[T3G]

You don't see any difference between saving the only cars that ever ran on a now discontinued transit line, and saving something that has been succeeded on a line that still runs?

There are tons of vehicles that should have been saved and weren't. Let's concentrate on the present and what opportunities exist in it to avoid making the mistakes of the past.

 

[81-717]

You don't see any difference between saving the only cars that ever ran on a now discontinued transit line, and saving something that has been succeeded on a line that still runs?

Not at all. It only proves what I said before that if the line had simply gotten new cars, the old ones wouldn't be deemed worth saving. The significance of a vehicle should be primarily determined by its intrinsic design features, rather than where/when/how it was used.

There are tons of vehicles that should have been saved and weren't.

Like what? Aside from the Hawkers I can't think of any other vehicle in recent history (read: the past few decades) that:
a) was proprietary in terms of both design and technology (the Mark 1 still exists in Vancouver and Detroit, so it doesn't count; almost every single bus model Toronto ever had has also existed elsewhere in North America);
and b) no longer exists in any way, shape or form (yes I'm aware the H4 workcars and 5707 still exist, but unless any entity takes them for the explicit purpose of preservation, we're just "waiting for the other shoe to drop" at this time).

Scrapping any PCC car, of any make, anywhere in the world, is sacrilege.

Yeah well, so is scrapping the Hawkers. Talk about double standards.

Let's concentrate on the present and what opportunities exist in it to avoid making the mistakes of the past.

If those opportunities include 5707 and the remaining H4s among other things you have in mind, sure. If not, then no, it's too late to "avoid making the mistakes of the past" because they've already been made and can't be undone, least of all by focusing on the "opportunities" that resulted in said "mistakes" being made in the first place.

 

[drum118]

You don't see any difference between saving the only cars that ever ran on a now discontinued transit line, and saving something that has been succeeded on a line that still runs?

There are tons of vehicles that should have been saved and weren't. Let's concentrate on the present and what opportunities exist in it to avoid making the mistakes of the past.

You need space to store X and that is something TTC doesn't have for streetcars or buses. Until Wilson was built, TTC had no yard space to store subway cars.

You can take a section of the existing ROW for the SRT and fence it off as a display area with tracks, but need to be close that the public can see it and visit it as well preventing vandalism.

TTC could save a train set or 2 mu cars of various series and store them at Wilson. If they were ATO, you could run specials runs throughout the year, but need a stockpile of parts that aren't made anymore to keep trains running.

A number of places have saved equipment over the decades and still run them in service during the summer or at special times. Some places still run old equipment since the 30's and 40's as they have yet to be replace at all.

 

[lenaitch]

Seeing as Halton is a private non-for-profit operation, if the TTC donates one to them and they accept it, then all is good. But if they don't have the space, budget, etc. to at least preserve it, and it ends up rotting under their ownership instead of being cut-up under the TTC's, what's been gained?

 

[Tunafish13]

Is there no Projects page for this? I was trying to find images that were posted a while ago showing the plans for the stations but I have no idea when they were posted.

Or, is there a way to look at all the photos posted on a forum thread somewhere? (sorry, I know people dont like when users ask questions that have already been answered)

 

[T3G]

Talk about double standards.

You are attacking an imaginary strawman. I never said anything about the Hawkers, so there's no double standard.

If those opportunities include 5707 and the remaining H4s among other things you have in mind, sure. If not, then no, it's too late to "avoid making the mistakes of the past" because they've already been made and can't be undone, least of all by focusing on the "opportunities" that resulted in said "mistakes" being made in the first place.

You are wrong. The whole of transit history is not embodied in the Hawker subway cars. Time moves on and with it every year more and more vehicles become historic. The fact that some vehicles were not saved in the past doesn't mean that we should give up and never preserve anything ever again. Hence the opportunity being referred to.

It sucks no Hawker cars were saved, but that was 10 years ago. Not saving an SRT car now because no one saved you a Hawker 10 years ago is selfish and spiteful.

 

[81-717]

You are wrong. The whole of transit history is not embodied in the Hawker subway cars.

The whole of transit history isn't embodied in the SRT cars either, so by your logic why bother saving them either.

Not saving an SRT car now because no one saved you a Hawker 10 years ago is selfish and spiteful.

What's even more spiteful and hypocritical is finding the will / finding a way to save anything except a Hawker (at least what's left of the Hawkers as of now, not just 10 years ago). And I noticed you never answered my question about what other vehicles besides the Hawkers haven't been saved and don't exist in any other part of the world.

