Toronto’s streetcar shortage is about to show up quite graphically on the King car where many peak trips now operated by streetcars will change to buses. This begins with the schedule change on November 23, and continues with the January 4, 2015 schedules. Also, in January, 508 Lake Shore PM Peak service is discontinued.
Oct 12 Nov 23 Jan 4
2014 2014 2015
Veh Hdwy Veh Hdwy Veh Hdwy
AM Peak
Dundas W to Bview Stn (CLRV) 32 4'00" 32 4'00" 33 4'00"
Trippers
Dundas W to Bview Stn (ALRV) 7 7 7
Dundas W to Bview/Queen (CLRV) 8 4
Ronces/Queen to Bview Stn (CLRV) 3
Ronces/Queen to Bview/Queen (CLRV) 2 2
Ronces/Queen to Bview/Queen (Bus) 11 20
Lake Shore (CLRV) 3 3
PM Peak
Dundas W to Bview Stn (CLRV) 45 3'10" 40 3'30" 38 4'00"
Trippers
Ronces/Queen to Bview/Queen (CLRV) 3 6* 2
Ronces/Queen to Bview/Queen (Bus) 12 18
Lake Shore (CLRV) 6 6
* Most trippers make only one trip. For the PM Peak in October, 3 cars make two trips each.
These changes are alleged to be due to the shortage of streetcars, a situation that is not helped by the late deliveries of new Flexities from Bombardier, as well as the resumption of full streetcar service to Long Branch in late December. However, there are a few anomalies in the plans.
- The reduction of cars in service comes entirely from CLRV runs even though the TTC has repeatedly claimed that it is the ALRV fleet which is the less reliable.
- The TTC is widening the off-peak headways on King by extending running times without adding vehicles, and claims that this is needed because of the “shortage”. Of course, there is no shortage of vehicles off peak, only the will (and budget) to operate more of them.
The TTC has still not produced a fleet plan showing expected deliveries for new streetcars, their proposed rollout on the system, and details of extending the lifespan of the ALRVs as mentioned recently by CEO Andy Byford.
… we are taking another look at our fleet plan to maximize the number of higher capacity, articulated streetcars, or ALRVs, on King (and Queen) before the new streetcars enter service on these routes. We had originally intended to retire the ALRVs first as they are less reliable than the standard-sized cars, but our 2015 budget request will seek funding to extend the life of the ALRVs to maximize capacity and mitigate crowding.
Second, we are reviewing the roll-out plans for the new streetcar to see if sufficient vehicles can be delivered in time for earlier deployment onto these two major routes, rather than the current plan of 2016/17. [Toronto Moves November 7, 2014]
With the uncertainty on the TTC budget status at Council until well into 2015, and the lead time to implement new schedules, we can expect to see bus operations continue on King until at least late spring 2015.
[I will publish full details of the January 2015 schedule changes by the end of November.]
Steve Munro 
Rob Ford’s diabolic plan to replace streetcars with buses goes into effect. In the last week of his reign. Soon to be reversed, thankfully.
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While they claim a streetcar shortage they continue to hire new operators, so there is no shortage of operators. Is this so called shortage due to maintenance not repairing equipment?
Steve: Either not repairing, or wanting a bigger spare pool. If the latter, why not just say so. In any event, the explanation does not wash for off peak service when there are lots of spare cars. We have been hearing the same BS excuse from the TTC about this for years, and I’m astounded that Andy Byford lets his staff get away with it.
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Steve, is the 504 really where we would want to have buses? Would it not make more sense on a route with much sparser less crowded service? Just as an example, given that you have room to run twice the vehicles on Queen or Dundas, would it not make sense to put the bus runs on Queen or Dundas, Keep the highest capacity vehicle for King where we really need the new cars on about 2 minute headway and even ALRVs would need to run well below 2 minutes, and the CLRVs need to run about every minute. Put buses where a 5 minute headway for CLRVs is deemed to suffice, then run the bus twice as often.
I suspect that there is a basic need to arrange many more buses, and lord knows this would not be nearly such a mess with the current number of buses, if LRT on Finch West, SRT and Sheppard East were already operating. Unfortunately a lot of operating budget will soon be soaked up by another heavy rail mistake, that Byford is now forced to try to get back on track the Vaughan extension. Yes it will free buses, but it will mostly consume budget. Had this extension been LRT, imagine if 26 km in a couple of LRT (assuming a fairly high 100m/km) being built instead, or rather subway extended to Finch and 2 LRTs from there. Would offer more service, free up more buses, and would likely have reduced overall operating costs. Would have funded this run, and Finch west out of the budget for a subway that will not justify itself.
