Lower Sherbourne and Princess! There is still more overhead east of Princess outside the Fire Station but I assume this may go when the Fire Sation site is redeveloped - as it clearly will be, one day!
 
Original pic of 60 Colborne by @Edward Skira

60 Colborne Ed Skira - With Wires.JPG


Wires removed by Gemini (after 3 attempts)

60 Colborne Ed Skira - Without Wires.JPG
 
dowlingm said:
Can that be enough AI slop now? I, for one, get the picture.
Click to expand...
The whole concept of this thread was to show how Toronto could look without the tangle of wires overhead.

If you don't like the idea, or have an issue with AI image manipulation in general, I'd suggest you don't follow the thread.

I'm not able to find anything in the forum rules prohibiting posting clearly labelled AI images, but @AlvinofDiaspar , correct me if I'm wrong.
 
lenaitch said:
So after you do it a couple of times, what becomes the point?
Click to expand...
Different views of different parts of the city. Perhaps this should be moved under the Photos and Videos forum subsection, rather than Transportation and Infrastructure? If anyone knows how to do that, be my guest.
 
The overhead wires in Toronto are an eye-sore, according to pretty much every friend from Europe that I had come visit Toronto. Without exception, after a couple of days in the city they would ask the same question: "What's with the wooden posts and all these ugly wires everywhere? What century are we in?"
I didn't realize how much of an eye-sore it was until I visited Europe with the specific aim to see how a city could look like without all the overhead wires. And I can confirm, it looks a hell of a lot better without all that visual clutter that our electric infrastructure brings with it.
But hey, at least we're a bit better than Japan:
1761320492420.png

Image source.
 
wmedia said:
The whole concept of this thread was to show how Toronto could look without the tangle of wires overhead.

If you don't like the idea, or have an issue with AI image manipulation in general, I'd suggest you don't follow the thread.

I'm not able to find anything in the forum rules prohibiting posting clearly labelled AI images, but @AlvinofDiaspar , correct me if I'm wrong.
Click to expand...

I don't believe we have any explicit rules against AI images - but we reserve the right to remove AI images based on the context.

MoD
 
wmedia said:
If you don't like the idea, or have an issue with AI image manipulation in general, I'd suggest you don't follow the thread.
Click to expand...
Here's my issue. I'm not a mod, so I don't make policy. But I did have a reaction to it and I'd like you to understand why.
  1. There is an accelerating problem with understanding what is real and what is not in our society generally.

  2. We have many pictures on this forum which depict what is not. However, developer renderings have not yet risen to the point where they could be mistaken for the real thing - in fact in many they take some trouble to remove troublesome real objects which make their render look less saleable or to damp down local reaction to their project. Down the road that might be more of a problem.

  3. (related to 1) Your Gemini images have a watermark. This is good in my view since image scrapers can understand that these are altered images and shouldn't be mistaken for the real thing outside the context of this forum/thread. However, your ChatGPT one doesn't have a noticeable watermark.

  4. The resource usage of LLM and related technologies is well known to be intensive. Much of the discussion on this board and this forum particularly revolves around the sustainability of habitation, infrastructure, and transportation activities. Your mention of running the render above through Gemini three times provoked a negative reaction.
Now, there may be people who would consider the activities of this forum itself to be a waste of cooling water, copper wiring and electricity. That opinion would be their right to hold. I however would then refer to Inspector Harry Callahan's thoughts on "opinions".
 
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