[smallspy]

Is it confirmed the last outage a few days ago (with the trespasser) also was tied to signals as well?

Sorta.

A train was caught in the tunnel waiting to access a station platform. A passenger had enough of the delay, opened one of the side doors via the emergency release and decided to continue his commute on foot.

While the signal delay was cleared shortly after, that particular delay took almost an hour to resolve.

Dan

 

[turbanplanner]

Sorta.

A train was caught in the tunnel waiting to access a station platform. A passenger had enough of the delay, opened one of the side doors via the emergency release and decided to continue his commute on foot.

While the signal delay was cleared shortly after, that particular delay took almost an hour to resolve.

Dan

Thank you as always Dan!

 

[nfitz]

Complete signal failure on Line 1 this morning.

This should be fun.

Fortunately they announced service restoration 9 minutes after you posted this. But by then it was a complete mess.

Almost as if they'd turned the whole system off and turned it back on again. Certainly seems like software.

A train was caught in the tunnel waiting to access a station platform. A passenger had enough of the delay, opened one of the side doors via the emergency release and decided to continue his commute on foot.

I wonder if it was an anxiety attack.

 

[Northern Light]

Greg Percy out w/the following on the Signal Issue(s):

 

[PL1]

Greg Percy out w/the following on the Signal Issue(s):
View attachment 618887

You can tell that Rick Leary is no longer running things by this one post.

 

[A_Faulty5]

No worries - I've been told they are very transparent. It'll be fun if we lose Line 1 for a bit after Line 3 being decommissioned. The incompetence and corruption is astounding.

Please see the post directly below yours:

Greg Percy out w/the following on the Signal Issue(s):

I'd love to see Metrolinx give an analyses on why we don't have an official opening date for the crosstown and finch LRTs. Oh right they don't care.

 

[81-717]

Has it just been decided without any proper process that we are going to spend this much money on these subway cars and have them built in Thunder Bay?

Not officially, but if anyone else gets it I'll eat my hat. It would be political suicide to give the order to someone else.

Then why are they waiting until 2026 to award the contract instead of awarding it now or soon, now that funding is finally secured? The delay until 2026 would make some sense if it were because of the tendering process to choose a supplier, but if it's already set in stone that Alstom will get it the delay seems frivolous.

 

[Bordercollie]

The fact that there is only one server that operates the entire signalling system is appalling. There is no backup?
Also it would be smarter to have different parts of the system be broken down into different servers so you dont have a catastrophic failure like what happened.
Zero foresight. Zero backup plan. Horrible communication. Zero accountability. At least refund everyone who tapped their card before noon. That would be a start.

 

[TTCdinosaur]

Please see the post directly below yours:

I'd love to see Metrolinx give an analyses on why we don't have an official opening date for the crosstown and finch LRTs. Oh right they don't care.

? This is the same as them saying there are "software issues" with the signaling system on the LRT. I'm sure the TTC will follow-up with a "repair plan" as well and give me vague percentages about its progress. It's okay - after many decades I see so many TTC apologists and yet the system continues to rot and decay. And it's always the Mayor's fault, or the Premier's fault, etc.

I'm not saying Metrolinx is better - but this impulsive response to the defend the TTC is unbearable as they have proven time and time again that they don't really respect riders. Well except for the Byford era, but the union rejected that.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

You can tell that Rick Leary is no longer running things by this one post.

yeah it reminds me of when Breoad Ross would post just about anything when people would ask him on twitter

 

[Bordercollie]

? This is the same as them saying there are "software issues" with the signaling system on the LRT. I'm sure the TTC will follow-up with a "repair plan" as well and give me vague percentages about its progress. It's okay - after many decades I see so many TTC apologists and yet the system continues to rot and decay. And it's always the Mayor's fault, or the Premier's fault, etc.

I'm not saying Metrolinx is better - but this impulsive response to the defend the TTC is unbearable as they have proven time and time again that they don't really respect riders. Well except for the Byford era, but the union rejected that.

They are not apologetic. They just said that they are "also very frustrated".

 

[CapitalSeven]

Everything we are hearing about system problems in transit reminds me of that excellent documentary about the new space telescope. There were hundreds of points of failure, any of which could ruin the deployment. It was a miracle it succeeded.

It seems the boffins have built systems that are so safe, if anything goes wrong they all shut down. No backup, no redundancy, no run by line of sight. Just sit and do nothing. It's nearly impossible to get new lines up and running, and older ones are made less reliable for users in the name of progress. There's clearly such a thing as too much technology, and the current generation of engineering is failing us, not fit for purpose.

 

[allabootmatt]

Everything we are hearing about system problems in transit reminds me of that excellent documentary about the new space telescope. There were hundreds of points of failure, any of which could ruin the deployment. It was a miracle it succeeded.

It seems the boffins have built systems that are so safe, if anything goes wrong they all shut down. No backup, no redundancy, no run by line of sight. Just sit and do nothing. It's nearly impossible to get new lines up and running, and older ones are made less reliable for users in the name of progress. There's clearly such a thing as too much technology, and the current generation of engineering is failing us, not fit for purpose.

You've put your finger on something I have been wondering about. When it comes to transit, at least, what has the last 50 years of technological development actually gotten us? The Crosstown is apparently paralyzed by software issues and broader problems of systems integration. And yet the original Yonge and Bloor subways were built, delivered and run for decades with nothing more sophisticated than a slide rule. "Software" barely existed. Go back further, to the birth of the systems in Paris, London and New York, and it's an even bigger gulf.

OK, it's obviously good to have elevators and modern fire-suppression systems. But apart from a few safety-related changes, what are the real benefits of the current model, exactly? And if such benefits are real, but they mean every project takes 2-3x as long to build, and is then 2-3x like likelier to fail when some aspect of the tech goes down, what's the point?

I am increasingly of the view that public procurement, probably for more than just transit, needs to be re-oriented to prioritize systems that are simple, robust and above all deliverable.

 

[smallspy]

The fact that there is only one server that operates the entire signalling system is appalling. There is no backup?
Also it would be smarter to have different parts of the system be broken down into different servers so you dont have a catastrophic failure like what happened.
Zero foresight. Zero backup plan. Horrible communication. Zero accountability. At least refund everyone who tapped their card before noon. That would be a start.

The computer that failed was a dispatching computer, not a signalling one. So this failure could have just as easily happened on the B-D or Sheppard as it did on the YUS. As to why? They're looking into that.

The signalling system on the YUS is broken out into several firewalled parts, which is why when it fails only a smaller section of it goes down.

Dan

 

[evandyk]

On Tuesday evening, my packed NB train didn't stop at St. George. They said there was a "security incident" but the platform was full of people just waiting for the next trains. So a packed train gets dumped at Spadina to transfer to Line 2. Of course, the stairs to the tunnel at Spadina are being renovated so they're limited to the width of two people. I have no idea how long it would have taken for everybody on that platform to get up those stairs one by one, because I went out the Lowther exit and walked down to Bloor outside.