One of the critical things that the voter now needs to focus on, when big transit proposals are being made, is what will this cost to operate. It is silly to use a technology that will mean creating rides that cost $15 to deliver, when you could create equally good ones that cost $4-$5.
Steve: I think King was chosen because the trippers are in service for only a short time, as opposed to the Kingston Road services 502/503. Queen would not be appropriate because it is an ALRV route that is already short service. An argument could be made for Bathurst given that it’s a short route and tends to have lower demand (with fewer special events at Exhibition Place) in the winter. Wherever the cars come from, this has to be a short-term decision, and we need an and to the fiction that there are no spare cars for off peak service. That statement is a flat out lie, and it undermines the credibility of the schedule changes in general.
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Hey Steve didn’t we here recently that they were stepping up maintenance and were going to be pulling more vehicles off the road to take care of the repair backlog? Could this maybe be related?
Steve: It could be, but there has been no mention of this, only of a “streetcar shortage”. It was the bus fleet where the number of spares per garage was increased to improve maintenance.
Also I have noticed just in the last week a higher then normal issue of streetcars breaking down. I was on a 501 the other day and there was a parade of streetcars because one was being pushed to Greenwood to the yard there. Maybe all of this is take care of business in winter before the winter weather cripples all the cars we do have?
Either way I don’t have an issue with a bus filling in on a streetcar as long as the streetcars are still running. In fact I have often thought there should even be a bus service that runs from the beaches goes down Lakeshore then uses Richmond and Adelaide as the loop into downtown. Could provide a little relief to the 501 route.
Steve: It already exists as a premium fare, peak only service.
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Why do you blame everything on Ford? Ford’s powers have been removed and even with full mayoral powers he could not replace streetcars without council support which he didn’t have. Ford is very sick with cancer and is unable to conspire to replace streetcars under his present condition. If anything, John Tory has already been doing a lot of work behind the scenes meeting with TTC staff, city staff, councillors, provincial, and federal officials and if you think that John Tory is a pro-streetcar mayor from listening to his radio show, his chairing of Greater Toronto Civic Action Alliance, etc; then all I gotta tell you is that you don’t know John Tory.
I don’t live in Downtown, I don’t work in Downtown, and so I don’t care whether you use streetcars there or whether you replace them with buses but I would just say that with the introduction of buses on streetcar routes, this may eventually lead to the permanent replacement of all streetcars on a route or two since Tory is unlikely to grant TTC’s request for additional streetcars on top of so much money already having been spent on the new streetcars and the streetcar network and also there will be pressure from cyclists and drivers to rip out streetcar tracks from a route or two who will also use last winter and ice storm with frozen dysfunctional streetcars to point out their unreliability.
Rather than Ford being behind these buses complementing streetcar service, I suspect it might be TTC’s revenue being threatened by the introduction of private buses.
It could also be Tory’s plan to make Toronto more car friendly and to avoid having to purchase even more of these very expensive new streetcars.
Steve: The “Line Six” bus from Liberty Village only operates in the AM peak and charges $5 for a one way trip with four departures spaced 45 minutes apart. If the TTC could operate on this basis, they would be wildly successful, but people get upset when there is talk of even a five cent fare hike, never mind increases in dollars, and they prefer services that operate often enough that waiting for the bus is not a substantial portion of the trip time. There will always be some areas that are close enough to the potential destination of some riders where a premium fare service has a fighting chance, but this is no way to operate the transit system as whole.
This is a classic case of a “private sector” operator cherry picking a route where there is a market pissed off enough with the TTC, close enough to downtown that the service can operate with one vehicle, and riders willing to pay a premium to get to work quickly.
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Steve, are there any upsides to this story? With their better maneuverability, can the buses supplement the streetcars with faster trip times and more reliable service?
Steve: Generally when buses have replaced streetcars, they have been slower on heavy routes. There are exceptions, of course, including the numerous slow orders and other operational procedures that the TTC imposes on streetcars that don’t apply to buses. People tend to associate bus replacements of streetcars with better service during major diversions for track or road work because the TTC generally runs much more frequent bus service (and doesn’t generally short turn any of it) for the bus shuttles than they do for the streetcar service it replaces. A recent example is the long-term operation of buses in place of streetcars on 509 Harbourfront.
