Subway service on the central portion of Line 2 Bloor-Danforth was suspended for over 12 hours on Monday, May 13 due to a spill of hydraulic fluid on the tracks. The replacement bus service was swamped by the combination of subway demand and congestion on Danforth Avenue and Bloor Street. The situation was compounded by changing and incomplete information about the extent and potential duration of the problem.
This was initially described as a spill somewhere between Sherbourne and Castle Frank Stations with the impression that the directly affected area was small. In fact, the volume was large, 200L of hydraulic fluid, and the area ran from Spadina to Greenwood Yard (east of Donlands Station). Trains could not operate safely until the rails were cleaned and operators could brake with confidence that trains would actually stop correctly.
This was not the first such incident. At a TTC Board Meeting earlier in 2024, ATU Local 113 had raised the issue of operational safety after a similar, albeit smaller problem in January at Eglinton West Station. Following the May 13 spill, the ATU wrote to the TTC Board raising basic questions about the incident, and by implication how well-informed the Board actually was about ongoing issues with subway safety.
At the May 16 Board meeting, management gave an extensive presentation about hydraulic fluid leaks and the recent increase in the frequency of these events. It is not clear whether such a detailed presentation would have occurred without the ATU going directly to Board members. Management’s credibility and transparency have been open to question following a near-miss incident at Osgoode Station that went unreported to the Board for almost a year, as well as track and infrastructure problems including the SRT derailment, and the need for ongoing slow orders due to problems with subway track.
CEO Rick Leary has retained external consultants, Hatch LTK, to review these incidents, and there will be a peer review by APTA (American Public Transit Association).
A much broader concern is subway delays of various types and how they are handled. Some have external causes (passengers wandering at track level, for example), but some are “own goals” in the sense that they arise from operational or infrastructure issues that could have been prevented. Whatever the reason, all of them strain the subway’s ability to provide reliable service. This works directly against the drive to restore transit’s credibility and attract new and returning riders.
Far more is needed than free Wi-Fi here and a new kiosk there. Creature comforts are nice, but the service must be trustworthy. The TTC’s fundamental job is to move people. The lion’s share of delays might be due to external factors beyond the TTC’s control, but how they react to delays is key.
* City Council Transmittal – CC15.1 Budget Implementation Including Property Tax Rates, User Fees and Related Matters
* Financial and Major Projects Update for the Year Ended December 31, 2023
* Easier Access Phase III – Project Status Update April 2024
Approval of Public Art Concepts for the Bay, Castle Frank, Christie, Donlands and Lansdowne Stations
I have already written about the SRT report, and here will discuss only the deputations and discussion at the Board meeting.
(*) Part II will review the Asset Management Plan, and Part III will cover updates on TTC finances, Major Projects and Easier Access.
A Draft Report on the TTC’s “Innovation and Sustainability Framework” was deferred to the May Board meeting, and I will comment on that when it reappears.
Among the reports on the TTC Board agenda for April 11 is a recap of the SRT investigation. I have already written about shortcomings and contradictions in this report and will not belabour that here.
The fundamental question is whether management are being entirely transparent in their presentation. If there is someone on the Board bold enough to challenge them, here are a few key questions:
Ten days before the derailment, a high reaction rail was reported at the site, but this was logged as a low priority problem. The misalignment, reported as 1/2 inch, is on a par with the normal clearance between the LIM motor under SRT cars and the reaction rail. What repairs, if any, were made to correct this problem, and were the bolts holding the reaction rail checked for their integrity?
At the site, joins in both the reaction rail cap and the main reaction rail were at the same position. This weakens the structure because the two sections cannot reinforce each other against deflection by magnetic forces as trains pass. The sections are supposed to be staggered to prevent this type of failure. Why weren’t they, and how many other locations on the SRT shared the same problem?
How recently installed were the bolts that failed at the derailment site?
Consultant reports state that the manufacturer, Hilti, did not intend its anchors to be used in a situation where the bolts would flex under load as on the SRT. Why was this not reported to the Board in the September 2023 briefing?
New bolts on the SRT were not those supplied by Hilti, but were substituted by the TTC. The replacement bolts were longer and they used a different thread profile than the originals. Were these approved by Hilti?
