South Etobicoke CP RoW - for sale - South Etobicoke LRT?

[robmausser]

I would say that's barely a problem: they will have to do work on the existing tracks etc to bring them up to passenger level service, and adding a curve is quite affordable compared to the other suggestions people are offering here.

The problem with that is that there is no curve for southbound trains on the spur to go eastbound onto the line and to Union Station. The existing curve would only allow trains coming southbound to start heading westbound.

 

[vegeta_skyline]

GO Transit should at least keep 2 tracks operational through here for redundancy purposes. In case an emergency happens in the Junction or on Lakeshore West trains can still get to Union (and out of the Mimico yard). Also during the Ex & TFC games Milton trains could be diverted south for direct access to the event.

It's unlikely to be commonly used in that way as that plan runs into two major problems.
One - You would need to go through CP to get the necessary track time to run those trains on their line. Sometimes that may not be a problem at all, but other times CP will balk at even allowing one extra train through. All depends on what CP has going(trains and their routing, track work/shutdowns) at any particular time. I'm not saying they shouldn't even try, but its not something you can reliably depend on. In addition, Two - Crews must be qualified to operate on any particular line. Currently the vast majority of crews(over 80%) have never even been on the Galt sub(which the Milton line runs on) once, yet alone be qualified on it. Normally when a new engineer is qualified he/she must be trained on every line. However the Milton line was only recently taken over from CP(Jan 1 2015) so obviously that line was not part of the training process, but it will be for new engineers going forward. Right now only those who either; bid onto the Milton jobs/work day spare board/or were forced onto them due to lack of seniority, are qualified to run on the line. Which amounts to about 25 engineers, 10 of which run on the line daily. So that means there's only about 15 other engineers out there out of a pool of about a 120 who are qualified. Meaning the chances are only about 1 out of any 9 trains(not one out of 8 since spare board people only work something like every other day) could be routed that way in case of a track shut down. They could request a "pilot"(someone who's qualified) from CP but that arrangement takes time(i.e hours) so its pretty much useless for passenger service. In addition it would be pointless to go about qualifying everyone since by regulations, an engineers qualification on any one line expires after having not having run on that line for over a year. That may seem an extreme measure to some but I agree with that completely, safety trumps all.

 

[vegeta_skyline]

Perhaps it could be used by GO as an Milton Express train?

There are enough tracks on Lakeshore West line for Express service out of Union.

Maybe this way an express Milton GO train could head down the Lakeshore West Express trackage, and bypass Kipling station?

It could also take relief off of the Georgetown South corridor, which has to handle UPX, GO Barrie, Kitchener, Milton trains, and soon Smarttrack.

Maybe every other Milton train could bypass Kipling station and shave off some minutes for commuters.

That wouldn't work out very well. Keep in mind the Georgetown south corridor will have 8 tracks when fully built out to deal with that traffic. While the lakeshore only has 4 to deal with not only revenue GO and VIA service but all the equipment moves of both. The corridor currently sees almost 300 train moves a day. But more importantly there are 2 tracks dedicated exclusively to Milton service on the GO owned portion of the Galt Sub.(West Toronto to the USRC). Also getting through the CP portion of the Galt(Kipling to West Toronto) is not a problem for the current schedule as CP has granted the necessary track time for those trains without interference from any other movements.

It would take longer as well. Yes you cut off a couple of minutes from eliminating the stopping at Kipling but the current route is not only shorter (well slightly, 10.2 vs 10.5 miles)but also has a higher average speed because the curves onto and off of the Campa sub. would be speed restricted - one of which doesn't even exist yet. It would be a complete non-starter without that one. Then you would need to merge onto the Oakville sub and crossover from the north to the south side of the Lakeshore west corridor since the north side is used by westbound GO & VIA trains and GO equipment moves to and from Willowbrook. So the train would either end up stopping and waiting for traffic to pass(the most likely scenario) or you have to crossover tracks 1 & 2 onto track 3 immediately at Canpa - and block 2 or 3 tracks causing trains to stop or slow down well in advance of the location. Or run the train down track 1, effectively reducing westbound service to one track and preventing westbound local service from stopping at Mimico since there are no platforms on track 2 and it wouldn't make sense to crossover those trains to track 3 blocking several tracks to crossover and then the use of track 3 for eastbound express trains. In theory you can schedule the train to arrive at a time when there no trains approaching or at Canpa but those time slots are already very limited during the rush hour and in reality its virtually impossible for every train to be running exactly on time. Even a delay of 1 minute can screw the whole process up(timing of a train meet) and GO doesn't even consider a train to be operationally late until its behind by at least 5 minutes. As you can see its all very complicated.

The only way it would work effectively is if you built a fly over/under to take trains off the Campa sub and onto the south side of the Lakeshore corridor. However not only is that expensive, but the potential time savings are still minimal at best and you lose the transfer to the TTC at Kipling.

On a related note, I found this on Trainorders.com, which has photos of a time when GO Milton had to take a detour along Canpa to continue on to Union Station.

Not currently an efficient process as the engineer either has to either change ends twice, or the conductor has to get on the tail end and direct the train in reverse down the Canpa sub which is the quicker method of the two but not all conductors are comfortable with.

 

[wopchop]

Not currently an efficient process as the engineer either has to either change ends twice, or the conductor has to get on the tail end and direct the train in reverse down the Canpa sub which is the quicker method of the two but not all conductors are comfortable with.

I wasn't advocating doing it, just thought itwas interesting that GO Trains had already used the tracks (albeit during an unusual situation).