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Steve:
There was a comment, about 1962, in the UCRS Newsletter on the bustitution of the Dupont carline, roughly, “Before the last Dupont car finished its trip, the first Bay bus was behind schedule.
The explanation given was that while streetcars sit in the middle of the road at stops and dominate the traffic, buses move to the curb and have to fight their way back into the traffic lanes.
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With regard to the comment, above, that asks “why blame Ford”. That comment asserts that Ford is very ill, and makes a suggestion I have seen elsewhere, basically “don’t kick a guy when he is down”.
Well Ford isn’t “down”. Ford ran for office, even though he may not be able to finish out his term. So, he is not down, he is still an active politician, who should still be held fully accountable for all his statements and actions.
Steve: While it is no secret that I dislike Ford’s politics and the legacy of his term, his actions and those of his circle were taken when the Mayor was unencumbered by illness. He now faces a challenge unlike any he has seen before, one that will not yield to bombast or privilege. This is a personal issue that I would not wish on anyone.
However, we now have to fix the city Ford has created, we have to address the divisiveness he exploited for crass political ends and repair the effect of a narrow-minded attitude that lower taxes would solve every problem. There was a time when Ford might have been dethroned by legal challenges, but I preferred that he suffer defeat at the ballot box so that no lingering sense Toronto was cheated of his mayoralty might remain. Through the proxy of his brother, Toronto voted almost 2 to 1 against “Fordism” and against any sense that it has a continuing mandate to set the tone and direction of our city.
Rob Ford is seriously ill, but this illness has no place in debates over Toronto’s future.
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Could there not be a few advantages to running a few buses on some of the mixed-traffic streetcar lines? There are two instances that I can think of where this might actually help:
1) When Broadview was my home station I was always impressed at how the incoming buses from the north would delay their left turn to block traffic and make room for the 504’s and 505’s leaving the station. I know that this is a peculiar arrangement (and many things about the daily surface operations at Broadview are not so positive) but the incoming buses served a function that would have otherwise required a light or on-street traffic management.
When I ride the downtown lines I often see autos blaze by the streetcars in order to squeeze in front and back the car up out of service distance for the next stop – allowing the auto and its 1.1 passengers a free travel pass at the expense of a knock-on delay for the streetcar. I would love to see a bus in the way to block that possibility, basically a roving form of transit priority.
2) When there are gaps because of blocked tracks or a full car that’s slowly leading a parade, the buses will be able to maneuver, either serving as the shuttle bridge between turn backs or pro-actively servicing the upcoming stops in order to allow the lead car a faster travel time.
I mention these possibilities genuinely, but in doing so also realize that they require a high level of coordination and adaptation…in a system that is often lacking more basic forms of those qualities at baseline. At very least, the “bus block” technique of creating transit priority could be a useful political tool to improve the experience for riders slightly while showing drivers that it’s even in their interest to have sufficient, high capacity, well-functioning streetcars.
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Kevin’s comment:
Interestingly enough, this shows one of the key advantages of a political party. When the party leader gets sick, there is a new leader that can be trusted to share the same values and policies.
Another advantage is that new politicians can associate themselves with the party “brand,” so that the voters know what they stand for. I presume that this is why a certain 20-year-old Michael Stirpe chose to legally change his last name to “Ford.”
The Fords have demonstrated the value of a political party system (in their case, more like a re-run of the Family Compact – with similar political principles).
Montreal and Vancouver have a party system in their municipal politics. I believe that the Ford family has demonstrated the need for a similar system in Toronto.
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The reason for disappearing streetcars is simple: drivers and cyclists don’t like streetcars and neither does John Tory. The only way to save streetcars in Toronto is to bury and/or elevate them and the latter can be done by building them through and over buildings like in Japan.
In fact, we can build Downtown Relief Line (DRL) through buildings and over roads saving money by avoiding the need to bury it but of course nothing less than a subway would do for the Downtown elite.
Steve: You know, I was almost ready to put up with your comment (which has been left with much more scurrilous remarks before, and deleted), however, you insist on trotting out that Downtown Elite (we have a capital E don’t ya know) argument again and just blow your credibility. The DRL has to be completely grade separated because there is no surface right-of-way available for it. I doubt it would fit above grade for at least part of its length, but that’s another story. As for elites who like their lines underground, can you say “Vaughan Subway” or “Scarborough Subway”? Pot. Kettle.
