GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[nfitz]

EDIT: 6:15 and still at Union

Perhaps it was on 7/8!

(right now at 18:15 the online departures says "17:50 Lakeshore West 13 18:15, Proceed - Train Express To - West Harbour.") so you are good!

 

[mdrejhon]

twitterverse:

GO Transit ‏@GOtransit 14m14 minutes ago
The Union 17:50 - West Harbour 19:00 #train is holding at Union due to an operational error. Current delay is 15 minutes. Update to follow.

GO Transit ‏@GOtransit 3m3 minutes ago
The Union Station 17:50 - West Harbour GO 19:00 #train is on the move and delayed 28 minutes from Union due to an operational error.

Hilary Lau ‏@lau_hilary 9m9 minutes ago
@GOtransit this is ridiculous changed platform but didn't announce.

What a royal mistake.
Pissed off a lot. (Luckily for me, I chose this day not to take this train)

Let's see how much they stoke the engine fire, flaming towards West Harbour, beating the 55 minute record. Doc, put the next Presto Log into the GO train engine! (bonus if you get the movie reference).

EDITS:
Left Union at ~6:18pm (somebody, please confirm)
Estimate at (6:30pm?) -- 27 minute late
Estimate at 6:34pm -- 22 minute late
Estimate at 6:38pm -- 19 minutes late
Estimate at 6:41pm -- 16 minutes late
Estimate at 6:43pm -- 11 minutes late (passed Bronte)
Estimate at 6:44pm -- 9 minutes late (passed Appleby)
Estimate at 6:48pm -- 5 minutes late (passed Burlington)
--train ceases to be mentioned as delayed--

Holy.

That's one of the fastest Lakeshore West GOtrains I've ever seen on gotracker.ca --
Burlington in only 30 minutes after Union!
West Harbour in only 42 minutes.

It made it on time!

Does this break the all-time record for the fastest Union-to-Hamilton trip time for a 12-car bilevel? (vegata_skyline, you might know) It seemed to be going almost always flat-out at the rail speed limits in most sections. This train made GO Tracker exciting to watch as I've never seen a GOtrain rush that fast to Hamilton; it might portend what is the theoretical limit of speedups we might see from RER electrification, if eventually extra tracks and electric express trains were reliable enough to allow timetabled operation this fast. This is kind of why I was watching GO Tracker -- what does rail speed limits allow, if a GO train was allowed to go flat out safely?

Now we know.

42 minutes Union-Hamilton, if departure time is accurate.

 

[crs1026]

I do hate GOs incremental approach. Numerous vague/ambiguous announcements and non-delivered results.

Actually, when I have gone chasing GO promises that I was sure I remembered from a previous year or more ago, the source documents (such as the reports to the Board meetings, or the power point decks for community consultations) often had qualifiers all along. For instance, that fourth track on the Weston Sub - that everyone assumes is just around the corner - was marked "2031" in many of the consultation meeting drawings. Someone knew better than to let the poetic-waxing go crazy without a bit of fine print.

It does seem to be the decision making style, and not just the political level running its mouth, that drives this. Examples would be the CTC and double tracking on the Barrie and Uxbridge lines. There is nothing wrong with them, it's good that they are getting done, but the key stretches to the south will still hold back service improvements. So the fanfare about building towards improved service, and the reality of when service will start to get really good, are not aligned.

- Paul

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

I do hate GOs incremental approach. Numerous vague/ambiguous announcements and non-delivered results.

TTC might get be a little late, but when they promise certain capacity after such-and-such a project they usually get pretty close; resignalling not included.

IMO, the resignalling project has all the same issues as GOs incremental approaches. A number of required items for the wanted results are not a part of the project or even funded.

Exactly. And today, signal issues everywhere. GO takes forever to do anything.

 

[Megaton327]

twitterverse:

Does this break the all-time record for the fastest Union-to-Hamilton trip time for a 12-car bilevel? (vegata_skyline, you might know) It seemed to be going almost always flat-out at the rail speed limits in most sections. This train made GO Tracker exciting to watch as I've never seen a GOtrain rush that fast to Hamilton; it might portend what is the theoretical limit of speedups we might see from RER electrification, if eventually extra tracks and electric express trains were reliable enough to allow timetabled operation this fast. This is kind of why I was watching GO Tracker -- what does rail speed limits allow, if a GO train was allowed to go flat out safely?

I actually chose today to give the 5:50 West Harbour Express a try! I was pretty irritated when 6:05 came and went, 15 minutes late, no sign of the train. It had been pulled off the departure boards/mobile app at 5:51, and disappeared from the on-platform boards a few minutes later. Finally a sole GO employee came on the platform moving from Bay to York, asking people one by one (yes, seriously) what train they were waiting for, and if they said they were waiting for the 5:50, he redirected us to Platform 13 instead of the original 7/8. Wow. Anyways, headed over, the CSA was making announcements every 30-45 seconds that this train makes no stops before West Harbour, and we departed at 6:15, an incredible 25 minutes late. Had some trouble getting out of Union and GO's reported delay online peaked at 30 minutes. Amusingly, the CSA came by a few minutes after departure and confirmed with me that I was heading to West Harbour--I was far from the accessibility coach, so I have to assume he went through the whole train both ways to get both floors and asked everybody to be safe.