 

[T3G]

The whole of transit history isn't embodied in the SRT cars either.

Easy to counter a point that's never been made by anyone and never will be, eh?

What's even more selfish and spiteful is trying to save anything except a Hawker (at least what's left of the Hawkers as of now, not just 10 years ago).

You say like this like the TTC has an ample historical fleet and they just left out the Hawkers out of spite. I would advise you to read through the CPTDB wiki rosters carefully, and you will find that most of what has ever run in this city was scrapped without a second thought.

And I noticed you never answered my question about what other vehicles besides the Hawkers haven't been saved and don't exist in any other part of the world.

Bringing up other parts of the world is meaningless. This isn't Europe, where you can get on a reasonably priced train or bus and end up in the city where your vehicle of choosing resides in a reasonable amount of time, for a reasonable cost. From personal experience, one visit to New York that includes accomodation that wouldn't give me bed bugs cost somewhere in the neighbourhood of $3500. And anyway, "why save something when it exists half a continent away in a city that you can afford to visit a few times in your lifetime?" is not a convincing argument, not anymore then "My favourite subway car was not saved, so we should never save anything ever again, to make it fair."

But since that's apparently good enough for you, there are Hawker cars still in operation in Ankara. Happy hunting!

As for what else existed here, wasn't saved, and wasn't saved elsewhere either... well you can add almost everything from the TTC's predecessor companies, for a start. And, funnily enough, a Mark I car with a cab is something no other city ever had, so even by your own limited parameters for what makes something worthy of saving, a Mark I car most definitively falls under that.

 

[81-717]

Easy to counter a point that's never been made by anyone and never will be, eh?

You made it sound like it's an argument/excuse not to save the Hawkers ("transit history doesn't revolve around them, so they shouldn't be saved"), to which I pointed out that it's not seen as such for the SRT.

You say like this like the TTC has an ample historical fleet and they just left out the Hawkers out of spite. I would advise you to read through the CPTDB wiki rosters carefully, and you will find that most of what has ever run in this city was scrapped without a second thought.

As far as subway cars go, yes the Hawkers have thus far been the only subway cars to retire and not be saved (both their predecessors, the G1s & M1s, have been saved, while both of their successors, the T1s & TRs, won't retire for nearly a decade at best (T1s), or several decades at worst).

And when time comes to replace the current subway fleet (T1s, then TRs) and then they magically find a way to save either of those (or both), then yes they would have an ample historical (subway) fleet of everything except the Hawkers, so there'd be no falsifying the statement that they left out the Hawkers out of spite (not that it would make the situation any better if it wasn't out of spite).

From personal experience, one visit to New York that includes accomodation that wouldn't give me bed bugs cost somewhere in the neighbourhood of $3500

I don't know what fancy luxury accommodations you've had, but in my case a trip to New York for 2–3 days would typically total somewhere around $500 (usually accommodations were decent, but last time not so much). Hell, even my last trip to Europe for a week totaled roughly $2000.

And anyway, "why save something when it exists half a continent away in a city that you can afford to visit a few times in your lifetime?" is not a convincing argument, not anymore then "My favourite subway car was not saved, so we should never save anything ever again, to make it fair."

Just because you disagree doesn't mean both of those are not valid, reasonable arguments. Anyway, by that logic, Bratislava shouldn't have saved second-hand streetcars from Prague to make up for what they failed to save of their own fleet, since those particular cars weren't part of their transit history.

But since that's apparently good enough for you, there are HawkerBombardier cars still in operation in Ankara. Happy hunting!

I'm aware, and would love to possibly visit someday, except they don't have any historical fleet that I know of, so I have little doubt that those will disappear in the coming years too.

Edit: idk how accurate this is, but according to wiki they were only in service 1997–2019, meaning only 22 years and long gone by now??! I sure hope that's not true.

well you can add almost everything from the TTC's predecessor companies, for a start.

And the TTC's predecessor companies ceased to exist like what, 100 years ago, when the TTC was created? I also specifically meant the last few decades, i.e. the latter half of the 20th century, around the time the Hawkers came to be and onwards.

And, funnily enough, a Mark I car with a cab is something no other city ever had, so even by your own limited parameters for what makes something worthy of saving, a Mark I car most definitively falls under that.

Not that radical of a difference, anymore than a TR with a cab (5386) vs without (5384), as long as they're the same under the hood. A TR running in ATC mode might as well not have cabs either (they could probably remove cabs entirely if they wanted to, which they don't), but it's still the same thing as a TR running manually (see also: Budapest lines 2 & 4, which both have the same type of rolling stock, but line 4 running fully automated without cabs, and line 2 manually with cabs).