What portions of the SRT were reviewed by the consultants, and did they find other defects similar to those at the derailment site?
Have all the reports, either internal or produced by consultants, about the derailment been made public? If not, why not, and when will they be made available?
TTC management claims that they did not reduce the level of maintenance on the SRT even though it was to close in fall 2023. However, the consultants point out that capital repairs (as opposed to routine inspections) were discontinued, and that only that type of work would have detected loose reaction rail bolts. How does TTC management reconcile these claims?
At the September 2023 Board meeting, TTC staff stated that the consultant’s recommendations for work to inspect and restore the SRT to safe operation would take longer then the planned remaining life of the line. How can the need to do so much work be reconciled with claims of regular inspection and repair?
Why were the consultant reports posted to the TTC’s website in November and December 2023 with no notice to the public nor to the Board?
The TTC would like to put the derailment behind them and focus on improvements going forward. However, one must ask how long the practices leading to the SRT crash were used, and whether shortfalls were the result of budgetary “efficiencies” rather than good engineering. By extension, what other parts of the TTC might be compromised, and what is needed to correct this situation.
On April 3, 2024, the advocacy group TTCriders submitted a request to the City of Toronto Auditor General for a review of TTC maintenance practices. This arose both from the July 2023 SRT derailment and other recent events on the subway including a broken switch and a flurry of slow orders.
Full disclosure: I was asked to review a draft of the TTCriders letter and suggested minor edits, but am not a party to their request.
Both in the staff presentation at the TTC’s September 26, 2023 Board Meeting and in comments responding to TTCriders, the TTC has been quite clear that it regards the root cause of the SRT derailment to be loose mounting bolts for the reaction rail. This does not tell the full story, especially in light of consultant reports that were published well after the September 26 meeting.
The published version of the Network Rail report is dated August 23. The Hatch report is Sept 28. Gannett-Fleming’s is Oct 12. Systra’s is Nov 30. For an extensive review of these, see my previous article:
A common thread in the consultant reports was that inspection and maintenance practices were inadequate, staff were not trained in the potential danger of defects that they discovered, and many staff were juniors who had not fully qualified as track inspectors. At the time, this was treated as a problem limited to the SRT. Recent events suggest that poor practices extend beyond to the rail network generally, and this is a more pervasive problem than originally reported.
The staff presentation in September was part of a larger review of the SRT replacement service, and the report title gives no hint that the derailment is part of this. Elsewhere in the same agenda, the CEO’s report celebrates the “Farewell to the SRT” event but makes no mention of the derailment reviews.
In the TTC’s review of these reports, presented in the April 11 Board meeting agenda, these suppositions are countered, although not entirely convincingly. It is fair to assume that most people will not be familiar with the detailed reports and will take the TTC’s rebuttal at face value. [The April 11 report is discussed later in this article.]
TTC spokesperson Stuart Green said CEO Rick Leary ordered the external reports the night of the derailment to get answers on what happened while including links to the reports posted on the TTC website. He also said the matter was discussed at the Sept. 26 TTC board meeting.
“TTCriders was represented at this same meeting so presumably they heard the same information and are fully aware what the root cause was,” he wrote.
Certainly TTCriders and anyone else attending the September 26 meeting or playing the video later “heard the same information”. The problem lies in being “fully aware” of the root cause which was not the loose bolts, but the failure to detect and correct the problem, and more generally the state of inspection work and staff training. A related problem identified by the consultants was that previous repairs at the derailment site had created a weakness in the reaction rail which, combined with loose bolts, made the failure causing the derailment more likely.
The September presentation noted the difficulty of inspecting the reaction rail supports which required hands-and-knees posture to peer under the track in all manner of weather and lighting conditions. In practice, this level of inspection was rare because it was so difficult. Oddly enough, the Vancouver SkyTrain system uses a separate test, striking the support bolts with a tool, and listening for a dull “thud” instead of a clear “ping”. The “thud” indicates a loose bolt requiring closer inspection.
A common indication that there were problems is scuffing of the reaction rail. This was noted at several locations on the line. One does not have to peer under the track to see this early indicator of a developing problem. However, scuffing could also result from minor clearance problems with specific cars and this would not necessarily be interpreted as a location warranting detailed reaction rail review, especially if the marks had been seen repeatedly.
