Maybe, and hear me out now, the weather related delays are not the fault of TransEd, but instead the result of a bad move by city hall in choosing a low floor slow moving tram for mass transit operations in a city with severe winter weather conditions.
If this is in response to the post regarding TransEd's future of operating the VLSE, it's worth noting I don't think any decision like that would suddenly occur during the middle of the Christmas break after one significant incident. They're probably not related.
If this is just a comment in general, I partially agree, but I see it as being partially the City's fault for specing embedded track, and what might amount to restriction on efficient snow removal. We don't know if TransEd had chosen the best track materials they could have possibly selected (better costs more $$$$, and so less profit presumably) of if they had an adequate Winter Weather Strategy and if they followed it.
The high floor system does not see such issues. The trains move faster, the momentum which then pushes the snow out of the way. A slow floor system does not have that momentum.
And don't go 'but but but in Europe they have low floor'. Sorry, no comparison. We endure cold CANADIAN prairie conditions. Our winters are distinctly different from northern Europe. (Of course most of the city boosters on this forum will roll your eyes at my comment. But, I am right.)
I remember how the U2's couldn't handle soft powdery snow and so ETS had to run trains at reduced speeds when that powdery snow was present and being kicked up by the trains momentum, and then sucked inside the cars and shorting out the traction motors.
Anyways...
The VLSE certainly does see high enough speeds that snow gets kicked up by it's momentum. The cars also have a plow-like design on the coupler cover to knock down and defect snow.
Looking at the weather history leading up to the issues on December 27 and 28th, 4.2mm of precipitation fell on the 26th starting at 15:00. Another 2.5mm fell on the 27th ending at 8:00. Environment Canada measured a snow depth change of 15cm from the 26 to the 27th. I assume this is only checked once per day, and likely after 8:00, and before 15:00. I'm less worried about the snow that fell on the 26th, which would have been about 9.4cm as trains passing would have kept that down. I don't see however that the snow that fell overnight of 5.6cm would have been enough by itself to prevent train operations. Indeed, for the periods that trains were not running (roughly 130AM until 5AM) there would have only been about 4cm of snow accumulated.
Although I didn't get out to the the VLSE until yesterday afternoon, I was surprised how much snow was still around. I honestly thought that with upwards of 2 days on portions of the line with no trains that the trackway would have been significantly cleared.
