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VIA Rail - OC Transpo collision

50 trains is a lot, but there are probably 100-200 trains running daily on lakeshore east, between VIA, GO, and freight.
 
W. K. Lis said:
TTC bus drivers are required to stop at any and all railway crossing, like a school bus.
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TTC buses are required to stop due to a municipal ruling. That same ruling does not exist in Mississauga, Brantford and Ottawa, and thus the transit buses there are under no requirement to stop.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
BurlOak said:
I wonder how many trains per day use this section of track.
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There are 18 trains on weekdays through Fallowfield. Seven Toronto-Ottawa round trips (several are to/from Montreal) and two trains that originate/terminate at Fallowfield.

The warrants for a grade-separation crossing must depend on the traffic volumes and on the train volumes. I have heard "hindsight is 20-20" people talking about the City planning a grade-separation but the cost was excessive ($80M). I would guess that grade-separation makes more sense were trains frequencies are higher than a few Via trains per day. Along commuter rail lines, it makes more sense since there are now probably close to 50 trains per day on the Lakeshore line. If you think of a train the same as an intersection with cross traffic - even 50 is not that large of a number. That is why if any rail line gets down to 5 or 10 minutes frequency, grade-separation is required.
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There are 13 rail crossings that I can think of where TTC buses cross at grade in Toronto, not counting minor industrial spurs such as those on Belfield Road or those in York Region (Markham Road, McCowan Avenue, or those on Route 107).

By far the busiest rail crossing that the TTC operates across is CN/Metrolinx Kingston Subdivision at Morningside Avenue. There are 90 scheduled GO Trains most weekdays, plus 24-26 VIA trains weekdays (not counting two eastbound joined trains) and the occasional freight - about 114-120 trains each weekday total. About 400 buses on route 116 cross here on weekdays.

The busiest in terms of buses crossing a railway is the newest grade crossing, the CN/Metrolinx Newmarket Subdivision at the York University busway. 453 TTC buses on Route 196 cross it one-way during school year weekdays, plus 38 Viva Orange buses. (So just under 1000 daily bus crossings). However, there are only 10 daily GO trains, plus the occasional freight and the outbound Canadian, 2-3 times a week.

Steeles Avenue and Finch Avenue grade crossings with the CN/Metrolinx Uxbridge Sub are also very busy bus crossings (routes 43/53/353 and 39/199/308) - there are 14 GO train movements at these crossings.

The others are at Cummer Avenue (route 42), Huntingwood Drive (169) Danforth Road (route 16/302), Strachan Avenue (route 63/316), Church Street (route 59), Oak Street (route 59), Carl Hall Road (route 101), Wallace Avenue (community route 402) and Steeles near Staines Road (53A). Strachan and Church will soon be grade separated.
 
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doady said:
The driver reportedly hit the brakes right before crashing. This whole thing was simply an accident.
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Why did he not slow down as he approached the crossing though? If I'm not mistaken, apparently the lights were flashing and the arms were down and the train was in fact crossing (hit one of the cars, not the front), this wasn't a case where the bus was trying to beat the train.

From what I've heard so far, I don't believe it was a suicide. I'm thinking his reflexes were shot or he had a medical emergency and lost control. Maybe alcohol consumption from the night before, but I think we would have heard reports of off driving prior to the incident if that was the case/

At this point, it is all speculation though.
 
I just think it's an unpreventable tragedy and all the investigation will yield is that we have no control over these matters.

Sure, the easy thing to say is that we should have grade separated this intersection, but there are thousands of these level crossings across North America and this one, being exclusively used by professional bus drivers, was probably safer than the others. It was a freak accident and my heart goes out to the families of those victims, but I don't think there was anything that could have been done.
 
Hipster Duck said:
I just think it's an unpreventable tragedy and all the investigation will yield is that we have no control over these matters.