If our Mark Is had a propulsion system that was different than that of the other Mark Is (or at least a different version of it, much like the ALRV has a different version of chopper control propulsion than the CLRV), then I'd agree they'd be unique to Toronto.

 

[crs1026]

^This is a pretty absurd discussion.

Heritage preservation of anything, least of all transportation heritage, is not founded on saving "one of everything". The biggest curse of the preservation movement is when people conserve far more than they can actually maintain and store. People who buy old cars or rail rolling stock and leave them outdoors in the weeds are not "preserving" anything.

If there were groups approaching TTC and saying, hey, we want to acquire one of your castoffs, it has strategic value within our museum goals" then I would be furious if TTC did not accommodate that, right down to giving the artifact away for free, with a huge number of spares, copies of technical documentation, etc. But I would be much happier if TTC were spending its time keeping today's trams on schedule as opposed to enlarging its heritage footprint.

I am more curious about whether there will be adaptive reuse of any of the physical structures. We don't save buildings to sit empty - but the architecture of the SRT and its physical presence is worthy of retention....provided a new use can be found.

- Paul

PS - I happen to do a lot of heritage stuff. My challenge to people who opine about saving old railway equipment is - do you actually belong to a heritage museum (there are several in the GTA area), and how much sweat and effort do you actually contribute to the cause instead of sitting at your terminal offering opinions? If you have a passion for this stuff, then get involved!

 

[81-717]

PS - I happen to do a lot of heritage stuff. My challenge to people who opine about saving old railway equipment is - do you actually belong to a heritage museum (there are several in the GTA area), and how much sweat and effort do you actually contribute to the cause instead of sitting at your terminal offering opinions? If you have a passion for this stuff, then get involved!

Ah yes, the same old dismissive "do it yourself" argument. Why not tell the same thing to everyone on the last few pages who all have high expectations of having the TTC/HCRR/politicians save the SRT for them?? Why are some "people offering opinions" confronted with this "challenge" while others get a free pass??

Dismissive, snarky comments like "do it yourself, because we don't want/care to, even though we're the only ones who actually can" and/or gatekeeping like "X things are not worth it anyway and have no place anywhere but the scrapyard", are the peak of hypocrisy (no different than billion-dollar corporations asking their broke customers to donate to charity instead of donating themselves) and proof that certain things were indeed left out out of spite, so thanks a lot for clarifying that. Since saving a Hawker subway car is obviously beneath your dignity and not worth your time and effort, hopefully you and everyone else involved in preservation can enjoy your well-deserved time off by saving yourselves the sweat and effort of saving an SRT set (or anything else in the future for that matter).

As for "preservation not being based on saving one of everything", that doesn't make it right in the least, nor is it wrong to save one of everything. New York can do that easily, and if anything it's the TTC itself that should be able to store and maintain its own subway cars (including the SRT) better than any third party museum. And once again, it shouldn't even have to take "saving one of everything" to save at least one H-car, they deserved to be saved even if saving one of everything is a non-starter. If one must choose to save only certain things, and a Hawker subway car was left out because one conveniently chose to look the other way while they were being scrapped, they're doing a piss-poor job at it and might as well give up as far as I'm concerned.

Likewise, people can make valid criticisms of the higher-ups running the TTC or politicians without having to prove that they themselves can do their job better than them in order for their opinions to be valid and hold weight. How many people on here & CPTDB have (rightly or wrongly) criticized politicians & those running the TTC? A lot. How many of those people would actually be willing/capable of doing the job themselves? Probably very few if any, in which case how are they different than the "armchair critics" they claim to look down on?

Of all arguments for and against preservation, propulsion is by far the weakest and least convincing, catering to a very, very small subset of railfans and no one else.

Some would disagree, including in the case of the SRT:

So much about them were revolutionary. For starters, the motors were the guideways.

Of all arguments for and against preservation, propulsion is by far the weakest and least convincing, catering to a very, very small subset of railfans and no one else.

To add, propulsion constitutes a very significant part of what makes a vehicle, arguably even more so than the physical body (at least as far as rail equipment goes, perhaps less so for buses). If you replace the propulsion/electronics while keeping the same body, then for all intents and purposes it's a different car (i.e. legacy 81-717 fleet vs. refurbished 81-717.2K). Conversely, if the same propulsion technology is embodied in various different carbodies (i.e. R143 vs. R188), then they can very well be considered, in some sense, the same car type / family. The point being that propulsion is most certainly not "by far the weakest and least convincing", it is at the very least equally convincing as the physical appearance of a vehicle (which is what makes the general public turn their heads at the sight of a Fishbowl/PCC).

