The Canadian Light Rail Vehicle (CLRV) and Articulated Light Rail Vehicle (ALRV) were types of streetcars used by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) from the late 1970s until they were scrapped in the late 2010s. They were built following the TTC's decision to retain streetcar services in the 1970s, replacing the existing PCC streetcar fleet.
Two variants were produced: the standard single-module CLRV (built between 1977 and 1981) and the longer articulated double-module ALRV (built between 1987 and 1989). The ALRVs were officially retired from regular TTC service on September 2, 2019, with the CLRVs officially retired on December 29, 2019. Both were replaced by the Flexity Outlook, a low-floor streetcar first introduced in 2014.
History CLRV Starting at the end of the 1970s and into the 1980s, the TTC's fleet of PCC streetcars approached (or exceeded in some cases) the end of their useful lives. Many Toronto citizens, and especially a group known as "Streetcars for Toronto" led by transit advocate Steve Munro, had fought successfully against the TTC's plan to convert the remaining streetcar lines to buses, which necessitated a new streetcar model to replace the aging PCCs. The "Canadian Light Rail Vehicle" was an attempt at a new, standardized streetcar design to be used in Toronto and in other new streetcar developments throughout the country.
Hawker Siddeley Canada proposed their version of a streetcar in 1972 known as the Municipal Service Car, which had a bus-like chassis and a semi-low floor design with front and rear doors similar to that of the CLRV fleet. The project was abandoned the following year when the TTC selected the CLRV design. No Municipal Service Car prototypes were ever produced and only concept drawings remain of this vehicle.
The first six CLRV cars (4000–4005) were manufactured by SIG of Zürich, Switzerland, and used as prototypes for Urban Transportation Development Corporation (UTDC) (now Bombardier) to manufacture subsequent CLRVs at the Thunder Bay works of Hawker Siddeley Canada (today also part of Bombardier). The original order was for 200 CLRVs, of which ten were to be built by SIG and 190 by Hawker Siddeley. However, the order was reduced by four vehicles to 196 in order to provide parts to construct a prototype Articulated Light Rail Vehicle (number 4900). The four CLRVs removed were from the SIG portion of the order; thus, there were no CLRVs numbered 4006–4009. The 190 Hawker Siddeley CLRVs were numbered 4010–4199. CLRV car 4000 had a pantograph when being tested by SIG on the Orbe-Chavornay railway and was converted to trolley pole before being delivered to Toronto.
On December 29, 1977, the first CLRV, SIG-built 4002, arrived at the Hillcrest Complex aboard a railway flatcar. On September 30, 1979, after a year of testing and modification, CLRVs started service on route 507 Long Branch (today the western portion of route 501 Queen). The second route to use CLRVs was 511 Bathurst, on February 29, 1980, and they subsequently entered service on 512 St. Clair on April 16, 503 Kingston Rd on June 9, 502 Downtowner on August 7, 1980, and 501 Queen on January 4, 1981. By December 8, 1980, 89 cars had been accepted for service.
Twenty-two CLRVs were to run on an open-track Scarborough LRT line (which was later built as an ICTS line instead). Thus, for suburban operation, the UTDC originally specified an outside-frame bogie that later proved problematic in street operation, and designed the vehicles for speeds up to . The bogies would derail at switches in street trackage and have noise and vibration problems. Replacing the original Bochum wheels with SAB wheels (similar to PCC wheels) corrected these problems. The Bochum wheels had a rubber layer between the hub and the steel tire (rim), which would flex rather than pulling the opposite wheel through a single-point switch.
The CLRV electronics include 1970s-era solid state power controls. In later years, the propulsion control system became unreliable and difficult to maintain as obsolete electronic and electrical parts became difficult to source.
The CLRVs originally had sealed windows and no air conditioning. Later, the windows were modified to allow passengers to open them.
The CLRVs were delivered with couplers for multiple-unit operation. Between 1984 and 1988, the couplers were removed, and a safety shield was placed over the front coupler pocket.
ALRV As with the CLRV prototypes, the ALRV prototype, numbered 4900, was tested with a pantograph on standard gauge tracks before delivery to the TTC. Built in 1982, prototype 4900 had features that were not implemented on either CLRVs or production ALRVs such as hand controls instead of foot controls, and electronic destination signs instead of Mylar rollsigns. The prototype had couplers while subsequent production units did not.
Prototype 4900 ran trials in Toronto from August 10, 1982, until February 25, 1983, with a break when it was displayed at the 1982 Canadian National Exhibition. After completion of the trial runs, car 4900 was stored at the St. Clair Carhouse until March 7, 1987, when it was shipped to the UTDC testing facility in Kingston, Ontario. On March 24, 1988, following a test run, it was rear-ended by another streetcar on the test track and suffered extensive damage. It was scrapped in 1997.
The 52 production ALRV cars were built by UTDC using bogies and articulations supplied by MAN SE of Germany. Assembly of the first 11 cars took place in Thunder Bay, while that of the remaining 41 cars took place in Kingston. They are numbered 4200–4251.
