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Superstar
There is no possible way we're seeing any of this by 2036. I mean, whether or not there's even a world in 2036 seems like more and more of a remote possibility, but GO electrification absolutely will not happen.
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GO Transit: Construction Projects (Metrolinx, various)
- Thread starter drum118
- Start date
cplchanb
Senior Member
why? from a technical standpoint it seems quite straightforward. if a developing country like india can do 40000kms in 10 years we absolutely should have no technical hurdles doing a few hundred in that timeframe. (thats already an extremely low bar)
seems more like a political issue now than technical.
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Superstar
I'll flip that: why?
crs1026
Superstar
It's a budgetary and work management issue not a technical one. .
Take the prerequisite tasks and try to put them into a plan. Look for the longest lead items. Look at the items that do not have a design drawing as of today. And look at how long the task list becomes.
- Paul
PS India's electrification did not happen overnight. Check out this chronology https://st2.indiarailinfo.com/kjfdsuiemjvcya0/0/8/0/5/1242805/0/welcometoofficialwebsiteofcore.pdf
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Amare
Senior Member
Metrolinx cant even build a simple GO station in a reasonable amount of time or cost, you expect them to have electrification on any line ready in 10 years?
cplchanb
Senior Member
why the speed?
you do realize that our infrastructure model is from the roaring 50s. if we ever want to be a modern city with modern infrastructure we cant just sit on our hands and
do bare minimum just because its working now.
not to mention, the long you take, the more costs you pay due to cost escalation, inflation, loss of expertise. that is the cancer right now. people just dont care enough to invest and expect things to be done fast and efficiently
ProjectEnd
Superstar
That's all true, and we're not going to do anything to change it.
cplchanb
Senior Member
understood but a large bulk of it, exponentially greater in scope vs us was done in the exact same time we just kept on talking and studying. even if you cut their productivity in half or a quarter they wouldve still been much faster at completion.
cplchanb
Senior Member
short of drastic change. maybe a distrupter like brightline can come in to take things over.
ProjectEnd
Superstar
I'm not taking any notes from America: https://www.wlrn.org/business/2026-03-16/brightline-financial-troubles-debt-credit
cplchanb
Senior Member
Seems like they overreached too early.
JR can be modeled though. Theyre doing quite well
Still regardless they have shown that they can get infrastructure built quickly and reasonably affordable
urbanclient
Active Member
I question how this is a budgetary issue and not a labour shortage / expertise shortage / competent management shortage? @crs1026 You seem more knowledgeable than me, so please clarify or correct my suppositions:
How is $27.5 billion not enough to electrify 260 km and double tracking just under 150 km (USRC already has enough tracks?). "a Value does not reflect the full project cost" https://assets.metrolinx.com/image/...em_10.1_-_CPG_GO_UP_Update_-_FINAL_ENG_Mx.pdf
Or is the $27.5+ billion baseline what is supposedly needed, but the cheapo province is hesitant to dole out the money to execute the plans?
Bear in mind, this is already $105 million/km. Most HSR projects in the world have a much lower per km cost, even if we give each HSR country one "vote", so China doesn't skew the average. I've converted the figures to 2026 $Canadian Dollars.
UIC Europe 2023 (€15–40m/km): $24–65 million/km
World Bank China 2019 (US$17–21m/km): $32–39 million/km
OECD/ITF international 2014 (€22m/km in 2005 prices): $49–51 million/km
And yes, I understand that it's supposed to be more expensive to build on an active rail corridor than building a greenfield line (excepting expropriation costs).
As far as I know, Canada, and more specifically Ontario does not have a large (enough) pool of skilled railway labour, railway construction engineers & management etc... Given how piecemeal and non-concurrent the GO Construction projects seem to be as noted by many on Urban Toronto, I previously questioned if GO Expansion even had 1,500 construction workers total, in comparison to this: https://fullfact.org/economy/china-didnt-build-new-railway-station-nine-hours/
There have been posts with photos on how the needle barely moved on some GO Expansion projects supposedly underway for months, if not years.
cplchanb
Senior Member
see this is also a byproduct of our society fawning on white collared jobs. we simply dont have enough skilled tradesmen to do our jobs. for the last couple decades parents have been preaching to their children the stigma of not going to university and working on bay st or some other tech firm.
this is result. we dont have a skilled trades future. queue the temp foreign workers.
nfitz
Superstar
I keep telling my kids that there's actually decent salaries and opportunities in the trades. I don't understand why parents would prefer they get arts degrees or recreation degrees.
High end science perhaps ... but English and History? Why is there no stigma against that?
crs1026
Superstar
It is certainly everything you suggest, but I would add that ML has had to shift money around, thanks to overages in major projects that have been launched. So electrification cannot be said to be "money in the bank funded", and at this point the money that might have been used has been applied to other things.
My sense is that the GO envelope is a cash flow issue for QP which takes precedence over potential execution windows - and certainly no additional money is being added to the envelope.
I question whether the money was ever truly there at all. The Wynne government clearly promised GO upgrades but took no action to procure or launch them. It was very cheap PR and not much more, despite a really attractive plan.
Ford has supported his vanity projects, but has also created cost pressures by doling out for other things (payoff to Brewers Retail for instance) and deferral of obvious revenue sources (auto licensing, gasoline tax, etc etc)
No doubt - Compared to the cost of say a 401 tunnel, or an island airport expansion, or a new Science Center, or a Highway 413.... GO electrification is an affordable and prudent investment. But ML isn't getting anything and its envelope is shrinking through overages on other projects.
And, as you suggest - electrification is every bit as complex a project as say Crosstown, and look at the project infrastructure that would have to be built to execute it. So not easy to find the people to plan and execute.
- Paul