[A 6264]

I wanted to make note of last train times at certain line 5 stations, but the TTC's website is still showing old times, where the line closes after 11 PM. You would think they would have updated their site first thing Sunday morning. Or am I misunderstanding, and new times have not started yet?
https://www.ttc.ca/routes-and-schedules/5/0

 

[smallspy]

I think that as much flak as everyone gives Crosslinx, a larger maintenance window is something that they can be given allowance on.

Agree to disagree here. They deserve all the flak that they get, and then some.

Still, why not have that larger maintenance window happen on a Sunday night instead of Saturday? Lines up better with the Monday-Friday 9-5ers, and the workers performing maintenance are on a night shift anyway so I doubt it matters much whether they're doing it on a early Sunday morning or an early Monday morning.

The problem is not so much the window itself, but what they do with it.

While there may be a 5 hour window where service doesn't operate most nights of the week, the reality is that the actual time that they have to do the work is considerably less. Service trains need to deadhead back to the yard. MOW equipment needs to get out to where the work is doing. The crews need to set up their equipment, do the work, and take it all back down in time to get the MOW equipment back to the yard before the service trains start deadheading out to their starting locations. All of a sudden, that 5 hour window may only be 3 hours of actual work, or even less.

The larger window on Saturday nights gives them more time to do the work as the amount of time that they have at any given site is considerably longer.

This is the reason why the TTC does a lot of early closings or late openings on the subway. Some of the jobs that they need to do just need a longer stretch of time in order to complete them - such as beam replacements on the Prince Edward Viaduct. There are some jobs that you just can't leave half-finished. In other cases - like the tunnel lining remediation project on North Yonge - getting a couple of additional hours of work every single night allowed them to greatly speed up the completion of the project.

Circling back to Crosslinx in particular, the question that should be asked is - why do they need this extended maintenance period every week extended by this much? If it's a cost-avoidance issue - which, frankly wouldn't surprise me - than I think that the TTC is well within their rights to tell them to pound rocks.

Dan

 

[doublemint]

Agree to disagree here. They deserve all the flak that they get, and then some.


The problem is not so much the window itself, but what they do with it.

While there may be a 5 hour window where service doesn't operate most nights of the week, the reality is that the actual time that they have to do the work is considerably less. Service trains need to deadhead back to the yard. MOW equipment needs to get out to where the work is doing. The crews need to set up their equipment, do the work, and take it all back down in time to get the MOW equipment back to the yard before the service trains start deadheading out to their starting locations. All of a sudden, that 5 hour window may only be 3 hours of actual work, or even less.

The larger window on Saturday nights gives them more time to do the work as the amount of time that they have at any given site is considerably longer.

This is the reason why the TTC does a lot of early closings or late openings on the subway. Some of the jobs that they need to do just need a longer stretch of time in order to complete them - such as beam replacements on the Prince Edward Viaduct. There are some jobs that you just can't leave half-finished. In other cases - like the tunnel lining remediation project on North Yonge - getting a couple of additional hours of work every single night allowed them to greatly speed up the completion of the project.

Circling back to Crosslinx in particular, the question that should be asked is - why do they need this extended maintenance period every week extended by this much? If it's a cost-avoidance issue - which, frankly wouldn't surprise me - than I think that the TTC is well within their rights to tell them to pound rocks.

Dan

Thank you for the insight

 

[Bordercollie]

Agree to disagree here. They deserve all the flak that they get, and then some.


The problem is not so much the window itself, but what they do with it.

While there may be a 5 hour window where service doesn't operate most nights of the week, the reality is that the actual time that they have to do the work is considerably less. Service trains need to deadhead back to the yard. MOW equipment needs to get out to where the work is doing. The crews need to set up their equipment, do the work, and take it all back down in time to get the MOW equipment back to the yard before the service trains start deadheading out to their starting locations. All of a sudden, that 5 hour window may only be 3 hours of actual work, or even less.

The larger window on Saturday nights gives them more time to do the work as the amount of time that they have at any given site is considerably longer.

This is the reason why the TTC does a lot of early closings or late openings on the subway. Some of the jobs that they need to do just need a longer stretch of time in order to complete them - such as beam replacements on the Prince Edward Viaduct. There are some jobs that you just can't leave half-finished. In other cases - like the tunnel lining remediation project on North Yonge - getting a couple of additional hours of work every single night allowed them to greatly speed up the completion of the project.

Circling back to Crosslinx in particular, the question that should be asked is - why do they need this extended maintenance period every week extended by this much? If it's a cost-avoidance issue - which, frankly wouldn't surprise me - than I think that the TTC is well within their rights to tell them to pound rocks.

