Text by James Bow
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When the province of Ontario agreed to fund the City of Toronto’s Transit City proposal, they launched the construction of what will be one of the largest orders of LRT vehicles in many a year. The province’s agreement to build the Sheppard East LRT, the Finch West LRT and the Eglinton-Crosstown LRT (later changed to an all-underground version of the Eglinton-Crosstown-Scarborough LRT, at the request of newly elected Toronto mayor Rob Ford, though this was reversed by Toronto City Council in February 2012) was part of a wider provincial transit plan, initially called MoveOntario 2020. This plan which called for provincial funding of 52 projects across the Greater Toronto Area and Waterloo Region, included LRT projects in Mississauga, Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo and Ottawa.
As Metrolinx took over the task of designing and building these transit expansion projects, a question arose early as to whether Toronto’s new LRT vehicles would share many of the same characteristics as their legacy streetcar counterparts, or if a standard off-the-shelf model would be built instead, using standard gauge. There were obvious advantages of piggybacking the construction of Toronto’s LRT vehicles with LRT vehicles planned for other cities, but did that mean that other cities would have to adopt the TTC’s unique track gauge?
Rather than create a new, Ontario standard, Metrolinx quickly decided that all its new LRTs should be built to operate on standard gauge. This forced some changes to Toronto’s Transit City plan. It would no longer be possible to store some of Toronto’s legacy streetcars in Toronto’s LRT garages, for instance, and plans to connect the St. Clair streetcar line with the Eglinton LRT up Scarlett Road were quickly dropped. Other legacy streetcar characteristics were quickly dropped, or never considered. The new LRT vehicles would have cabs at both ends, meaning that loops would not be required to turn the cars around at the end of the line. The LRT vehicles would have to have doors on both sides to allow for both side platform and island platform loading. Pantographs would be installed from the start, and the LRT cars would be longer, and unable to take the tight curves of the TTC’s legacy streetcar system.
As part of the design process for the new Flexity Freedom vehicles, to promote Bombardier’s LRT production line, and promote the construction of LRT lines, Bombardier built a mock-up LRT vehicle. It was ready and painted in a red livery in time for the 2011 American Public Transit Association Expo. After this showing, it was redone in a green livery that Metrolinx had selected for the EGLINTON-CROSSTOWN line, showing up at locations around Canada to hlghlight what transit passengers might be riding in the future. Showings included in Vancouver (July 6-8, 2012), Edmonton (July 13-15, 2012), and Calgary. It was shown in Toronto as part of the 2012 Canadian National Exhibition, and appeared elsewhere in Toronto, in Brampton, and in Waterloo Region over the next two years. In 2015, Bombardier changed the livery again, replacing hte green with grey, possibly as Metrolinx had decided to go with this livery for its EGLINTON-CROSSTOWN LRT.
The gallery below shows the mock-up under construction, circa 2010.
TTC LRT Early Mockup Image Archive
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As the City of Toronto debated over whether to put the Eglinton LRT entirely underground or use some of the savings to build LRTs on Sheppard and Finch instead, Metrolinx, in cooperation with Bombardier, started work on a very early mockup of the new LRT design. The work was performed at GO Transit's Halton Hills garage in Milton. This and the thirteen pictures that follow were donated anonymously. |
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A front view of the mockup, which was built out of paper and plywood. It's very unlikely that this mockup will be shown to the public. It's more likely this mockup was built to test certain design concepts. |
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A side-view shot of the early LRT mockup, showing the driver side doors. |
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A shot of the interior cab of the LRT mockup, showing roughed-in controls. |
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A closer view of the driver side doors. |
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A view from the back. It appears that Metrolinx is only mocking up the first 3/5ths of a single LRT car, or 1/5th of a three-car train that would likely operate on the Eglinton LRT. |
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A shot of the interior of the LRT mockup, from the third section (furthest from the driver's cab; at least, in this mockup). Here, we can see the design shares some similarities to the LRV mock-up that was shown to the public in November 2011. |
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This image is taken further back in the mock-up, in the second section, which has been left open for better wheelchair accessibility. Note the fold-up seats. Again, this arrangement recalls the layout of the LRV mockup. |
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Two seats that flip up, for ease of wheelchair access. |
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This shot is in the first section of the LRT, closest to the driver's cab. |
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Though made of paper and plywood, the mockup is remarkably detailed, including even mockups of stop-request buttons. |
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There are even upholders in the driver's cab. |
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This mockup of the front destination sign leaves little doubt that this design or something similar is bound for Eglinton. |
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A shot of the starboard side of the LRT mockup. |