The most damning item is in the TTC’s own Maximo defect tracking system as reported by an inspection team two weeks before the derailment (July 9, 2023). The item highlighted below shows the reaction rail was “raised 1/2 inch on the approach end”. This was a defect serious enough to be visible without the usual difficulty of inspecting under the reaction rail. A related oddity is a two-week gap in reporting of any further problems leading up to the derailment.
In summarizing the investigation at the September meeting, TTC staff stated that the “immediate cause” of the derailment was the failed anchor bolts. Further, the consultants had recommended that if the SRT were to resume operation through November, then all of the newer bolts installed from 2016 onward should be tested and retrofitted as necessary. This work would have required “time well beyond the planned closure date”, and so the line remained closed. (See meeting recording.)
The estimated scope of this work implies a pervasive problem that was either undetected or whose potential severity was not understood, or worse ignored.
An important distinction here is that the term “immediate cause” has morphed into “root cause”. No matter the frequency of track inspections, the loose bolt problems would not be detected because they were not visible.
A further concern is the manner in which consultant reports were quietly posted on the TTC’s website with no announcement in November and December 2023. My coverage of them was the first that some TTC Board members I have spoken with knew about them.
The documents are posted under the Projects page for the future of Line 3 SRT replacement service, hardly a location one would look for technical info on the derailment. Three of the reports were posted in mid November and one in December. It is easy to verify that they were not there earlier by looking at Internet archives for the page on October 2 and December 7, 2023. The first three reports went up almost two months after the Board meeting, not “a few weeks” as expected. However, there was no media release about them nor were they brought to the Board’s attention.
At the September meeting, Councillor Matlow asked whether there could have been a reduction in maintenance or negligence due to the anticipated shutdown of the line. The Gannett-Fleming consultant replied that there were multiple possible causes for the bolts coming loose, but did not address the frequency of inspections.
Staff and consultants reiterated that inspections for problems of loose bolts were very difficult and they would generally not be spotted. It would not matter how often a walking inspection passed potentially defective reaction rail mounts because these were not visible. Indeed, there was an inspection on the morning of the derailment that found no issues.
The Network Rail consultant mentioned marks on the reaction rail surface in passing, but then talked about the impossibility of seeing bolt problems because they are under the reaction rail, and movement was seen only with a train passing. He also said that issues were being reported and fixed, but this is contradicted by the Maximo logs which show a reaction rail lifted 1/2 inch at the site two weeks before the derailment (see above).
One major problem with the Maximo records is that there is no explicit log of repairs made in response to problem reports. Moreover, the consultants noted that almost all issues were logged with a relatively low priority for repairs. I attempted to FOI the repair work orders. However, the TTC advised that the only record was that a defect report was closed, and that there was no information on the actual repair work. If true, this makes post-incident review of the nature of repairs, if any, impossible.
In September, Matlow asks whether there was an increase in maintenance on the aging system. Staff replied about the 2016 plan to replace the anchors which was well-intentioned, but as we know from the reports there were design and installation issues that eventually caused the failure.
Councillor Holyday pursued the anchor design issue. The replies mentioned that there were other locations with scuff marks but mostly from different causes. There was no mention of a problem, flagged by consultants, of repairs that created a weak spot due to cuts in both layers of the reaction rail at various points including the derailment site.
Matlow asked CEO Leary about how the TTC will prevent another accident, and Leary talked briefly about changes already underway and lessons learned. He then mentioned a planned November report, but this was the unfunded capital projects report, not a more detailed SRT report.
Leary pivoted to the Line 2 trains and signal system, and funding problems that could lead to shutdowns. He explicitly mentioned avoiding having old vehicles in service in the future. This ignored his original support for rebuilding Line 2 trains for a 40-year lifespan, and of keeping conventional signals because ATC would have been incompatible with these trains. Now he has changed his position.
On July 24, 2023, at about 6:43 pm, a southbound SRT train derailed south of Ellesmere Station after snagging the reaction rail. This event lifted the rear truck of the car off of the track and also caused it to break away from the rest of the train.