An elevated would look nice through the middle of York U campus, I am sure.
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I could see Richmond St., Adelaide St., Wellington St. and Front St. with streetcar trackage put in with actual streetcar service running along providing passenger demand relief from King St. and Queen St. The streetcar tracks on Richmond and Adelaide could run on the centre right lane like most streets on a ROW and would be against the separated bike lanes that are starting to go in on those two streets. With two lanes taken for bikes and transit, there would still be two lanes left for car traffic.
Steve: The problem is that these streets don’t exist in much of the area where the passengers originate.
In the meantime, I would not blame the outgoing mayor for the streetcar fleet mess. There were many years before him when the city had the opportunity to acquire more LRVs and did not do so. The UTDC did make ALRVs for San Jose’s LRT that were sold off to Denver, I wonder if they could have been used here. But then also keeping the A-15 PCCs and rebuilding all the other PCCs that were around in the 80s might have helped too, but that may be pushing it. I am sure of course that if we had had the Liberals in power all along instead of Harris, the purchase of new LRVs could have been planned maybe in the late 90s/early 2000s rather than 2009.
Steve: After the recession of the early 1990s, TTC riding fell considerably and this reduced the need for streetcars. It was possible to open the Spadina line within the existing fleet, but that was twenty years ago. Fleet replacement didn’t get under seriously until the next decade, and it was delayed first by the debate over car type (partial vs fully low floor), Ford’s attempt to kill the order, and the very long lead time to get the design “right” for Toronto.
Putting in a comprehensive web of bike lanes with raised curbs and bollards is another affordable solution. Bicycles are fairly affordable and there are many people who would be happy to use their bikes, provided that real bike lanes could be put in place, not with just a painted line but with solid bollards and snow clearing in the winter time.
I could also see more articulated Nova buses in service and perhaps looking into bringing back the trolley buses. I was also surprised that I had been unaware for the last two years that Orion has been shut down, so of course whatever buses the TTC gets will no longer be Orions. But if the TTC did bring back some trolley bus service, I am aware that New Flyer still makes them. Seattle and Vancouver have bought them, so I do not see why it could not be done here too.
And even with New Flyer still making trolley buses, it appears that some sort of “E-Bus” is also being made, just like how there are now E-Bikes and electric cars like the Chevrolet Volt and Tesla car. Who knows where things could go. Maybe the need for any trolley wires, catenary or A.C. or D.C. power rails could become a thing of the past decades from now, who knows.
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Well Steve, as long as we are building subway in Scarborough, why not build tunnels in the core. Richmond could get you as far west as Bathurst before becoming too narrow and disjointed.
A lousy 4 km of tunnel would get you angled down into Liberty Village, and back up to the end of the Queensway ROW. If the Scarborough Elite, and Vaughan Elite deserve the most expensive types of tunnel and a high capacity subway, why do the downtown ones not rate a small little tunnel to run a dedicated ROW for a streetcar. Tunnel and stations would likely only be $1-2 billion (including a couple of stations in Liberty Village), the improvements to ROW as far east as Eastern Ave maybe another $1 billion, that might even get you to the Unilever site.
I think we should remember that the Downtown Elite, currently live with only the subway that the old city of Toronto built (ie the part they live in built and paid for before Metro existed), that is already very crowded by the time it gets to where they can board it, if they can (not from the shoulder areas you don’t) and they have surface routes that are amongst the slowest in the city.
This area would kill to get an LRT, that everybody else holds their nose to. They beg for a simple Streetcar LRT, and larger cars that are not good enough for Richmond Hill, and Scarborough, and yet struggle to get their needs even on the table (Waterfront West as an idea has been around for 25+years, any real action?, any move to preserve space to actually ensure it was a real option?).
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A pity that when the Front street extension was killed off, no one considered that someone would want to use the same route as a transit only link to Liberty Village at some point in the future and made efforts to ensure that Front could be widened between Bathurst and Portland.
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Front does not exist west of Bathurst so the extension meant creating a totally new street – part of which would have run through or over Fort York.
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Well that sucks!
