Boisvert on the city’s favourite roof
Yves Boisvert does a good summary of the history of the city’s favourite roof and has hopes for the new retractable design proposed by Dessau and EllisDon.
I’m seeing here a parallel to the Metro car situation, in which an idée fixe – a fixed steel roof, a metro on rubber tires – can suddenly be shaken by a new idea, a different kind of roof, a metro on steel wheels. Of course the long entrenched businesses that expected the contracts will fight tooth and nail, even if the new idea is both better and cheaper.
DC 15:37 on 2010/08/30 Permalink
Except here, the idées fixes are reversed. It’s Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive playing Roger Taillibert: short track record, little experience, promising big results via a pricey gamble on new technology. Bombardier/Alstom might be proposing a prosaic solution, and won’t offer a hefty discount like their rival, but they are companies that are confirmedly capable of delivering something that stays up and keeps the rain out, so to speak.
Place a bad bet on a stadium roof and you have a leaky white elephant. Lose out when letting an inexperienced firm rip up your metro system, and you have hundreds of thousands of people riding buses until the STM and ZEL are done suing each other.
Kate 21:23 on 2010/08/30 Permalink
I’m not sure I buy everything you say. Zhuzhou is asking us to go back to an older technology for trains, not something untried. Rubber wheels make for a smoother ride for sure, but you probably know it also means the Montreal metro can never have sections that go outside, like many subway systems do.
I agree it’s slightly nerve-wracking to think about the suspension of service necessary if the metro system were to be rejigged for rail, but what if it meant long-term savings over the following decades?
DC 02:11 on 2010/08/31 Permalink
The point isn’t that steel rails are experimental as such, but that we’d be making a wholesale switch to a technology that the rest of the physical plant isn’t built for, all for a one-shot savings on rolling stock. There just doesn’t seem to be enough upside to justify this kind of risk.
Rubber-tired metros can run outdoors, actually. I think the main problem with that on our system would be the way the third rail is set up, but that’s another story.
Tamara 10:32 on 2010/08/31 Permalink
Kate, I don’t think the rubber tires are what impede the metro from running outside the tunnels (please take a look at the 12 lines of the metro in Mexico City). And I don’t buy the ZEL option, because it means changing A LOT of infrastructure and I think the STM has been wise to stay away from this. I would say, bring the project home, with Bombardier.
Kate 11:50 on 2010/08/31 Permalink
Mexico City doesn’t get snow, for one thing. Another thing that occurs to me is the increased vulnerability of a rubber-tired system that goes outside. I’m not losing sleep over talk of terrorist attacks, but the Montreal metro was named as one of the possible targets in that recent arrest. Think about the havoc you could cause by simply dropping some home-made spikes on the bands where the wheels roll.
MB 17:17 on 2010/08/31 Permalink
Kate, there are still steel rails and backup steel wheels that can support the trains in the event of tires blowing out. Also, what difference would it make to terrorists if the trains were outdoors or indoors?
This whole thing is urban legend: the snow isn’t inherently a serious problem for rubber tires if they are designed appropriately. The same legend comes back in reference to streetcars/trams running on our roads with steel wheels. Cars, buses, and trucks seem to manage reasonably well even without rails.
It’s really so very simple why the Montreal Metro runs entirely underground: It’s the trains and the rails, not the wheels. The trains aren’t weatherproof, and precipitation would cause problems with the third rails.
Not to mention, ZEL was right to say that today’s steel wheel technologies can achieve the same grades and turn radii as rubber tired sets. However, they can’t do them as quickly or as quietly. Imagine how screechingly noisy and S-L-O-W the tunnel between Champ-de-Mars and Berri-UQÀM would be??? Plus…knowing that there are shale deposits in our bedrock, I’d imagine the vibrations could cause some problems…
etc. etc. etc. ZEL is a scheister and a bully, plain and simple. They would have left us with a big bill and without a usable metro for years and years.
AJ 10:46 on 2010/09/01 Permalink
Just as a point of fact, the Montreal metro doesn’t have a 3rd rail – ALL the rails are part of the circuit. The current is transmitted via the two yellow sidebars, picked up by carbon brush electrodes, and the metal rails are the return channel according to what I read recently.
I think if we want a metro system that can bridge to the outside – notably to flatter sections of the city to the east and west of the central plateau / escarpment – the best and easiest solution is to create intermodal stations where you can change from Metro to light rail. We could create a few lines that run along existing highways (20, 40/Met, Decarie, Cote-de-Liesse), with stops and hubs connecting existing Metros with commuter rail; maybe if we teamed up via the AMT, this could become a single network for Montreal, Laval and the South Shore (also at a cost savings). Frankly, we need something like the NYC subway-rail infrastructure to tie things together more seamlessly.
Kate 18:36 on 2010/09/01 Permalink
AJ, I agree with you. I wonder how much stupid infighting between the STM and the AMT, and between the metropolis and the suburbs, has happened about transit, and has blocked the development of a system such as you describe.