The first production ALRV, number 4200, was shipped to Toronto on June 11, 1987. It underwent further testing and modifications after its arrival. Car 4204 was the first of the production ALRVs to go into revenue service, doing so on the 507 Long Branch route on January 19, 1988.
Marketing The UTDC had only one other buyer for its light rail products, Santa Clara County Transit (now known as the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority), in San Jose, California, which purchased 50 vehicles in 1987. These cars were double-ended, articulated, and used pantograph collection, all of which were configurable options offered for the CLRV by the UTDC, as was high-platform boarding, which neither city used.
In 1980, cars 4027, 4029 and 4031 were leased and tested by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), in Boston, to run on the Green Line. To operate in Boston, the streetcars had to be regauged and skipped Kenmore station when operating on the C and D branches as the CLRVs do not have any doors on the left side. During this time, the cars were occasionally operated as two- and three-car trains. Ultimately, the MBTA did not adopt the CLRV design for its light rail fleet.
The US Standard Light Rail Vehicle program was largely unsuccessful, with the resulting cars proving unreliable and troublesome to both transit systems that had purchased them. While the CLRV gave relatively more reliable performance for the TTC and SCVTA, their large amount of components that became proprietary as a result would make the cars increasingly more difficult and costly to maintain as they aged.
In 2004, the Santa Clara VTA replaced their UTDC cars with low-floor LRVs and sold the former fleet to SacRT light rail in Sacramento and TRAX in Salt Lake City. The cars were retired from service in both Salt Lake City and Sacramento in 2018 and 2022, respectively.
Characteristics The design and operation of the CLRVs and ALRVs carried over features from the highly successful PCCs that they replaced, having a similar interior layout, and the same two green bull's-eye lights in the upper corners of the front, above the destination sign, which uses back-lit roller boards. Braking and acceleration were controlled by the operator with the same pedal layout used on the PCC's, including the dead man's switch which was used to apply the parking brake when the vehicle was not in motion.
Other features include fluorescent lighting and chopper controls to save energy.
Claude Gidman, the former chairman of industrial design at the Ontario College of Art & Design (now OCAD University), was involved in the design for the CLRV. He created the colour scheme for the streetcar, including its distinctive crimson red colour, to make the CLRV noticeable on the streets and to continue the "Red Rocket" tradition in colouring. He also proposed that the front seats of the streetcar be angled inward, an idea that was abandoned.
Unlike the CLRVs, the ALRVs have a large box sitting on the roof of each of the two articulated sections. Each box houses an air intake to ventilate the larger ALRV interior. All of the TTC's ALRVs were delivered without couplers, and a safety shield covers both of the empty front and rear coupler pockets. Compared with the CLRVs, the ALRVs had limited acceleration due to their extra weight and because trolley pole pickup limited the amount of power they could draw.
When the CLRVs and ALRVs were delivered in the 1970s and 1980s respectively, they were equipped with gongs as the sole audible warning signal. Most cars were retrofitted with horns in the late 1990s to combat automobile accidents when the 510 Spadina right-of-way streetcar opened. Initially, the horns were salvaged from retired H1 and M1 subway cars which were replaced by the T1 subway cars. However, during the CLRV/ALRV streetcar fleet overhaul project between 2011 and 2012 the TTC reconfigured the streetcar horns with new air horns or automobile-type electric horns.
CLRV 4041 is the only member of the CLRV/ALRV fleet to have an air conditioning unit, which the TTC installed in 2006. The unit was a long roof-mounted box with beveled sides that gave 4041 a look distinct from that of other CLRVs. TTC operator Stanley Mamaraj described 4041's air conditioning as "The cool air comes down. You can feel it, it's nice and cool." However, after a ride on 4041, transit advocate Steve Munro described the air conditioning as "nowhere near as aggressive as it is on some buses or on the T1 subway cars. Moreover, depending on where you are in the car, you may not feel the effect at all because the cool air does not blow out evenly. When I rode back north on a non-A/C car, I sat beside the open window and was actually cooler than I had been on 4041."
Starting in 2006, the TTC installed a closed-circuit television (CCTV) security camera system on all surface vehicles including the CLRV/ALRV fleet as well as buses. The system is to deter crime on vehicles and help catch trouble-makers. It uses four cameras to make high-quality images stored in a 24-hour loop.
Until at least 2014, CLRV/ALRV streetcars, as well as buses, used a 1970s, pager-like communication system for Transit Control to communicate with operators. It was essentially a text-based system that could send messages to 10 vehicles at a time, and each operator had to acknowledge the message before Transit Control could communicate with other operators. In 2014, the TTC requested funding for a new radio system.
A promotional graphic published by the TTC in 2009 illustrated that an ALRV could replace 55 automobiles carrying 61 passengers (assuming 1.11 passengers per auto) during the AM rush.
From December 2015, the CLRVs and ALRVs accepted fare payments by Presto card and have since been installed system-wide including all TTC buses and subway stations as of December 2016.