Sure, the easy thing to say is that we should have grade separated this intersection, but there are thousands of these level crossings across North America and this one, being exclusively used by professional bus drivers, was probably safer than the others. It was a freak accident and my heart goes out to the families of those victims, but I don't think there was anything that could have been done.
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Indeed. There are only 14 trains a day (plus the very occasional freight) crossing here, and all stop at the Fallowfield Station nearby. The number of trains in and out of Ottawa are limited now, just VIA trains to and from Toronto and Montreal and the occasional local freight. The CN Beachburg Sub is about to be ripped out, and there are no trains crossing to/from Quebec any more.

The construction of a grade separation with the Transitway/Woodroffe was never really necessary. I still believe it isn't.

Electrify said:
Doesn't the Canadian use the Richmond Hill/Bada tracks? I saw one going by Richmond Hill GO a few weeks back.
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One-way only. It's usually too long to turn around at VIA's maintenance yards so it makes a clockwise loop - outbound via the Newmarket and York Subs, inbound via the Bala.
 
At Richmond Hill GO the Canadian goes both ways (north and south). Southbound it goes past Oriole, and northbound it goes past York U and gets onto the North Toronto line via a reversing action at Snider.
 
Electrify said:
Ahh I see. I was thinking it made its way to Washago and beyond through Barrie, but I couldn't find any railways which connected the two places (even though a railway going from Barrie to Orillia and Washago to connect with the Bala/Rama line would make an insane amount of sense).
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You'd have to create a time machine, go back to 1996 and convince CN not to abandon the Newmarket Sub between Allandale and Langford. Because such a route existed; CN didn't feel like maintaining the bridge at Atherley, and didn't have any customers left. Barrie was also happy to see the tracks gone, unfortunately.
 
smallspy said:
TTC buses are required to stop due to a municipal ruling. That same ruling does not exist in Mississauga, Brantford and Ottawa, and thus the transit buses there are under no requirement to stop.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
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The rule does exist in Mississauga on the Lakeshore for the defunct line to the old power plant today, as I have been on buses that have stop there and open the doors this year. It was also used on Central Parkway Blvd W by the garage before the tracks were removed. The rule has always been used in the past for other place that tracks don't exist today. I don't recall ridding any other system were buses have not stop at crossing.
 
ShonTron said:
By far the busiest rail crossing that the TTC operates across is CN/Metrolinx Kingston Subdivision at Morningside Avenue. There are 90 scheduled GO Trains most weekdays
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Was that a guess? If so it was almost spot on. According to the current Form 660(what GO's train schedule document is called), the number of GO trains passing Morningside is 94; 41 revenue + 6 equipment eastbounds and 45 revenue + 2 equipment westbounds.

ShonTron said:
Steeles Avenue and Finch Avenue grade crossings with the CN/Metrolinx Uxbridge Sub are also very busy bus crossings (routes 43/53/353 and 39/199/308) - there are 14 GO train movements at these crossings.
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Minor correction here too. There are 18 total GO movements on the Uxbridge sub over Steeles & Finch.
7 revenue southbounds and 1 northbound equipment run during the morning. And in the evening, 8 revenue northbounds and 2 southbound equipment runs.
 
smallspy said:
TTC buses are required to stop due to a municipal ruling. That same ruling does not exist in Mississauga, Brantford and Ottawa, and thus the transit buses there are under no requirement to stop.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
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Transit buses in Ontario are only required to stop at unprotected crossings while school buses must stop at all crossings. Crossings with lights and gates do not require transit buses to stop unless a particular system has made it their policy.
 
vegeta_skyline said:
Was that a guess? If so it was almost spot on. According to the current Form 660(what GO's train schedule document is called), the number of GO trains passing Morningside is 94; 41 revenue + 6 equipment eastbounds and 45 revenue + 2 equipment westbounds.
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Those were close guesses - I looked at the schedule for one direction, doubled it, but of course there's non-revenue movements I wouldn't necessarily know about or one-way revenue movements I didn't account for.
 
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