EastYorkTTCFan
Senior Member
But they were never in service with them only tested in Europe where the prototypes were builty I belive.
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But they were never in service with them only tested in Europe where the prototypes were builty I belive.
But they were never in service with them only tested in Europe where the prototypes were builty I belive.
Personally I could live with poles indefinitely, if doing so diverted money towards accelerating installation of new track switches so the cars could run through without stopping/slowing
Given that the upgrade to pantograph-ready overhead was done as a part of routine maintenance and infrastructure replacement, the marginal cost of converting to pantographs was relatively small, and the cost-benefit ratio may well be as good or better than switch replacement. And nothing about pantograph conversion conflicts with the replacement of track switches. In fact, if switches were converted while still running trolley poles, there might still need to be a speed restriction through switches due to the threat of dewiring.
Sometimes it is actually cheaper to 'do it all at once' - replacing/upgrading overhead in a piece-meal way as bits need replacement does not really strike me as being better. (A bit like buildings where they replace light bulbs as they 'die' compared to ones where they do a 'total lamp replacement' once a year or so. The latter may cost more in bulbs but is FAR less expensive in labour and I bet the costs of overhead replacement are primarily labour.)Except that the "marginal cost" wasn't so marginal, as the TTC has been doing the "upgrades" before many of the components were life-expired.
And before anyone accuses me of being obstructionist, I'm not against pantographs per se. For a lot of reasons, it does make sense to switch to them. But it would have saved a lot of money to have changed fittings and rebuilt the overhead AS it became life-expired. Sure, it may take longer to convert the system, but this way they're not going to be throwing out perfectly good overhead fittings. Which is what they are doing (although admittedly to the benefit of numerous museums and historical societies).
Dan
Toronto, Ont.
Sometimes it is actually cheaper to 'do it all at once' - replacing/upgrading overhead in a piece-meal way as bits need replacement does not really strike me as being better. (A bit like buildings where they replace light bulbs as they 'die' compared to ones where they do a 'total lamp replacement' once a year or so. The latter may cost more in bulbs but is FAR less expensive in labour and I bet the costs of overhead replacement are primarily labour.)
I would repeat that, in my opinion, the new overhead installation has been done in a very piecemeal way. They did quite a bit of the tangent (straight) overhead on King Street but not around Yonge and Jarvis and only now are they working on the intersections. (York was done recently, Church and Parliament are untouched). They are doing the right turn corner at Church/Wellington - though another section of Wellington has no wire and needs a few new poles and there is currently no service on the street. They have done quite a lot of Queen but not the intersections at Victoria and Church, for example They have done some of Carleton - though the 506 is the last route to get the new streetcars, I realise it is complicated (see several useful pieces on Steve Munro at https://stevemunro.ca/ ) but I DO think the work has been piecemeal.It wasn't piecemeal. It was done pretty quickly, over the last 5 years or so. The TTC did conversion work whenever streetcars were replaced by buses - for example, on College during the street & sidewalk rebuilds, on Queen during the Eaton Centre bridge replacement and on St. Clair during the platform modifications. There are still a few segments left to do in the next couple of years (Broadview, for example, is the reason why the 504 isn't getting the new streetcars yet), but most of the system is done.
Sometimes it is actually cheaper to 'do it all at once' - replacing/upgrading overhead in a piece-meal way as bits need replacement does not really strike me as being better. (A bit like buildings where they replace light bulbs as they 'die' compared to ones where they do a 'total lamp replacement' once a year or so. The latter may cost more in bulbs but is FAR less expensive in labour and I bet the costs of overhead replacement are primarily labour.)
There's really no cost-savings to be had by accelerating the work.
It's true it can be cheaper in the case where you need to hire a crew to come in quickly to do that kind of work versus having one person on call. But the TTC has a couple of overhead crews on staff that they keep at the ready for dealing with emergencies and regularly-scheduled replacements. There's really no cost-savings to be had by accelerating the work.
Make a firm decision to switch to pantographs in the future - all new vehicles and overhead must now support both trolley poles and pantograph operation.
Over then next decade or two, bits and pieces of pantograph-ready overhead will naturally appear, including some longer stretches such as where ROWs and/or overhead are totally rebuilt like on St. Clair (2007) and Queens Quay (2015).
Unfortunately "practically all" is not good enough and pantos cannot operate unless all of their route is done; operators cannot be constantly switching between poles and pantos. All parts of KING (the busiest route) are not yet done. The TTC ARE making progress but the network won't really be ready for pantos for a few months yet.Practically all of the main revenue trackage is ready for pantographs now. It's just a few sections (for example, the curves on Broadview) and some of the non-revenue trackage (Church, Shaw Street, parts of Coxwell, etc.) that needs to be upgraded.
This is what happened.
Unfortunately "practically all" is not good enough and pantos cannot operate unless all of their route is done; operators cannot be constantly switching between poles and pantos. All parts of KING (the busiest route) are not yet done. The TTC ARE making progress but the network won't really be ready for pantos for a few months yet.
1. The TTC has committed to going pantograph-only in the near future - only the first 60 streetcars will have trolley poles