The detailed investigation reports were quietly posted on the TTC’s website, and I wrote a summary of them at the end of January:
I filed a Freedom of Information (FOI) request with the TTC at the beginning of 2024 for “track inspection reports and work orders” for the SRT between June 1 and August 31, 2023. The reason for the extended cutoff date was to pick up any inspections and repairs that took place after the derailment.
On February 1, 2024, Mayor Olivia Chow announced her version of Toronto’s 2024 operating and capital budgets at Scarborough Town Centre Station. There are many parts to this budget, including a slight reduction in the proposed tax rate, but the location of the event was no accident.
After much hand-wringing, political gesturing and activism by would-be users, the uncertainty over the busway in the former Scarborough RT right-of-way is gone. Toronto will pay for the project, and the delaying tactic of waiting for provincial funding is over. The text below is from the Mayor’s proposed budget at pages 35-36.
This is a fairly common shuffle of funding allocations between projects, something that is relatively easy because:
the amounts involved are small on the scale of the overall capital budget,
some of the spending is beyond 2024, and
the primary source is a placeholder for future as-yet uncommitted work.
What is needed now is a sense of urgency by the TTC to make every possible change in their project timetable to get things moving now. This could include:
Identifying work that can proceed without the mini Environmental Assessment known as a “TPAP” that will consume six unexpected months. Obvious candidates for this are the removal of existing SRT infrastructure – track, power, lighting – and demolition work at Lawrence East Station so that buses can pass through the station.
Examining whether the project can be split into south and north stages with the Lawrence to Eglinton section opening first. This would give some of the busway’s benefit including direct access to Kennedy Station as early as possible.
A change in focus is needed from delay, a common tactic in the Tory era to sweep budget problems under the rug, to creating the most expeditious project plan.
Transit planning should be about ambition and what we can achieve, not endless excuses and the deadly words “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow …”.
At the time, detailed reports from the technical investigation were supposed to appear in “a few weeks”, but there has not been any public presentation of this material to the TTC Board.
To my surprise while hunting down reports about the Scarborough RT busway, I found the derailment investigation reports well hidden on the TTC’s site. To see them, you have to:
Go to the Projects and Plans page which is accessed through a footer menu on every TTC page. Yes, right down at the bottom.
Scroll down to The Future of of TTC’s Line 3 Scarborough (SRT).
Scroll down within that page to News Releases, Reports & Community Updates
Open that section and scroll down to November 16, 2023 (there is also one report listed under December 11, 2023)
Here you will find links to the following reports (which I provide here to save you the bother of chasing through the path above). The dates of the reports are shown together with those for earlier drafts in the change logs, where present.
Dated November 30, 2023 (Original version was dated October 10)
There is a lot of reading here, but the reports are more thorough and informative than the brief TTC overview since the accident. An important distinction the reports reveal is the degree to which identified issues were not at the single derailment site, but common to other parts of the line and to TTC maintenance practices.
Various reviews concluded that the problem lay with the reaction rail mounts and the ability of segments of this rail to move due to forces from the linear induction motors (LIM) on the SRT trains. Several factors contributed to this including:
The inherent tight clearances of the LIM design,
variations and errors in the selection and installation of reaction rail supports and rail components,
an inspection scheme that underrated the severity of problems and the necessity for prompt repairs,
the difficulty of inspecting reaction rail mounting hardware, and
the need for training of inspection and maintenance staff so that they understand the behaviour of track systems and the failure modes that they must prevent.
Of particular concern is that a reaction rail defect was reported two weeks before the accident at the derailment site, but it was assigned a low priority in the maintenance hierarchy likely because the severity of the problem was not understood.
There are lessons here for maintenance practices in general and I cannot help thinking that the recent detailed review of subway track geometry, resulting slow orders and repairs is partly in response to the problems discovered on the SRT.
I know that readers will not have time to plough through the full reports, but they contain details beyond what I have included here for those who are interested. This article is a summary of the main points together with an introduction to the SRT propulsion technology to put the other material into context.