Station times, with speed through station in parentheses (as measured by a GPS-based speedometer app on my iPhone, in km/h): Union 6:15, Exhibition 6:24 (82), Mimico 6:28 (103), Long Branch 6:31 (134), Port Credit 6:33 (117), Clarkson 6:36 (133), Oakville 6:39 (124), Bronte 6:42 (136), Appleby 6:44 (140), Burlington 6:47 (61), Aldershot 6:51 (94), West Harbour 7:02. Between stations we were generally never under 120, and were usually in the 130-145 range, with a max of 145. Got to that speed shortly after Exhibition, then only really slowed down right before Burlington through to Aldershot, then crawled most of the way to West Harbour. From 30 minutes delayed to 2 minutes--Union to Hamilton West Harbour in 47 minutes.

At West Harbour there were loads of volunteers, who I think actually outnumbered passengers! Only about 30-40 people seemed to have been aboard this 12-car train. I had a coach entirely to myself! The train coming back at 8:30, after at least one of the soccer games had ended, had many more people on it wearing various international team jerseys who were obviously tourists, I'd say about 150-200 people got on at West Harbour. That would seem to indicate a LOT of tourists were, as usual, on the packed commuter LSW trains earlier as opposed to the non-stop express train that was almost empty.

I'll tell you all, it was a hell of a fun ride, zooming through a station every 3 minutes at 130 km/h! Those of your who haven't and have some time to spare should give it a try while it's here. Think it only runs through Thursday.

 

[mdrejhon]

Whoo. I've seen 140kph's and 135kph's but never that much sustained speed, looks like it hovered near the rail block speed limits most of the time. Maybe I should have boarded that rocket powered GO train after all.

Imagine upgprading LSW to bullet train standards. I wish. (sigh)

This West Harbour express is so much fun. I'll use it some more before we lose it. Too bad it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Or maybe not.

It was 2 minutes late? Drat. It looked darn near exactly on time as I watched GO Tracker. Impressive catchup, though.

I was off by a bit, but 47 mins ain't bad. Potentially still breaks a GO record, all things considered. If you reduce the 9 minutes to Exhibition, it could have easily been 42.

 

[reaperexpress]

I entered Megaton's observed times at the stations into my pre-existing spreadsheet:

 

[mdrejhon]

If this train had a flux capacitor, we'd have seen some serious ----. Somebody threw the red presto log #3 into this GOtrain's firebox.

 

[nfitz]

47 minutes. I wonder what the record was with steam engines, back when they used to run 1-stop or so expresses frequently. As I noted previously in this thread, it was scheduled to be 55 minutes back in 1950 to Hamilton (now West Harbour) from Union, with a stop at Sunnyside.

 

[mdrejhon]

47 minutes. I wonder what the record was with steam engines, back when they used to run 1-stop or so expresses frequently. As I noted previously in this thread, it was scheduled to be 55 minutes back in 1950 to Hamilton (now West Harbour) from Union, with a stop at Sunnyside.

Yes. Would not be surprised if there was a 45 minute express back in the olden days, when there were far fewer grade crossings.

In fact, in the 1890s, the Empire State Express was 1 hour faster than today.

But among the normally pokey bilevel GO trains, this was literally on fire -- may have very well set a speed record for a Union-Hamilton for a full trainset of green octagons.

 

[nfitz]

I doubt we'll see it again. I can't see GO running a non-stop express to Hamilton. I'd think there'd be 3 or 4 more stops along there.

 

[vegeta_skyline]

Does this break the all-time record for the fastest Union-to-Hamilton trip time for a 12-car bilevel? (vegata_skyline, you might know)

Is it a Union to Hamilton record? Absolutely! Then again it's not like the previous records been around for long... I mean we only started stopping at the West Harbour GO Station a couple weeks ago

In any case, many trains run equipment(express) back at the end at the night to Willowbrook shop(near Mimico) on a daily basis from either Burlington or Oshawa and vice versa in the morning, so running at track speed its nothing new to us. But I imagine it definitely must be nice as a passengers to have a taste of that speed for once.

 

[mdrejhon]

Right, so, a record for a "revenue bilevel GO train to either Hamilton downtown area stations". There generally has never been revenue GO expresses to any Hamilton city stations, except for this special event train?

Any other special times that nonstop GO express trains ran to Hamilton?

 

[nfitz]

Is it a Union to Hamilton record? Absolutely! Then again it's not like the previous records been around for long... I mean we only started stopping at the West Harbour GO Station a couple weeks ago

This started out as a question of how it compared to historic travel times. Given that the platform for West Harbour GO overlaps (barely) the old platform for the CN Hamilton station, then the travel times are comparable.

 

[mdrejhon]

This started out as a question of how it compared to historic travel times.

First question started as:

..... "Does this break the all-time record for the fastest Union-to-Hamilton trip time for a 12-car bilevel?

So, it is only historic only as far as GO train history.