(01-14-2017, 12:50 PM)darts Wrote: It will be interesting to see if lrt can go up and down the mountain, as I understood for Phase 2 they were looking to not go down Shantz Hill because it is to steep
What is the %-grade of Shantz hill? The climb up King after the grade sep is 6%, which is the recommended design limit for our trains. Toronto's FLEXITY Outlooks can do steeper because they used a different gearbox (lower top speed, more torque) and added a third powered bogie to their units for the steep climbs in their portals.
(01-14-2017, 02:11 PM)KevinL Wrote: Another method could be to take the mountain sideways; I understand they want to jog a bit west of James anyway to serve the hospital and Mohawk College, so that might work as well.
But I imagine tunneling will be involved to some degree in any case.
Wouldn't have had this issue if they'd just gone with ICTS in the 80's, like they were going to - steep grades are no problem for contactless LIM propulsion, which doesn't rely on wheel-to-rail traction - it's direct thrust against the reaction rail.