It is, however, enough time to shift around utilities and build a chunk of track through the station.
West of James Street, yes.
Good piecemeal work, slow but steady, all the way to Desjardins Canal.
However,
none of which has happened
immediately east of James Street -- they were going to do that about two years ago but was postponed.
A lot of the signal boxes and buried utilities are still sitting there. At least, though, the John Street road overpass is currently being rebuilt.
Past is past. Today is today for bullhorn time. CN may have said no in 2015, but rumor swirling about is that
CN already said yes as of this time.
Now that CN and Metrolinx has a better working relationship and probably has now already agreement on this already today. Since the track extension west of James Street appears indefinitely postponed (to a future date) while simultaneously accelerating and increasing Niagara GO service years ahead of schedule. Amplifying wastage of West Harbour GO non-use --
over 400 Niagara trains per year are now going to pass-by hereafter without stopping until this is fixed.
Such absurdity of increased Niagara service that does not stop, plus the "backing-up train" embarassment, now makes it easier for Hamilton residents to gain louder voices on this, to inexpensively push some balky fence-sitting dominoes that has now become cheaper because CN finally said yes. Hamilton has tipped quite a few dominoes, such as with the #YesWeCannon campaigns and #YesLRT campaigns that actually moved needles on government initiatives. I'm glad they started backing up the train into West Harbour; it's a useful service addition while simultaneously advertising the absurdity of the dead-end state. Now awareness is higher.
Given the station was already designed with provisions to permit a simple concrete pour for this north platform, this potentially makes this tweak inexpensive enough to be a potentially
capital-cost-profitable even at less than 100 new passengers a week. (The capital cost of a concrete pour being more quickly-than-average paid off by paying passengers that embark/disembark at West Harbour GO, even when deducting slight increase in operating cost of stopping existing slow-moving trains at West Harbour). That's an absurdly low floor considering many accept that transit services are subsidized, at 50%-70%. So low-lying of an apple. This is a very high-ROI "Quick Fix" tweak,
assuming CN approved this.
Once done and all those extra trains are now able to stop at West Harbour -- a small amount of cheap local advertising is all that needed to let locals know there's a quicker way to get to Niagara Falls (and more options for Toronto or other stops). That will quickly get 100 new passengers per week, given plentiful parking at West Harbour GO (~300 parking spots, mostly unused), and more wide advertising of
the free #99 waterfront shuttle , the #2 Barton, the #20 A-Line service, the existing West Harbour #18 GO bus.
To bypass this original expensive track-extension plan (so they can take their merry time on that useful-but-expensive endeavour) -- they can cheaply remove the fence and pour some concrete floor as CN is rumored to have already agreed to. The station is already designed with provisions for this north platform, making this a reasonably simple pour job. No new signals or track modifications are required for this cheap workaround.
So, now is great timing for local resident-led advocacy to keep this on the front burner to make sure that no further postponements & backtracking occurs again, and at least settle for some cheap quick-fixes. Such as, you know, already-being-discussed fence-removal and concrete-pour for a slight platform-edge extension northwards (facing the freight track) to allow
all Niagara trains to stop in Hamilton.
