Bumping this thread up for a climate-related question:

Hanging out at Bayview station last night, I was struck by how open to the elements it all is. The escalators and elevators are essentially outdoors - how are they accounting for this?

 

22 hours ago, JBTrain said:

Bumping this thread up for a climate-related question:

Hanging out at Bayview station last night, I was struck by how open to the elements it all is. The escalators and elevators are essentially outdoors - how are they accounting for this?

 

Good Day, and welcome.

RTG is mandated, as per the long-term maintenance contract (with it's long-term maint subcontractor), to keep all components clear and running to a certain minimum standard. This was to encourage the P3 consortium to use the highest possible components and elements  in construction to keep maint costs down - self-interest.

That being said, we all know what Ottawa winters, with their slush, ice, sand, salt, gravel, and overall nastiness, do to infrastructure such as escalators - a disaster waiting to happen at all times. Pessimists predict constant outages of escalators.

Elevators should - should - fare better, as they to not suffer the same type of wear-and-tear. And, the elevator towers are fairly enclosed. But they too will suffer. We hope they do better than OC-T's track record on elevators. It is what the redundancy of elevators is supposed to cover, two per side, per station.

Overall......we shall all have to wait-and-see how well it does. Pessimists are not hopeful, given (as you note) how open the infrastructure is. Good luck to us all.

EnJoy!

Thanks!

I would expect that they'd have staff on-site to clear snow, but jeez - looking how my winter boots destroy any vestibule carpet in my home, I can only imagine what they will do to escalators out in the open! We'll see.

As for the openness of the station design, it is a double-edge sword of sorts. While they appear extremely open, most of them are actually "surprisingly closed", in the sense that walls, and the huge ceiling, will stop most (if not all) accumulation from arriving in the commonly accessible areas. If you look closely at most pictures taken this winter, you'll see most platforms and entrances remained free of accumulation, even without any traffic through the stations. Many factors for that.

• Walls redirect the snow in various directions
• Some platforms have heated floors (I know uOttawa for sure, not sure for others)
• Overall location / alignment of stations
• End-platform walls and their height

It is NOT a perfect design solution, but one that is "easier" to operate and maintain than fully sealing every station, especially the outside ones. Arguably, a fully-closed design would be a lot more susceptible to the air push when trains come in, moving dust, dirt and snow everywhere, and probably more risky.

As for the elevators / escalators, RTG and the City has been on record saying the models chosen were designed specifically to deal with the grime and salt of wintertime. I know Edmonton used to have around 3-4 days per month with out of service escalator, but their is a considerably older design. But again, our winters are "something", hence why the minimum performance requirements by the city. Escalators are more of a convenience factor (except for Rideau station, but I would probably take the stairs anyway) than actual accessibility one, as it is the role of elevators. For those, double, brand-new, elevators on each platform ensure redundancy and "speed of service", but also means less equipment maintenance required in the first few years. Preventive maintenance is still a requirement, and so it is for escalator, but it "shouldn't" render a station unusable or not accessible. It might be an inconvenience, but not a disaster.

As you can tell, I am more of an optimistic than a pessimist, but I sincerely believe the city and RTG have all the interest in the system performing as well as they promised. RTG has obligations, and the City is expected to hold them liable.

I'd like add that as David above mentions on completely closed stations, the air flow and vaccuum created by the train movements in Montreal's Metro is extremely strong. The station doors required a redesign years ago to a double swing door to mitigate the air flow and allow the doors to actually open.

As far as escalators, in the Metro, they tend to be positioned about a dozen feet away from the entrance doors in many cases and while they do go down on occasion, it isn't something that I have found to be a concern. I rarely see escalators out of order, outside of maintenance. Keep in mind, that in Ottawa, the escalators aren't completely exposed to the elements, they are sheltered to various levels, but none that I am aware of are completely out in the open.

Just now, Shane said:

As far as escalators, in the Metro, they tend to be positioned about a dozen feet away from the entrance doors in many cases and while they do go down on occasion, it isn't something that I have found to be a concern. I rarely see escalators out of order, outside of maintenance. Keep in mind, that in Ottawa, the escalators aren't completely exposed to the elements, they are sheltered to various levels, but none that I am aware of are completely out in the open.

AFAIK none of the are in the open directly. I remember a few years back the STM had issues with some of them, but their escalators have been replaced or refurbished since then, and it was the original equipment with 30-50 years of service in many cases. Maintenance is probably gonna be the thing that accounts for most of the downtime, especially for the first 10-15 years, but prevention is definitely a better option than remedy.

The climate question relates to the equipment, but also to the comfort of the riders. If I remember correctly, there was supposed to be some overhead heating system similar to the one they used on Rideau Street in the 1980's.

But since the stations are open at both ends, I have no idea if it will send a chill down our spines every time a train arrives. But it seems to me that the comfort level will be an  improvement relative to the Transitway.

Since Montréal was mentionned, a friend of mine who is a city bus driver in Montréal told me the stations and tunnels of the Métro are not heated or cooled. The traffic in the tunnels is enough to maintain temperature levels comfortable, even during hot Summer days.

6 hours ago, Phil said:

The climate question relates to the equipment, but also to the comfort of the riders. If I remember correctly, there was supposed to be some overhead heating system similar to the one they used on Rideau Street in the 1980's.

But since the stations are open at both ends, I have no idea if it will send a chill down our spines every time a train arrives. But it seems to me that the comfort level will be an  improvement relative to the Transitway.

Since Montréal was mentionned, a friend of mine who is a city bus driver in Montréal told me the stations and tunnels of the Métro are not heated or cooled. The traffic in the tunnels is enough to maintain temperature levels comfortable, even during hot Summer days.

Good Day.

Yes, we heard rumours about overhead heaters..... we will have to wait and see what we have - that was a detail left entirely up to RTG.

As for the air blow on arrival / departure - all train systems have more of a blow to them. But, that being said, I always hated St.Laurent station in winter - the exacerbation of the wind tunnel effect already present by the arrival of buses was always a bloody howl. Even the outdoor stations like Tunney's were better than that.

As for Montreal, not always exactly. It is far more moderate now, but in the early days of only the MR-63 trains, it was warm in winter (a pain with heavy winter clothing) and HOT in summer. The fault was the overestimation of air exchange and air flow by the engineers in the early 60's. The MR-63 had rheostatic power control of the traction motors, which generates a lot of heat, and friction-only brakes, which generate even more heat. the very first photos of the trains show smooth rooflines with circular fan grills. The heat was so bad that they had to limit operations (trains per hour) until they came up with a make-do 'fix', not a solution. Photos of the trains six months later show rooftop hoods over the fan grills to optimize airflow pull-through from the car interiors, with beefed-up fans. This situation continued until  the MR-73's came online starting in '76 , and the MR-63's could be spaced out more, thus reducing the heat load. And the 73's were kept on the Orange and Green lines exclusively - never on the Yellow line which used 63's exclusively (lower trains per hour, longer no-acceleration-no-braking runs, cooler tunnel under the River). With the retirement of the 63's, there is much less of a heat problem, but they still have to keep an eye on the temperature. Another part of the fix was the decision to not have A/C, as that would onlt exacerbate the overall heat problem, and not help.

Thanks for the feedback. We'll have to wait and see!