GO Transit: Construction Projects (Metrolinx, various)

[Metroscapes]

How Metrolinx’s plan to deliver European-style train service went off the rails

GO Expansion will still transform Greater Golden Horseshoe transit — but likely won’t be as ambitious as what was planned just three years ago

www.thetrillium.ca

That article is very long and detailed. Jack Bauen deserves an award for this. I am in no position to provide a hot take, I want to digest this in full.

 

[Yeltsa Kcir]

How Metrolinx’s plan to deliver European-style train service went off the rails

GO Expansion will still transform Greater Golden Horseshoe transit — but likely won’t be as ambitious as what was planned just three years ago

www.thetrillium.ca

OH WOW GO expansion is just DEAD like DEAD DEAD

Heres that scaleback that Reese probably saw at the conference awhile back
View attachment 657770

The number of trains per hour has been cut from 12 to eight, resulting in infrastructure changes, Molly Evans, Metrolinx’s vice-president of track specialized delivery, said in the November town hall.

Metrolinx leaders noted several other “de-scopes” in the town halls, including reductions in speed, cuts to the number and complexity of tracks, and abandoned platform upgrades.

Abandoning speed increases was a gut punch to one senior Metrolinx employee, who said travel time is the top reason people choose to drive, walk, bike or take transit.

“One of the biggest things that is going to really drive that modal share over to the rail network is travel time,” he said.

A high-level schedule presented to staff in April estimates that electrification will be complete in September 2035 for the Lakeshore West line, December 2036 for Lakeshore East, and January 2038 for the Union Station rail corridor.

But a December 2024 town hall only described electrification on the UP Express and Lakeshore lines. Under the minimum viable product, the agency plans to electrify from Burlington to Oshawa GO stations, with a gap at Union Station, Metrolinx consultant Shaun Kearney said in the town hall.


OH GOD THIS IS SO BAD USEP not done till 2029 AHAHAH

View attachment 657771

Shoutout to those who responded to the guy who asked for insider knowledge here from the trillium

I don't even know what to say anymore...

 

[north-of-anything]

How Metrolinx’s plan to deliver European-style train service went off the rails

GO Expansion will still transform Greater Golden Horseshoe transit — but likely won’t be as ambitious as what was planned just three years ago

www.thetrillium.ca

OH WOW GO expansion is just DEAD like DEAD DEAD

Heres that scaleback that Reese probably saw at the conference awhile back
View attachment 657770

The number of trains per hour has been cut from 12 to eight, resulting in infrastructure changes, Molly Evans, Metrolinx’s vice-president of track specialized delivery, said in the November town hall.

Metrolinx leaders noted several other “de-scopes” in the town halls, including reductions in speed, cuts to the number and complexity of tracks, and abandoned platform upgrades.

Abandoning speed increases was a gut punch to one senior Metrolinx employee, who said travel time is the top reason people choose to drive, walk, bike or take transit.

“One of the biggest things that is going to really drive that modal share over to the rail network is travel time,” he said.

A high-level schedule presented to staff in April estimates that electrification will be complete in September 2035 for the Lakeshore West line, December 2036 for Lakeshore East, and January 2038 for the Union Station rail corridor.

But a December 2024 town hall only described electrification on the UP Express and Lakeshore lines. Under the minimum viable product, the agency plans to electrify from Burlington to Oshawa GO stations, with a gap at Union Station, Metrolinx consultant Shaun Kearney said in the town hall.


OH GOD THIS IS SO BAD USEP not done till 2029 AHAHAH

View attachment 657771

Shoutout to those who responded to the guy who asked for insider knowledge here from the trillium

Abolish Metrolinx.

 

[Metroscapes]

That article is very long and detailed. Jack Bauen deserves an award for this. I am in no position to provide a hot take, I want to digest this in full.