I’ve been using the evening 508 service for 9 years in between the various construction projects that have suspended streetcar service on Lake Shore as of late. I was actually looking forward to using the route again in the new year so I could get home at a reasonable time and avoid dealing with short turns in the dead of winter. Considering they increased service on the 508 in the past 12-18 months, here’s hoping the loss of service is temporary.
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You might want to recheck that.
Steve: Yes, there was a proposed Front Street west to Dufferin separate from the Gardiner link, but I’m not sure what this has to do with the section east of Bathurst to Portland mentioned in the original comment.
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Steve, I do not have the service memo in front of me right now, but I remember correctly, it is the AM peak service that is getting cancelled temporarily, with the PM service continuing on as usual. In any event, the bus substitutions “until further notice” is the Planning’s way of acknowledging politely the lack of equipment, which has been a problem for years, but compounded recently by insuficient workforce as well. This is why there are service cancellations on a regular basis even today, including at off-peak times.
Steve: Nope, it’s the PM peak. Here is the full text:
It’s rather odd how the TTC manages to “reallocate” streetcars to King if they are not available to run Lake Shore.
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Based on what you were responding to with that passage I quoted, I was implying that a transit only version of the Front street extension would have been a streetcar/LRT line. Since Jordan Kerim wanted to put streetcar lines along Richmond St., Adelaide St., Wellington St. and Front St., that would have realistically meant pushing the separate right of way to Spadina.
Between Portland and Spadina, you would have been able to widen Front to the south to make room for a right of way. Between Portland and Bathurst, mainly because of the Bathurst street bridge, you would be forced to widen Front to the north. Even if you reduced Front to one lane in each direction between Bathurst and Spadina, you would still need the two turning lanes at the end of Front at Bathurst for westbound traffic which would probably take you to Portland anyways.
Steve: Thanks for the clarification. The whole idea of pushing those streets through to the west is a non-starter anyhow.
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Well, now it is. However, back when the Front street extension was cancelled in 2009, a Front Extension-Front-Spadina-Adelaide-Church-Wellington route would have been a natural branch of the Waterfront West LRT.
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In your interesting U of T presentation you reminded me “I was recently working with Steve Buckley at the City and Chris Upfold at the TTC on a review of King Street and its operation for traffic and transit.” First, it’s good to see the TTC, and the City talking to each other and with you. Secondly, has anything, or will anything, come of these discussions – apart from bus replacements!
I must also say I like the new WT/Toronto transit planning policy so well expressed above by Most Yusuf Ahmad: we have clearly moved from “Transit First” to “Transit Later…maybe”.
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This comment gets me a bit steamed:
I spent about six longer years being propositional to the Front St. Extension ie. why not a Front St. transitway? Put that quarter-billion into transit – if you’re willing to extend Front St. past Bathurst for cars, why not for transit, and keep going west?
Front St. is very close to King St., and goes right through the core and has extra width than King or Queen, and there’s even planning backup in the 1993 WWLRT EA.
But none of the politicians opted to choose transit, despite our Official Plan and all the blah-blah, and partially I guess it was due to Pantalone being the main proponent of the Front St. road folly – inspiring the term “blindp.”
Failure to build transit instead of the road has led now to the consistent foul-ups with the Gardiner repairs etc., and it may largely be built upon and encroached though we have a slim chance something could be built/put through still, though it’d cost more.
Which may be the Real Plan, of course.
At times we’re not merely Caronto, but Moronto.
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Though it’s a bit unfair to repeat this quote from Brad Ross (about the new signalling system delays) it struck me as yet another perfect example of the TTC trying to explain away delays in all their projects and their inability to run properly spaced service. Basically “It’s not our fault”. Sigh.
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I’ve a lot of time for BR, but that quote neglects the fact that TTC dates only ever move in one direction. The Commission is in thrall to over promising and under delivering, even when revising dates already slipped.
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Here’s an idea for the TTC: When dates are announced, why not announce the in-service date or the total-completion date as specified in the contract with the supplier or constructor? Those dates do not move, and should be enforced with hefty penalties known as liquidated damages. This method is (supposed to be) used in all public sector contracts, and if other organizations such as the MTO can strictly enforce them, there is no reason the TTC could not as well.
For those readers with little knowledge about liquidated damages, the basic premise of liquidated damages is that a contract is an agreement to finish by a specific date. By not having the work complete, there is a cost to the organization that must be compensated for the damages caused for not completing the work. Costs can include the staff salary on the project (staff should be reassigned to other projects, so they are working “overtime” to finish this project), service revenue not being generated, costs to the reputation of the company, etc.
