GO Transit: Construction Projects (Metrolinx, various)

[innsertnamehere]

12 month closure of Bur Oak would be pretty rough.. hopefully the Wyecroft/Harvester link is complete by then to make traffic a bit easier in the area.

I do agree that the cost savings make it worth it though.

 

[ViewfromtheLake]

I would have thought there would be enough room to route at least a couple of lanes of BO around the building site, or half of it? I assume they would be shifting tracks as well, or are they going to shove a box under the tracks as they did at King Road ( and will do on HWY 10/Hurontario?)

 

[alexb]

I'm assuming there will still be a detour for the majority of the project and the time savings would come from the tie-in work for the new grade sep to the existing road where the detour is in the way - similar to the Davenport Diamond sort of where the whole thing cant be built until the detour track is removed.

This is a big fail from MX here - first they try to charge the municipalities an extra $30M each and then when questioned come back and say uhh nevermind all of the costs were for our work. And now they are considering major schedule and cost changes after the fixed price contract is signed? Sure they can get a variation for negative costs from the contractor but the whole point of the P3 procurement is to get competitive bids from the teams. Why not have a secondary option for bidders to provide an "innovative" schedule/cost when considering a 1 year closure of the road and discuss this beforehand with the municipalities.

 

[tsm1072]

12 month closure of Bur Oak would be pretty rough.. hopefully the Wyecroft/Harvester link is complete by then to make traffic a bit easier in the area.

As someone who commutes by bike and uses burloak to cross the QEW, this closure will 20 minutes to my commute. For cars the detour is bad, for bikes and pedestrians it essentially splits the neighborhood at the tracks. I hope they put it a temporary pedestrian and bike route to compensate.

 

[Allandale25]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1537819915582853120

 

[squircle]

I would have thought there would be enough room to route at least a couple of lanes of BO around the building site, or half of it?

Not as it exists right now: there's only about 4 metres on either side between the edge of the roadway and the points of the switches. So to make room for a detoured crossing, you'd either need to (re)move the switches or build them into the road. This is why the original underpass plans included shifting the entire signalling plant to the east, so that the construction could take place around comparatively simple tangent track.

Unfortunately, both the Burloak and Kerr St switch plants have grade crossings in their limits, which makes simply shifting the roadway more difficult than it would be on tangent track.

 

[Krypto98]

Maple go today

 

[crs1026]

I noticed on the VIA web site that VIA trains 84/87 are being bustituted on several weekends this summer.

Hopefully this relates to track work west of Georgetown - maybe there will be some improvements in timing by the fall.

- Paul

 

[RandomBusGuy]

Out of curiosity I checked the schedule for train 84 each Saturday listed on the Via website (up to May 2023). Bustitutions actually last longer into the fall and are scheduled for...

July 16 & 24
August 13, 20 & 27
September 10, 17 & 24
October 15, 22 & 29
November 12

Seems reasonable to assume no weekend GO service on the Kitchener line (at least beyond Bramalea) until at least the January 2023 schedule change.

Wilson St in Guelph will be closing again starting July 11th for work on the bridge replacement, so some of the work may be related to that. Here's the bridge, or lack of bridge, earlier this week.

 

[drum118]

Looking at Agincourt Station today, I had to say "What" as a northbound pull into the station. Was walking to the station when it cross Sheppard with 605 on point, 257 on the rear with 231 as a coach. Train was 10 cars long.

I thought trains ran Unionville to Mount Joy since they used to be 6 car trains. Have seen them as 10 cars lately.

Shot the cab car to make sure what I was seeing as well the screen that stated trains every 60 minutes to Mount Joy. The problem with this train that I shot it about 5 hours earlier crossing Wallace Ave going north on the Barrie line. I also pass through the Bloor Station on my way to the Barrie line with green signals for the Mount Joy train as well UPX to the airport.

Sounds like equipment swap.

Cannot see this station expansion completed this year as far too much work for the east platform, let alone the west one.

Track 1 in place south of Sheppard Ave that I could see to where it will connect to the existing #1 at the north end. It still needs to be ballast and align.

Kennedy station will be completed late this year. The whole station area is graded and compacted to allow ties to be place for the new track 1 as well rail. Over 50% of the east platform is concrete with another area about to see concrete.

The main work is in front of the new waiting area for the LRT building with platform edge in place.

It will require a weekend to splice in a switch at the south end as well having both tracks connect to existing tracks at the north end. Until the south end is double track, the existing single track will be the split point for the double track

Photos to follow at some point and most likely be done from Europe

 

[smallspy]

Shot the cab car to make sure what I was seeing as well the screen that stated trains every 60 minutes to Mount Joy. The problem with this train that I shot it about 5 hours earlier crossing Wallace Ave going north on the Barrie line. I also pass through the Bloor Station on my way to the Barrie line with green signals for the Mount Joy train as well UPX to the airport.

Sounds like equipment swap.

That's how the trains are scheduled, both during the week and on weekends.

A trainset will start out on the Stouffville, then run-through Union to Barrie, then back to Union. On a weekday, that train will then cycle through to Mount Pleasant or Kitchener, return to Union, and if it has enough time start the whole sequence again.

On weekends, as there is no service on the Kitchener Line the train will layover at Union for a bit then continue east and north to Mount Joy.

Dan

 

[Mr Finish Line]

2nd track at Agincourt is now fastened and ready for the final ballast to be added. However, it is currently a track to nowhere as it abruptly ends at the pedestrian crossing at Marilyn Ave, so even though they might be nearly finished, it is still unclear when it might actually be used.
Progress on the NB platform continues and there seems to be a push to get it done.
They just recently removed the temporary accessibility platform and opened the permanent one, meaning that the short 6 car trains used off peak stop nowhere near the station building and only 1 or 2 cars are available for boarding, just like at Kennedy, since the platform north of the permanent accessibility platform is still closed.

 

[smallspy]

2nd track at Agincourt is now fastened and ready for the final ballast to be added. However, it is currently a track to nowhere as it abruptly ends at the pedestrian crossing at Marilyn Ave, so even though they might be nearly finished, it is still unclear when it might actually be used.

It's going to be a while. There seems to be no movement on the structure over Highland Creek to the south.

Dan

 

[Mr Finish Line]

It's going to be a while. There seems to be no movement on the structure over Highland Creek to the south.

Dan

Maybe they'll put in a crossover north of it and keep the current bridge as a brief single track section? It seems like that might let them go from 2 tph to 4 tph. I at least would love to see them start offering counter peak service. That 4 hour gap between around 4pm and 8pm with no SB trains is brutal.

 

[reaperexpress]

Maybe they'll put in a crossover north of it and keep the current bridge as a brief single track section? It seems like that might let them go from 2 tph to 4 tph. I at least would love to see them start offering counter peak service. That 4 hour gap between around 4pm and 8pm with no SB trains is brutal.

From 1 tph to 2 tph you mean?

The segment between the crossover just south of Highland Creek and the crossover just north of Kennedy appears to be pretty much complete. That adds a passing 15 min south of the existing passing track just north of Milliken, so it would allow service to increase from 1 tph to 2 tph.

Complete or nearly-complete track in green. Green bubbles indicate completed crossovers.