Interesting interview with Phil Verster
The very interesting bits are
9:20 - Verster indicates that changes to the design at East Harbour will mean a flyunder at Scarboro Jct isn't needed. Intuitively that implies that Stouffville trains will end up on the north tracks from Don up to Scarboro Jct. I wonder what options that creates/eliminates for VIA HFR, and how express LSE will integrate with stopping trains on that route.
12:05 - Verster's view of what RER ridership may evolve to post COVID
14:30 - Comments about the Missing Link bypass not being needed "by being more commercially astute"
Kudo's to Reece for upping his journalistic game - this is a more substantive interview than many, even those produced by the mainstream Toronto paper and broadcast media.
Verster is himself, and I stick my tongue in my cheek about some of his statements (such as taking credit for moving away from the procurement model of three years ago.....the one that he and his gang pursued in the first place....sigh) but it's a more informative discussion than many we've seen.
- Paul
Agreed. Thanks to
@Reecemartin for bringing us yet more teasers on Metrolinx's game plan!
Verster is a master when it comes to spin, as one needs to be to be CEO of such a large organisation. He describes the decision to cancel the Scarborough Junction Grade Separation as a clever change which will allow more
stopping trains at East Harbour. Note: it's not an increase in service, it's just that express trains will now also stop at East Harbour in addition to local trains. This is made possible solely by the addition of a third platform, which could have been done regardless of whether Scarborough Junction is grade separated.
That said, he's clearly very passionate about bringing massively improved rail service within the forseeable future and his clever political strategies will definitely benefit us overall.
Here's my take at illustrating the changes he described: no more grade separation at Scarborough Junction, and an extra platform at East Harbour.
Rather than a single quad-tracked line with services sorted by speed, there are now a pair of double-tracked lines. This creates a problem for express trains, since they can no longer overtake local trains. This is the real reason that Verster's new plan has express trains stopping at East Harbour: they're stuck behind locals anyway so they might as well stop.
On the Lakeshore corridor, there is a pre-existing triple-track segment between Scarborough Jct and Guildwood, so there's plenty of room for peak-direction express services to overtake locals. But if we want express service all day in both directions, we're in trouble. In the absence of passing tracks (e.g counter-peak), the speed of the express services is dictated by the frequency of local service. With local service every 15 minutes, express services can only be about 7 minutes faster than the local. I'm assuming a minimum scheduled separation of 4 minutes, based on the schedules here in the Netherlands. So the express departs 11 minutes behind the local, and by the end of the shared segment it's 4 minutes behind.
Even with moving-block signaling which allows trains as close as 60 seconds, a single shared track would still only allow the express to be 9 minutes faster than the local. But realistically we'd want express services to skip 5 or 6 stops between Union and Pickering, which would make them 10 to 12 minutes faster than the locals. And VIA trains are even faster still.
So if we want all-day express service in both directions, we need to build some additional passing opportunities. The cheapest option would be to simply add a fourth track at Guildwood station. The station's reconstruction a few years ago already built the structure and platforms for a fourth track, all that's missing is the track itself. But the downside of having a one-station-long passing track is that the local trains would need to sit for 2-3 extra minutes to allow the following express train to catch up. This delay can be resolved by extending the passing track to include another station. In the diagram below, I show the track being extended to Eglinton GO, but extending it to Rouge Hill would work as well.
The Stouffville line doesn't have any passing opportunites at all for express trains, so given that local service is proposed to operate every 10 minutes, express service is now physically impossible. In the previous design, express trains could run non-stop from Kennedy to Union.
Another question is what this reorganisation does to the USRC. The current layout of the flyover west of Union allows westbound lakeshore/stouffville/barrie/kitchener trains to generally head through the middle of the corridor, while eastbound trains hug the southern edge. Between them there's room for services to terminate and head back the other direction, without crossing the Lakeshore local services.
Cyan: eastbound lakeshore/stouffville/barrie/kitchener
Magenta: westbound lakeshore/stouffville/barrie/kitchener
Black: turnback platforms (VIA, terminating services etc)
Light Green: other (UPX etc)
<--- toward LSW, Milton, Kitchener, Barrie | | toward Union Station --->
With both directions of Lakeshore service hugging the south side of the corridor, VIA's Windsor, Ottawa and Montreal services would either need to cross westbound service at-grade to reach their current platforms, or they would need to depart from platforms 24-27, which aren't directly connected to the VIA concourse.
