Tuesday, March 17 was not a good day for GO service and we would
like to apologize and explain how some major events impacted our train
service throughout that day.
Train service was good until about 7:15 am, when the track switches
near Pickering station failed to function. GO Trains could not move
through those switches to and from Pickering until CN signal crews could
be sent to the scene to investigate and repair an electrical relay
switch. This took about an hour to complete, and our trains were
delayed from 30 to 60 minutes. GO Transit is working with CN to
investigate improvements at this critical location near Pickering station.
Around midday on the Georgetown line, a vehicle failed to stop at the
Old Weston Road railway crossing and was hit by a GO Train. Luckily, no
one was injured but police and railway officials had to investigate,
vehicles had to be cleared from the site, and another crew had to be
dispatched to move the train. We had to cancel several train trips but
managed to send GO Buses to some stations to connect passengers
with Union Station.
In the evening rush hour, a little before 5 pm, an area-wide power
failure occurred to the east of Union Station, causing the train signals
to turn red for safety purposes. A backup power generator was
supposed to activate to keep the signals functioning. Unfortunately an
electrical switch failed to activate on the backup generator, and by the
time the generator was manually started, quite a few trains serving
Union Station on several lines were delayed. GO is investigating why the
backup generator did not activate and will make sure that this critical
piece of equipment is maintained properly.
For the many GO customers impacted by these unfortunate incidents,
we regret the inconvenience.