Dan

Considering that my experience with early morning subway departures is that there is at least a 15-30 minute delay in starting service. And according to the operators this is almost a daily occurrence. Why bother posting a schedule to have trains start at 5:30am if doesn't happen? This is why i never trust early subway departures and use an uber/taxi or drive to my destination unless I have a lot of time for buffer.

 

[smallspy]

Considering that my experience with early morning subway departures is that there is at least a 15-30 minute delay in starting service. And according to the operators this is almost a daily occurrence. Why bother posting a schedule to have trains start at 5:30am if doesn't happen? This is why i never trust early subway departures and use an uber/taxi or drive to my destination unless I have a lot of time for buffer.

That's your personal experience. My personal experience is that I don't have enough digits and limbs to count number the times that I've taken the very first train of the morning and had it arrive precisely on time - as it should.

Dan

 

[jordanmkasla2009]

Considering that my experience with early morning subway departures is that there is at least a 15-30 minute delay in starting service. And according to the operators this is almost a daily occurrence. Why bother posting a schedule to have trains start at 5:30am if doesn't happen? This is why i never trust early subway departures and use an uber/taxi or drive to my destination unless I have a lot of time for buffer.

the schedule is for the first train to start at 5:30 AM at the terminus stations not at the individual stations in between. Those stations have their own first and last train times. So while the schedule for Line 1 for example is for the first train to start at 5:30 at Finch, the first trains at Union aren't until 6 AM.

 

[Bordercollie]

the schedule is for the first train to start at 5:30 AM at the terminus stations not at the individual stations in between. Those stations have their own first and last train times. So while the schedule for Line 1 for example is for the first train to start at 5:30 at Finch, the first trains at Union aren't until 6 AM.

I understand that. I got there at 5:15 and and both times by 5:45 the train from finch could not depart and shuttle buses were ordered but didn't show up until later. I ended up taking a taxi and the driver told me that it happens at least once a week.

The reason was because work crews could not move out of the way.

 

[Civdis]

Any indication on how busy this line is?

 

[GenerationLee]

Uh...just from my uneducated eye, I'd say its very well used. I rode it yesterday at school hour (3ish PM) and it was packed with kids. I rode it a few times with a friend today and it was decently busy too.

 

[Bordercollie]

Uh...just from my uneducated eye, I'd say its very well used. I rode it yesterday at school hour (3ish PM) and it was packed with kids. I rode it a few times with a friend today and it was decently busy too.

Even on weekends I would say it's 50% capacity. In some spots standing room only.

 

[APTA-2048]

The line is currently down between Birchmount and Sloane. Trains were initially turning back at Lebovic, but my eastbound train got put out of service at Pharmacy. Then the next westbound train got held at Lebovic. I decided to wait since I had nowhere to be. Ended up waiting 1h 30m and then heading back west before my transfer expired.

The annoying thing was there were no announcements at the stations about what was happening. I’ve heard them make service interruption announcements on the surface before, but today there was nothing.

 

[UntitledCyclist]

Over a month later and zero visible progress on the opening of the southwest entrance at Forest Hill Line 5 at Eglinton & Bathurst.

I also asked a station manager and he had no idea. Looks like nothing has happened either at the entrance or inside the station. Meanwhile, the TTC site for the stop still lists the entrance as if it is operational.

I appreciate the building owner may be the holdup here, but it's not like there was a shortage of time to negotiate this.

View attachment 723609View attachment 723610View attachment 723611

Just an *update* on the Forest Hill Line 5 station south entrance, three weeks since my last post.

They moved some plywood. Still no signs of it opening though.

 

[UntitledCyclist]

The next train estimates are often completely incorrect: plenty of people have reported double-digit estimates seconds before a train pulled into the station.

With that being said, during the late evening on weekdays, the service standard is 8-10 minutes, and 9-13 minutes during evenings on holiday schedules, so a 15-minute wait isn't unthinkable.

There is some problem with the next train signs, recently in both directions on the Eglinton West underground portion, station signs were showing "train arriving now" with no train anywhere in site for at least 5 minutes. Likewise when our train arrived at subsequent stations, platform signs would say "4 minutes" or "5 minutes" for the next train.

I pointed this out to TTCHelps on Twitter and they are asking for the four digit vehicle number, as if it's vehicle-specific. It's not.

Nor is the horrible buzzy speaker issue they are trying to pass off as a "volume" problem, when it is ubiquitous and related to poor quality speakers, bad installaion or bad audio files.

 

[GenerationLee]

Yeah, the arrival time ETA is a real nuisance on this line, but not as bad as the loud, buzzy audio issues.
That's all up to the administrator/maintainer.

 

[UntitledCyclist]

Yeah, the arrival time ETA is a real nuisance on this line, but not as bad as the loud, buzzy audio issues.
That's all up to the administrator/maintainer.

And who would that be . . . ? Honest question as it's never clear to me with this Line 5 PPP situation.