Category: Streetcars/LRT

Mayor Naheed Nenshi re-elected in Calgary! #yycvote

Wonderful to see Mayor Naheed Nenshi re-elected in Calgary. Great news for the Green Line LRT and the Southwest BRT. Some interesting parallels in the Calgary election and transit scene and in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.

Hope to be able to meet Nenshi one day. Also, big congrats to my friend Chris Cowperthwaite and all his amazing campaign efforts. From what I observed from here, it was a grassroots driven, digitally-savvy, and most importantly a fun and friendly campaign to be part of. That’s how it’s done.

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Big crowd! Photo credit: Chris Cowperthwaite

Next New Streetcar to Join the Fleet

Bryan Martyniuk lives in Thunder Bay and sent along pictures of 4446 from today. 4446 will be the next new streetcar to join the TTC’s fleet. It’s a little too far for me to get up to Thunder Bay to see the new streetcars or GO Transit coaches roll off the line so it’s great to have Bryan be there.

4446, a Flexity Freedom, and GO 4020, a bilevel coach. The GO coach is in primer paint and will head to North Bay for the final paint job. Photo credit Bryan Martyniuk.

Photo credit Bryan Martyniuk.

Pantographs Up On Harbourfront

Check out this post by Steve Munro on the TTC testing out the pantograph on their new streetcars. What’s the big deal Chris?

1) It’s looks cool;

2) It’ll improve reliability – the pole tends to pop off at intersections and during turns; and

3) What about the historic look of the pole? No problem – visit Halton County Radial Railway. It’s a museum. They have ice cream. It’s fun.

Steve Munro

On Tuesday, September 12, 2017, the TTC began operation of its new Flexity streetcars with pantograph power collection on the 509 Harbourfront route. This is a short, comparatively isolated route running entirely with Flexitys where problems, if any, can be ironed out on a small piece of the network. Any off route moves including carhouse trips are done with trolley poles, and the normal changeover point between modes is at Exhibition Loop.

Here is a small set of photos of the route.

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