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TTC Grounds Subway Work Car Fleet

On April 7 and 10 two major outages on Line 2 Bloor-Danforth were caused by hydraulic fluid spills from work cars. The TTC has sidelined its entire fleet of work cars pending inspection and repair. This has placed much subway infrastructure work on hold at a time when there is already a backlog.

A previous leak incident in 2024 led to TTC Board reports, and the findings were not impressive. Some work cars were beyond their useful lives, and there were ongoing issues with inspection and maintenance of equipment.

A common thread in these delays has been a car leaking fluid onto the rails over an extended distance before this problem is discovered. That leads to extensive, manual cleanup work to ensure that revenue service trains can accelerate and brake without slipping.

Problems with these cars are not the only source of major disruptions, and failing signal systems requiring service suspensions are common.

The TTC has not published a list of signal failure incidents to give a sense of their frequency and severity, let alone any plan to improve reliability over the decade before a new ATC system can take over.

It is rather comical that TTC Board meetings can include extensive discussion of a new enterprise asset management system, but little info on actual condition, maintenance and plans for what we have. We should not have to wait for a large IT project to know what the issues are today.

Behind both the fleet and signals problems lie bad capital budget planning by TTC management in response to political pressure to trim spending. In past years, key interrelated projects were downplayed or sidelined including:

  • The need to refresh and expand the subway work car fleet
  • The need to convert Line 2 to Automatic Train Control
  • The need for a new Line 2 fleet

Under former CEO Rick Leary, in his early days, there was a sense that existing infrastructure and fleet could be stretched out to about 2040, fully ten years longer than the then-current target of 2030. In time, the ATC and new trains projects were restarted, but with much later delivery dates. According to the December 31, 2025 Major Projects Update Report, the delivery of 55 new trains will not complete until 2035, and the final cutover of ATC will not occur until 2037. Existing systems will have to last another decade.

Another factor is the timing of the Scarborough and North Yonge subway extensions which are planned to open in the early 2030s and will need new trains before the existing Line 2 fleet is retired. This is further complicated by demand projections showing the need for growth trains in the mid 2030s. Trains for new lines and extra service require production capacity that would otherwise go to a replacement fleet.

With ATC for Line 2 a decade away, the Scarborough extension will have to be built with conventional signals to tide it over until an ATC-capable fleet is running.

The TTC has not published a fleet plan showing how the various proposed deliveries of new trains will be staged. There is also the small matter of storage and maintenance space for the expanded fleets, and projects for new yards are not yet funded. The Province is happy to announce new subway lines, but conveniently omits the very large cost of the maintenance facilities.

This ties back to the work car reliability and fleet size issues because the volume of subway work will not decline, but will actually increase both thanks to aging infrastructure and system expansion. There are already severe scheduling problems for the work plans due to conflicting requirements for this fleet.

The focus at an upcoming TTC Board meeting will no doubt be on recent failures, but there are much larger issues affecting subway reliability for the coming decade and more. 2027 might seem a long time (and an election) away, but planning for that budget is already underway. The Board should demand a detailed review and plan to address the situation, and this should not be another “we’ll get back to you next year” report.

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