Northern Light
Superstar
The sub reverted to CN to my understanding. GEXR is no longer involved.
|
|
|
GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)
- Thread starter drum118
- Start date
The sub reverted to CN to my understanding. GEXR is no longer involved.
Nomad_87
Active Member
Regardless, they still use the sub (albeit through CN) to access the wider North American rail network. Making sure they can either use it when need or will still be able to connect with CN via the Stratford junction
Northern Light
Superstar
Sure, but the object is to purchase the sub from CN, just like they did the track east of K-W; then Mx can set the priority of access in its favour and make room for others thereafter.
allengeorge
Senior Member
A couple of relevant tweets:
Northern Light
Superstar
From these, collectively, I get the following:
The official line, from AMA (Mx Communications) is that this a test (duh?) ; in service of examining options for improving service to south-western Ontario.
Also, no plans finalized.
****
From a journalist, and transit-enthusiast, we hear that perhaps Mx is going to poach all of VIA's spots on the North Mainline and VIA will operate exclusively via the Dundas Sub.
I think that would be a strange and questionable arrangement myself.
I'm not sure if he has any public evidence behind report, but I'm not going to cast any doubt on it w/o evidence either.
He (Ryan) also noted that GO had previously done a test on the Dundas sub.
I don't recall that; but maybe my memory is failing me, or I missed it.
Any footage of that?
Last edited:
Allandale25
Senior Member
Allandale25
Senior Member
Railpictures.ca - Stephen C. Host Photo: GO Trains return to Stratford…???? Did they ever come through here? I know they did make runs west in the 1990′s for various reasons, including running to Sarnia for the tunnel opening. Anyway, GO, without a
Tens of thousands of great Canadian railway photographs, discussions, and much more. Click to view the image or register for your free account. Please share this if you like it.
www.railpictures.ca
Picture from Stratford today.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
There actually is a pocket track at Burlington on the north side of the station, but it is currently disused and has been disconnected from the mainline. It was used for turnbacks back when Burlington was the western terminus of off-peak service.
While the most part of the line is triple-tracked, there is just enough quad-track east of Long Branch to make bidirectional express service practical in addition to 4 tph local service. Since half of the service doesn't continue west of Oakville, there's enough room on the west portion of the line for an eastbound express to operate entirely on the eastbound local track. On the eastern portion, eastbound local trains pull off onto their own line at Mimico, allowing the express to overtake them at Exhibition.
Here's an extremely oversimplified track diagram of the east end of the line:
And a timetable showing how eastbound express service could be overlayed onto 4 tph local service while only using a single track through the triple-tracked segment, leaving the two other tracks totally free for VIA and westbound expresses.
I showed the local service turning back at Burlington (assuming the aforementioned pocket track is reinstated) since this reduces the fleet requirement by 1 train compared to running all the way to Aldershot. That's already a third of the 3 trains required to provide a separate hourly express service to Hamiton (3h round trip / 1h headway = 3 trainsets).
reaperexpress
Senior Member
A lot. Because it makes no sense to run two-way service to London with the current appalling travel times along the Kitchener-London line. With current tracks it would take GO 3h30 to run to London, which would require 8 trainsets to run an hourly service. With an upgraded line, they could run it in 2h30, which would only require 6 trains for an hourly service, and would obviously attract astronomically more ridership.
If they're testing the tracks as they are today, it means they are thinking of running some minimal service on the existing infrastructure. My guess is that VIA has proposed to abandon the service (rerouting the Sarnia service via Brantford) and GO is thinking of extending a couple daily Kitchener line trains to Stratford or maybe London to fill the void.
Here's my guess as to where the sidings would need to be for an hourly service to London, assuming considerably increased speeds.
Green = existing sidings
Purple = proposed/predicted sidings.
We know that the future hourly service to Kitchener will meet at Guelph station, so the sidings will be every 30 minutes travel time west of Guelph. With speeds increased to typical mainline standards, they would need to be somewhere around New Hamburg, and south of St Marys. There are existing sidings between St Marys and London, and at Stratford station, which could serve as a back-up in case a train is significantly late and misses the scheduled meet.
Last edited:
Bureaucromancer
Active Member
I honestly like the arrangement given where we are. It's not necessarily the ideal end-point, but given the state of the corridors as they are... All Via service going south while the marketing of that service emphasizes on Toronto - Brantford -London - points west while the NML is upgrade piecemeal and targets, well, all other traffic, seems like a good way of making meaningful improvements and having the political appearance of being HFR like.
Even long term, for how easy it is to say that the NML should be able to offer roughly equivalent travel times to Dundas, I see a lot of potential in a largely single track network that electrifies the NML for regional service and keeps the longer distance and express service on the southern route with upgrades on par with the pre-HFR lakeshore route.
Bordercollie
Senior Member
What is the length of the Stratford station platform? Can I handle a L6 or L10 GO train?
And by running the train to London gives them to ability to measure the potential speed and to build schedules? I hope they were able to get signal priority from CN for this experiment.
How did they qualify the crew for this? Do they require a CN pilot?
lenaitch
Senior Member
Is there any indication that CN is interested in selling?
Northern Light
Superstar
The fact that it had previously let the line out to GEXR indicates its not of primary or mainline interest, or at least that it wasn't.
They also have an alternative line to the U.S., which they generally treat as their mainline, (Dundas Sub) and on to Sarnia.
I think its reasonable to assume they are open to a sale, given that they also sold the rest of the same line to Mx, excepting where the south mainline in the form of the Halton sub crosses over.
The issue, I suspect, would be one of price, not openess.
crs1026
Senior Member
Northern Light
Superstar
My concerns are that VIA would:
a) No longer service K-W, a major market, impacting the financials for this route.
b) No longer maintain access to the route w/the greatest potential for ridership growth
c) GO has little experience or expertise offering the type of service that I think is necessary for 2hr + journeys.
d) That CN cannot spare the type of capacity VIA should want and need on the Dundas Sub.
This is the antithesis of how Amtrak is growing in the U.S. where it becomes the State-level provider of service for longer journeys; which is where I think VIA should be headed.