Steve: The TTC does have liquidated damages provisions in its contracts and has exercised them on occasions. However, there is a catch-22 here in that bidders may simply price that in to their bid. Bombardier is a special case because of their lock on Toronto rail car orders and influence at Queen’s Park. The strike was a “force majeure” situation to which liquidated damages do not apply, and other issues, such as the successful completion of design, fabrication and installation of a workable access ramp almost certainly pushed out the contract longer than expected. All that said, the TTC persisted with a published roll out schedule for the cars that was dubious even a few years ago, and laughable this year. Then there is the small matter of the budget not making provision for enough operators to actually provide adequate service.
There is a reason highways are so well maintained… the costs of not adhering to the contract would quickly and adversely harm the financial health of the contractor when they do not perform. If Bombardier cannot meet their contractual deadline for streetcars, associated costs include refurbishment of the fleet to remain in service, additional operation costs, lost service revenue from not meeting latent demand, reduced fleet reliability due to the older vehicles, etc. If the TTC costed this out and had included this in the contract, they would be charging Bombardier tens of thousands of dollars per vehicle-day (MTO charges approximately $5000/snowplow + $1000/15 minutes when they are not operating) and this would encourage Bombardier to deliver on-time. The costs alone would encourage on-time delivery.
A similar thing should have been applied to other projects. The LD’s for not opening the subway extension by the December 2015 target (it was a contract for 2015 until it got DELAYED to 2016, and now likely 2017) should include the full cost of bus operations, fleet storage, fleet purchase if necessary, construction costs incurred by TTC (the staff could be working on the DRL or another line), etc. Imagine the incentive contractors have to finish if it costs them $100,000/day, or $3M/month, for not opening the line. It can and should be done, so why doesn’t Brad Ross just publicly announce whether the TTC screwed up by omitting LD’s, or whether they will charge the LD’s specified in the contract? Apply some pressure to the contractors!
Election promises can move, as can best-wishes days, but there is no need for contractual dates to move if only someone at the TTC enforced their contracts.
Steve: That’s not as simple as it looks. First off, there is no prime contractor to hold at fault for the late opening — the TTC is the prime here. There never was a “contract” for a 2015 opening.
Some delays are due to unexpected site conditions and engineering changes, both of which would be substantially to the TTC. Examples: inadequate investigative geotech and design changess after the project started. Some station structures were designed for platform doors and included structural elements as part of the door “wall”. This presumed element (itself a bad decision because it created a dependency on a major subsystem that had not been approved) triggered a need to redesign stations with different ceiling supports. Some are due to contractors, specifically a fatality at York U Station, and a severe problem with the builder of Steeles West (Pioneer Village). There is a further complication if the TTC tries to seize control of the project because the whole thing could wind up in court with no work done until the case was settled.
The project was planned to open as a “big bang” all the way to Vaughan in one go, almost certainly for political reasons, and some of the contract staging (signals) makes no provision for staged opening to an interim terminus. There is also the problem that York U station, the most likely first leg, is itself late and also has no provision for bus transfer facilities because York U doesn’t want their campus full of buses after the line opens.
Yes, there are some damages that may be due to contractors, but the TTC bears the responsibility itself for a lot of bad decisions.
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Steve what will the relative cost of operating the subway be, versus the number of buses that will be saved? Is the opening of the subway extension something that will actually help the operating budget of the TTC in a substantial way?
Was the number of buses released something that had in effect been built into the fleet plan?
Steve: In the case of both the Sheppard subway and the Vaughan extension now under construction, the post-opening net costs add to the TTC’s deficit. Certainly it can be argued that more people are carried by the subway than might otherwise be on the bus network, and this is just the cost of doing business. However it’s hard to square the amount we are prepared to subsidize a subway rider with the much smaller amounts represented by the cost of providing better service on the surface routes.
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That had been what I had thought. I was trying to square this with the liquidated cost damages argument, and given the source of revenue etc, and market impact of reputation, I was having a hard time seeing this being an effective method of actually examining damages. “Yes your honor, I am greatly injured he delayed me shooting myself in the foot, and thus prevented at least 2 rounds” being a good way of winning substantive damages. The material damages would be the issue with regards to fleet requirements being out of skew.
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