The Toronto Transit Commission is taking preventative measures to ensure its aging fleet of streetcars performs as well as possible this winter.
The TTC said Canadian winters have taken their toll on the decades-old vehicles, but until more new streetcars arrive from Bombardier, the transit provider will have to make do with what it has.
“They are 30, 35 years old (and have done) a million-and-a-half kilometres,” said TTC spokesperson Brad Ross. “They use systems that are prone to failure.”
This year, the TTC is taking a series of preventative measures on the old streetcars until the new ones arrive.
The old streetcars depend on a pneumatic or compressed air system that can seize when there is moisture in the lines.
“The air system on the (streetcars) controls your suspension…controls the wiper system…(and) controls the door system,” said Jerry Ferreira, a technical advisor for the TTC.
It takes crews about two days of looking for leaks and fixing or replacing pipes to winterize each vehicle.
The TTC said the initiative isn’t a sustainable solution and winter will still wreak havoc on the old machines. But until the new streetcars arrive, the commission say it is doing what it can to minimize failures.
There are only 10 new streetcars currently on the tracks in Toronto, out of the 67 Bombardier originally promised to deliver by the end of the 2015.
Bombardier was supposed to build a total of 204 new streetcars for the TTC, according to a $1-billion contract signed in 2009.
Top transit officials visited Bombardier’s facility in Thunder Bay, Ont., this summer and negotiated a revised deal that would see only 20 streetcars delivered by the end of the year. But in October, Bombardier reported that it would not be able to meet the deadline due to problems involving the crimping of electrical connectors on the streetcars.
TTC board chair Josh Colle estimated that the delays have cost the transit commission more than $50 million.
Board members voted unanimously in late October to sue Bombardier for that amount after the transportation developer repeatedly failed to deliver new streetcars on time.
With a report from CTV Toronto’s Natalie Johnson