Alright. My takeaways after reading in full (with some of my thoughts sprinkled in):

• The scale of what DB wanted to do seems likely to have escalated beyond the funding Mx believed they had / could attain
• DB wanted to bring European style service here. That's a difficult thing to do when:
  • DB fits the stereotype of an autocratic organization that wanted to do it their way or the Autobahn, but also misunderstood their role or was not given one that was well defined
    • They seemed to think they were hired to be in a leadership role; makes sense putting a Euporean body in charge of importing European style trains...I can see it stepping on Mx / MTO toes
    • I understand DB wanting better scheduling of crews and support them pushing that envelope, but busting in with an imported software that doesn't fit with Canadian law seems like an overstep
  • Metrolinx shifted the goalposts constantly and lacked real vision and decision-making
    • This is not helped by the heavy hand of the Minister's office failing to hold them at arms length.
    • "key proposals deferred across multiple desks until they ended up at the top or disappeared altogether" is a bureaucratic onion you'd find in a provincial ministry, it doesn't strike me as how a scoped agency should be structured
    • "ONxpress employees spent the majority of their time — several people estimated around 70 per cent — responding to comments from Metrolinx or the government" #bureaucracy
  • All of this made for a very sour relationship
  • The GTA has the reality of having to run with freight railways as hosts or tenants with trackage rights
• The decision to descope to focus on the Lakeshore lines is such a short-sighted decision that ignores the recent proof of there being pent-up demand. And splitting USRC into two phases seems like something that could easily bite some asses down the road
• I can't recall the timing of discussions here when we realized we were going from 4-car EMU sets to BiLevels pushed by electric locos, but wondering how well that aligns with Mx-DB discussions on "'What type of trains are we going to operate?...What actual service do you want to provide?' [as] an ONxpress source said."
• How the hell is there still "a lot of people at GO that think running frequent trains in both directions is a kind of a dilution of their mandate, or an unnecessary frill, or a waste of money"?!
• "A senior Metrolinx employee, however, said the agency’s bureaucracy is the cost of a uniquely large North American transit organization with a sterling safety record and good on-time numbers." Is this a fair characterization of GO's safety and on-time performance before 2006? They had a 90% cost recovery in those times. This and other quotes paint a picture of a messy merger between Metrolinx and its historic bedrock operations arm
• “There is no point in building infrastructure we may or may not need for 30 years’ time.” If there's underutilized infrastructure, it's because not all the required pieces were put together. West Harbour and Guelph Central's second platform are great exhibits.
• Abandoning speed increases really offsets additional station stops don't it?

SO with all of that laid out....UUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHH.

We've been studying electrification for over a decade, and before DB entered the picture, we seem to know a) what we need to connect to power supply and where additional power stations need to be, b) what lines deserve our attention, and c) what the rough structural and space constraints were. We should theoretically be very close to detailed design on the the OCS wiring and structures and Hydro One connections. And now we spun our wheels muddying that with the track, signal, fleet and staffing upgrades only for it to blow up 3 years later.

I for one would welcome electrified GO trains today, at current service levels, and (save for electrical fleet work) without getting into all of this and flushing all that time and money down the drain.

 

[sixrings]

So no all day two way service on the Milton line?

 

[innsertnamehere]

So no all day two way service on the Milton line?

That was never in even the most optimistic plans, so no.

 

[robmausser]

“There are a lot of people at GO that think running frequent trains in both directions is a kind of a dilution of their mandate, or an unnecessary frill, or a waste of money,” one ONxpress source said.

This explains why double tracking work has gone at a snails pace. Its seen as a toy pet project by GO.

 

[Bojaxs]

“There are a lot of people at GO that think running frequent trains in both directions is a kind of a dilution of their mandate, or an unnecessary frill, or a waste of money,” one ONxpress source said.

This explains why double tracking work has gone at a snails pace. Its seen as a toy pet project by GO.

I don't think that's entirely true. I would imagine even the "old heads" in Metrolinx have a desire to see AD2W on every line.

I think some of the anonymous people interviewed for the recent, insightful article had a bone to pick with some of the higher ups at Metrolinx.