 

[Jonny5]

I would say that's barely a problem: they will have to do work on the existing tracks etc to bring them up to passenger level service, and adding a curve is quite affordable compared to the other suggestions people are offering here.

Adding a curve is not that simple here because the tracks don't meet perpendicularly. The south to east curve is at the smallest angle of the junction, about maybe 70 degrees between them? I'd think you would have to expropriate all property on Towns and most of that steel company's land. Also would they need to remove the level crossings?

 

[vegeta_skyline]

I wasn't advocating doing it, just thought itwas interesting that GO Trains had already used the tracks (albeit during an unusual situation).

Didn't think you were, just added that information to clarify the process in case anyone was curious as to how its currently done.

 

[dowlingm]

Let us hope that any move from Toronto to acquire CP infrastructure for transit purposes goes better than the fight Vancouver is having over CP Arbutus.

I can't see what problem routing trains over Canpa Sub fixes except in emergencies/deadheading. Milton is non-stop east of Kipling anyway, and most of the track capacity issues to the west as I understand it. Having trains enter and leave the LSW corridor makes paths more complex.

I wonder if VIA has ever thought about deadheading too long to wye Canadians over Canpa back to Union to face east after servicing, rather than the time consuming route up GO Newmarket, onto CN York and finally CN Bala with passengers aboard. There would be operational issues to be sure (backing from Oakville sub to Canpa sub to Galt sub, locomotive crew qualification over the Canpa and Galt trackage). Maybe if Doncaster Diamond gets a grade sep some time in our lifetimes the time saving will become too good to pass up.

 

[dowlingm]

Just had a thought - if TTC acquired Obico, and they didn't need all of it, would there be an advantage to moving Queensway garage there too?

In the alternative, if the yard was reduced but not fully eliminated, is there any possibility of shortline interest in a low-capacity operation there?

I just read some of the press on this - I really hope Hunter Harrison isn't looking for a pot of gold here. Obico is surrounded by industrial use but CP might be stubborn enough to try for rezoning anyway.

 

[muller877]

Perhaps 1-2 lakeshore west could go through Toronto on Milton's tracks every hour. Would allow riders from the west to access the Bloor subway line directly (and reduce the load on the YUS line). Operationally difficult but it would be interesting to see the numbers of riders that would want this..

Is there any study which shows the number of GO Train users that need access to the Bloor line (or even UT & Yonge/Bloor area)? Probably a small number but this diversion would relieve capacity from Union (and add a guesstimate of 5 minutes onto the trip to Union). I'm thinking of UT, Manulife Centre, Rogers, etc. If they could get off at Kipling or Dundas West instead of Union it would save them some time as well as reducing capacity constraints.

....would also allow an easy connection to the airport via UP at Dundas West

 

[robmausser]

Is there any study which shows the number of GO Train users that need access to the Bloor line (or even UT & Yonge/Bloor area)? Probably a small number but this diversion would relieve capacity from Union (and add a guesstimate of 5 minutes onto the trip to Union). I'm thinking of UT, Manulife Centre, Rogers, etc. If they could get off at Kipling or Dundas West instead of Union it would save them some time as well as reducing capacity constraints.

....would also allow an easy connection to the airport via UP at Dundas West

The AMT St.Jerome line in Montreal does something similar: about 25% of the trips never go downtown but instead stop at Parc Station on the subway line, then head back out of town.

 

[Jonny5]

Is there any study which shows the number of GO Train users that need access to the Bloor line (or even UT & Yonge/Bloor area)? Probably a small number but this diversion would relieve capacity from Union (and add a guesstimate of 5 minutes onto the trip to Union). I'm thinking of UT, Manulife Centre, Rogers, etc. If they could get off at Kipling or Dundas West instead of Union it would save them some time as well as reducing capacity constraints.

....would also allow an easy connection to the airport via UP at Dundas West

The capacity problem at Union is trains, not people. But in any case, of the current passenger load, I suspect it's none that would need to take that trip. To get to Yonge and Bloor it's probably faster to ride on the express trains to Union and take the subway north, and that would also mean more time on the comfortable GO train and less on comparatively the gross subway.

 

[jcam]

Well now we know that Metrolinx bought it.

Have we established that Metrolinx has officially purchased the Canpa sub? If not, here you go: http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2016/pg/comm/communicationfile-59633.pdf

 

[ShonTron]

Bumping an old thread. Do we know if CP sold off the Obico Yard (not the Canpa Subdivision), and if so, do we know who now owns it?

 

[innsertnamehere]

My understanding is that the TTC is now planning a new subway yard on the Obico Lands, so did the city purchase it? Was it sold in conjunction with the Canpa Sub to Metrolinx, maybe?

 

[crs1026]

I have not seen anything that announced or documented a sale of the Obico terminal lands. We do know that the Canpa Sub itself was purchased by ML.

The MPAC About My Property Database, which can be accessed by anyone paying property taxes, has a notation against that property stating "No sale since 2012". That's about as good a source as one can get without going downtown to the Registry Office and paying for a title search.

I don't think it's likely that the City's governance would have allowed the City to buy that land, either directly or via TTC, without publicly divulging the sale to Council and/or the TTC Board. That's because I'm assuming that the dollar value of the sale would be above what senior city officials have as their individual spending authority. I could be wrong on that.

As for ML, with their weak governance and lack of transparency, they may already own the Obico property, plus the Hope Diamond and half the European railway system. We'd never know until the Minister felt it serves his interests to call a photo op to announce the sale.

- Paul