The news was not good. For various reasons, the opening date for this facility has slipped to 2Q2027. This is quite a change from the original plan for construction through 2024 and 2025 with a year-end opening, roughly 18 months sooner than the updated projection. Here was the plan back in April 2022 when the project was approved by the Board. At the time, the assumed shutdown date for the SRT was mid-November 2023.
TTC Project Chart for Line 3 Bus Replacement Construction, April 2022
The Board’s discussion was unusually heated, and much criticism fell on TTC Management for an unplanned delay required to conduct a Transit Project Assessment (aka TPAP) even though the corridor is not changing use. The problem lies with planned acquisition of new lands to provide station and corridor access, and they are subject to a review including for cultural/archeological purposes. (Detailed station plans appear later in this article.)
Construction will also require a barrier between the busway and the adjacent GO line because Metrolinx wants to protect from buses accidentally coming onto their corridor. This adds cost, but should not substantially affect the construction schedule.
Total cost is now forecast at $67.9 million, up $12.2 million from the earlier estimate of $55.7 million which is part of the TTC’s 2024 Capital Budget. Of this, $4.3 million is due to the Metrolinx barrier, and $4 million goes for a grab-bag of items that appear to have been omitted in the original estimate. This increase is compounded by other cost lines which are calculated as a percentage of the base.
A far more important source of delay was the foot dragging by Council and the former Mayor about funding the design work which should have been finished by now, but sits at the 60% stage. Essentially Council sat on its hands crying out for Provincial money as part of the subway extension project, and the busway just sat waiting for aid that never arrived from Queen’s Park.
There has certainly been no sense of urgency to get design finished and construction underway as quickly as possible.
The delay, cost increase and a sense that travel time savings might be less than expected have combined to raise the question “why do it at all”. This can be a self-fulfilling prophecy if those responsible for the project, including the politicians, really did not have their hearts in the idea. There is no quicker way to sandbag a project than to deny critical funding, watch the price rise and the due date vanish into the misty future.
While awaiting a formal funding approval, the TTC will redirect $15.2 million from other capital projects to pay for enabling works and property acquisition. This can proceed in parallel with the remaining detailed design and TPAP.
Performance of the 903 service to Centennial College east of STC (Scarborough Town Centre)
Travel times between STC and Ellesmere & Midland
A review of terminal layover times at Kennedy Station
The screenlines for arrivals and departures at Kennedy Station have been moved from Eglinton at Midland and at Kennedy to points on Eglinton just east and west of the loop entrances. This ensures that any delays at the intersections are counted in travel time, not in terminal time. The change has been applied retroactively to charts for September through November.
Correction: References to a 934 Progress Express should have been to route 913. This has been corrected. Thanks to a reader for pointing out this gaffe.
On November 16, 2023, the TTC posted an RFP (number P58PW23631) on the Bonfire bidding website for “Track Maintenance Consultant Services”.
The short description, on the title page, is:
The Scope of Work of this Contract includes, but is not limited to the provision of Consulting Services specializing in rail transit to provide track and structure engineering support.
This caught my eye because of the SRT derailment that shut down that line prematurely earlier this year. Although TTC management stated that the full report on this incident would come out “in a few weeks”, it is now mid-December and the report has not been released.
In the September report to the TTC Board, the cause was cited as loose bolts holding the reaction rail which allowed it to be pulled upward by magnetic forces and collide with the train. What was not explained was how the condition of the track reached a point where this could happen.
Recently, the City’s Auditor General reviewed the practices of Streetcar Overhead maintenance, and found them badly wanting. On questioning at the Board meeting, the TTC’s head of infrastructure acknowledged that Streetcar Overhead was likely the worst department on that count, but it was not the only one. This begs an obvious question: what other TTC departments are not producing top quality work and what is the effect on service and safety. A second equally important question is how did TTC practices decline.
We hear a great deal about system safety with homeless people living in the subway, and panhandlers (or worse) harassing passengers, but the context for discussion is that these problems originate outside of the TTC. Is there a generic problem with maintenance, and hence with safety and reliability, within the system itself?
The first of a series of goals here is “Increase passenger and overall system safety”. Another goal to “Increase competence and capability of Track Maintenance and Engineering staff” is equally troubling.
Through the entire Scope of Work is a sense that much needs to be improved within the TTC’s subway track maintenance activities.