Budapest did this.

Budapest should've focused more on saving a legacy 81-717 trainset instead (which I think they did, but not sure).

 

[Richard White]

I am more curious about whether there will be adaptive reuse of any of the physical structures. We don't save buildings to sit empty - but the architecture of the SRT and its physical presence is worthy of retention....provided a new use can be found.

- Paul

It would be nice to save one of the RT stations, Scarborough Centre would be my preferred option for accessibility reasons. Stations such as Midland are not viable to save given the need to maintain the bridge structure there.

Ellesmere and Lawrence East could also be maintained however they are not easily accessible being so tucked away.

PS - I happen to do a lot of heritage stuff. My challenge to people who opine about saving old railway equipment is - do you actually belong to a heritage museum (there are several in the GTA area), and how much sweat and effort do you actually contribute to the cause instead of sitting at your terminal offering opinions? If you have a passion for this stuff, then get involved!

As someone who built the Roundhouse Park Miniature Railway and as a former TRHA Restoration Volunteer I can safely say people have no idea how much work is involved in preservation. It is easy to say let's save this and let's save that but the actually worked involved to keep things in good condition is enormous.

This is one of the issues HCRY is facing. They keep taking on new equipment with no plan or ability to preserve it. Just because you can put something in a museum does not mean much if you cannot maintain it.

While I would love to save an SRT trainset, it is not practical. There is nowhere in Toronto that can maintain it and having it as a static display is not going to do much.

 

[T3G]

having it as a static display is not going to do much.

Says who?

None of Halton's rolling stock from the TTC's predecessors has run in many years, but their value in their collection cannot be understated. I think PCC 4000 has only run once or twice this millennium, but as the sole surviving air-electric PCC from the city, it also turns heads and inspires appreciation.

It's great to have surviving rolling stock that runs, but implying that there is no value in saving things that don't run is shortsighted and unfair. Mallard will probably never run again, but it remains one of the most important trains to ever be preserved, along with Flying Scotsman.

Not that radical of a difference, anymore than a TR with a cab (5386) vs without (5384), as long as they're the same under the hood. A TR running in ATC mode might as well not have cabs either (they could probably remove cabs entirely if they wanted to, which they don't), but it's still the same thing as a TR running manually (see also: Budapest lines 2 & 4, which both have the same type of rolling stock, but one running fully automated without cabs, while the other manually with cabs).

If our Mark Is had a propulsion system that was different than that of the other Mark Is (or at least a different variant of it), then I'd agree they'd be unique to Toronto.

What are you talking about? A TR with a cab vs a TR without a cab is also a HUGE difference.

Of all arguments for and against preservation, propulsion is by far the weakest and least convincing, catering to a very, very small subset of railfans and no one else.

 

[Richard White]

Says who?

None of Halton's rolling stock from the TTC's predecessors has run in many years, but their value in their collection cannot be understated. I think PCC 4000 has only run once or twice this millennium, but as the sole surviving air-electric PCC from the city, it also turns heads and inspires appreciation.

It's great to have surviving rolling stock that runs, but implying that there is no value in saving things that don't run is shortsighted and unfair. Mallard will probably never run again, but it remains one of the most important trains to ever be preserved, along with Flying Scotsman.

Yes but they need to be able to be moved. Cars from HCRY have been used by the TTC for events in the past.

You can have a static display and people will visit it but if it is left to decay, then what?

 

[T3G]

Yes but they need to be able to be moved. Cars from HCRY have been used by the TTC for events in the past.

That's nice, but I don't see what that has to do with the discussion. For one thing, those TTC events are well in the past, I don't recall any of HCRR's cars being brought back to Toronto this millennium. For another, many cars from Halton never did make the journey back, and they are not unique in this - lots of railway museums worldwide are the same. It is hardly a requirement. And finally, what form of preservation are you envisioning that would preclude something from being moved? If you are not burying the cars in an abandoned subway station and bricking up all the entrances, I don't see where the problem is.

You can have a static display and people will visit it but if it is left to decay, then what?

Who said anything about stuff being left to decay? Obviously, any form of preservation would require the vehicles to be preserved in some capacity, and not just left to rot in a field. Is anyone arguing the contrary?