 

[robmausser]

I don't think that's entirely true. I would imagine even the "old heads" in Metrolinx have a desire to see AD2W on every line.

I think some of the anonymous people interviewed for the recent, insightful article had a bone to pick with some of the higher ups at Metrolinx.

Ok so the non-progress of GO Expansion is due to incompetence, not ignorance. Got it.

Either way, fire them all.

 

[Bojaxs]

Ok so the non-progress of GO Expansion is due to incompetence, not ignorance. Got it.

Either way, fire them all.

That all depends on what you think GO expansion entails.

As I pointed out in the GO electrification thread there are many projects going on right now on the GO network.

- LSE widening to 4 tracks in Toronto
- double tracking on the Barrie & Stouffville line
- Renovation of the southern portion of Union Station
- West Harbour track tie in to main line
- Confederation station

Are all these projects not part of GO expansion?

 

[nfitz]

That was never in even the most optimistic plans, so no.

Full-day service certainly has been in multiple RTPs and similar high-level documents. And both federal and provincial election promises (by the winners!).

But never in any timeframe - similar to the mythical 407 Transitway.

 

[urbancog]

Are all these projects not part of GO expansion?

By Metrolinx's project definitions, only the first 3 projects listed are in-scope for GO Expansion 1.0. The other 2 are in GO Extension.

Other on-going significant projects that are part of GO Expansion 1.0 are:
- 4th track between Strachan and Toronto West junction;
- New stations in Toronto {Bloor-Lansdowne, St Clair-Old Weston, Finch-Kennedy};
- A tender was also just released for "Various Lakeshore East Stations Upgrades Danforth GO, Eglinton GO, and Oshawa GO";
- Grade-separation of road-track intersections at Steeles/Stouffville, Burloak/LSW, Rutherford Rd/Barrie;
- Exhibition Station reconstruction

Not an insignificant amount of work, but we don't have access to a plan that ties the work to defined improvements in services.

 

[Allandale25]

Somewhat related to 1.0 and construction pictures:

Bramalea, something’s afoot! You may have seen some action at the station lately—site trailers, fencing, grading…you name it! We’re starting an upgrade that will make your commute smoother and prepare for future service increases.

via X post with the following images.

There was then a further post linking to a page describing the work and the renderings: https://www.metrolinx.com/en/projec...line-go-expansion/what-were-building/bramalea

One aspect I'll bring forward:

• Preparatory construction of retaining wall to protect for future track

 

[Metroscapes]

By Metrolinx's project definitions, only the first 3 projects listed are in-scope for GO Expansion 1.0. The other 2 are in GO Extension.

Other on-going significant projects that are part of GO Expansion 1.0 are:
- 4th track between Strachan and Toronto West junction;
- New stations in Toronto {Bloor-Lansdowne, St Clair-Old Weston, Finch-Kennedy};
- A tender was also just released for "Various Lakeshore East Stations Upgrades Danforth GO, Eglinton GO, and Oshawa GO";
- Grade-separation of road-track intersections at Steeles/Stouffville, Burloak/LSW, Rutherford Rd/Barrie;
- Exhibition Station reconstruction

Not an insignificant amount of work, but we don't have access to a plan that ties the work to defined improvements in services.

Let's describe them another way.

• 4th track between Strachan and Toronto West junction - finishing work from the Georgetown South Project
• New stations in Toronto - what's left of "SmartTrack"
• Various Lakeshore East Stations - modern refreshes and state-of-good-repair
• Grade-separation of road-track intersections - good incremental rail system upgrades that should happen along all popular passenger lines
• Exhibition Station reconstruction - upgrades primarily driven by the Ontario Line IMO

It's hard to be impressed by that. Worthy projects to be sure, but a drop in the bucket of the future system capacity that's needed.

 

[Allandale25]

^

The late @TOareaFan had many views back in the day on the Georgetown South Project and the Exhibition Station reconstruction topics. He would have contributed several replies over the last few days.