[ownthesky]

Would it be fair to say that the Ontario line is going to be to Toronto what the Elizabeth line is to London?

I ask because, I'm wondering if a western extension of the Ontario line could be similar to the Elizabeth line east of Whitechapel. Have the line fork off into two directions. One to Mimico, and the other up to Eglinton.

View attachment 621170View attachment 621172

Mimico is supposed to get essentially subway level service soon with extremely frequent diesel trains, with electric multiple units just like a subway in the years follow that. Why would you spend billions of dollars just to duplicate an existing system?

 

[ProjectEnd]

 

[officedweller]

Why are they using catenary instead of a third rail for the Ontario line?

December 2020 Preliminary Design Business Case excerpt.
Others have noted that third rail DC has a limit of 750V, so once they decided to use 1500V, it had to be overhead catenary.

Here are the catenary references from the December 2020 Preliminary Design Business Case.

NOTE: It'll be an overhead 1500 volt DC system, so the electrical transformers and rectifiers will presumably be in substations,
not on-board as noted in the articles posted by W.K. Lis above for ac systems, and the issues with added vehicle weight won't arise.
1500 volts DC is also a step up from the typical 750 volts DC.
The article posted by W.K. Lis also says that 1500 volts DC (vs 750 volts DC) allows wider spacing / fewer substations.

https://assets.metrolinx.com/image/upload/v1663237577/Documents/Metrolinx/2020-12-08-Ontario-Line-PDBC-Public-Final.pdf