nfitz
Superstar
Well that may have been your question, but it wasn't mine. I kind of assumed that was rhetorical given the answer was obvious.
Yes, the Niagara semi-express Summer Train.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.
My GO Prediction: 2016 or 2017 seasonal GO trains Toronto-Hamilton timetabled at exactly 57 minutes (+/- 1 minute) for Toronto Union to West Harbour (by adding a no-brainer WH as stop to already-passing-by Niagara seasonals, after fully-funded prerequisite conversion of platform stub-track to through-track). Unusually high probability / unusually high confidence factor (assuming no post-Bob Rae style GO cutback slaughter in the next 12 months). Check back to see if my guess is correct.
Looking at the 1988 VIA Rail schedule (when there were 3 trains a day to Hamilton, stopping at Oakville and Burlington), the scheduled time from Union to Hamilton was as quick as 47 minutes.Yes. Would not be surprised if there was a 45 minute express back in the olden days, when there were far fewer grade crossings.
Someone just observed +/- 50 people getting off a train during a time when there is a major event in Hamilton....take out that event how many people are there? Yet you think in 1 or 2 years there will be express trains to this station that bypass all the other stations along the line? That seems a bit fanciful to me.
Correct.He's talking about adding a stop on an existing seasonal route. Given that Hamilton is a major city, it seems like a no brainer to me too.
Um.Someone just observed +/- 50 people getting off a train during a time when there is a major event in Hamilton....take out that event how many people are there? Yet you think in 1 or 2 years there will be express trains to this station that bypass all the other stations along the line? That seems a bit fanciful to me.
Um.
This is a separate subject than the West Harbour PanAm expresses. You're confusing the two.
Read again.
Niagara Trains PASS WEST HARBOR GO TODAY WITHOUT STOPPING.
It's a ZERO-TRAIN change.
1. existing train.
2. train already passes station
3. train doesn't stop in station
4. 100% farebox recovery after less than 5 boardings per train
[etc. etc. etc...]
It BEGINS TO SAVES TAXPAYER MONEY AT LESS THAN 5 HAMILTONIANS PER NIAGARA SEASONAL TRAIN.
Clear, TOareaFan?
True, but it might not be a misunderstanding.It was clearly a misunderstanding, no need to go verbal maelstrom on the poor guy.
West Harbour is an unusually efficient stop.May I ask why your "common sense" math includes the fuel cost of idling, but not the fuel cost of accelerating a vehicle the size of an apartment building up to 45 mph? Or why you chose a net station delay of 1 minute, when GO's other schedules show values ranging from 2-4 minutes?
The crews appear to be operating continually all day long running probably the same train (it might be two, need to study timetable) back-and-fourth 7 or 8 times a day in back-and-fourth mode. There is no incremental cost, except maybe 1 minute shorter dwell at Niagara -- it dwells there for a long time before reversing direction. That Niagara Train Station dwell can easily be reduced by 1-2 minute to add the very time-efficient West Harbour stop. They add a lot of time padding to accomodate the Welland canal, which often delays a Niagara train by 30 minutes.Or why you included the cost of the station ticket collector but not the cost of the train crew?
It's a good question.Didn't VIA close the Hamilton station in the first place because of low ridership between Hamilton and Niagara? Is there that much demand for rail on that leg on weekends - the traffic between Hamilton and Niagara is far better than between Toronto and Hamilton.
True, but it might not be a misunderstanding.
Unfortunately, it has happened before. There are many Torontoians who argue that Niagara trains should not stop in Hamilton, even after the above. I've encountered a few in person (sigh).
West Harbour is an unusually efficient stop.
Trains are crawling slow due to the curve/yard speed limits.
So you've eliminated a whole stopping/acceleration cycle, since all that work is occuring beyond West Harbour.
The crews operate continually all day long running the same train back-and-fourth 8 times a day in back-and-fourth mode. There is no incremental cost, except maybe 1 minute shorter dwell at Niagara -- it dwells there for a long time before reversing direction.
Assuming a normal hourly salary which is industry standard -- zero crew cost incremental, as a result. Unless they're paid by the stop serviced, etc. Please correct me if I am wrong, and Metrolinx train crew is paid additional fees per stop, or that they immediately get off the clock while waiting before reversing the train. If this is true, then I need to recalculate. But if they're paid hourly, then it's zero incremental.
Didn't VIA close the Hamilton station in the first place because of low ridership between Hamilton and Niagara? Is there that much demand for rail on that leg on weekends - the traffic between Hamilton and Niagara is far better than between Toronto and Hamilton.
I'd think the ridership between Hamilton and Toronto may be significant on weekends. But given that there's a frequent non-stop express bus on weekends already, that's not going to have the delays that the Niagara train has (from the Welland canal crossing), isn't that going to carry far more passengers on weekend than the train?
The Niagara train already runs through most GO Stations. And unlike most GO stations, there's already an express bus from downtown Hamilton to Aldershot, where the Niagara train already stops.
Is this the normal speed? Everytime I've seen this section, the Niagara trains doesn't seem to be going that fast at all, given all the factors. It might be an illusion, or they had to go slow because of the West Harbour construction. (Is there a TSO?). Staring down from the Bay bridge, I should time how long it take from tip-to-tip, given known trainset length.The definition of "eliminate" is to entirely remove or reduce to zero. That would only be true if trains actually routinely came to a stop. As far as I'm aware, the speed limit through the yard is 30 mph (48 km/h), so you should include that acceleration fuel from 0-30mph, which is likely far more significant than the idling fuel you did include.
Ok, 2 minutes, going by the comparable Danforth stop-add example. If the train is ahead of schedule, it will dwell longer. Otherwise, the station is less 'major' than Oakville where trains dwell briefly there on weekends too.There are some other stations in similarly slow conditions which give us a reference, and nowhere will you find a net increase as small as 1 minute, especially for a major stop like this one.
Fair enough, I may be mistaken (I added an acknowledgement above). So we correctly assume that this will be a would rounding error if there ends up being a crew incremental cost after all (except for station crew of 1 -- the wicket staffing would almost certainly be the biggest cost).Your assumption is that there is time within the train schedule and operators' schedules to accommodate the additional time. But we have no way of actually knowing whether this is the case. We don't know if the amount of layover in Niagara is quite constrained in which case another unit of track time would be required, or if the crew's schedules are already quite full in which case another full hour would be needed. Which is why calculations like this should be using a marginal rate. So if your stop adds 2 minutes to the travel time, you should assume it adds 4 minutes to the round trip, and if it costs $120/h to pay your train crew, you should add $2 for each minute added to the schedule (which is admittedly a pretty negligible amount now that I look at it).