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GO Transit: Construction Projects (Metrolinx, various)

ssiguy2 said:
The really sad thing about this whole London GO fiasco, is that it gives QP the excuse not to provide a real GO service to the City because Londoners won't use it.

This is 100% the result of creating a GO system on the assumption that London itself has no commuters and people in London only want to get to Toronto. NOBODY in London commutes to Toronto. They may go one or twice a week but VIA would get them there is nearly half the time. This is what happens when you put a Torontonian in charge of transit for London.

London's situation for a local commuter GO service is ideal. It has rail lines radiating out of the city in every direction. To the north St.Mary's with 8k and Stratford with 34k. To the west Strathroy with 16k and Komoka/Kilworth with 3. To the east, Dorchester with 5k, Ingersol with 14k, and Woodstock with 46. To the south there is nearby St.Thomas with 43k. All this without London having any form of urban expressway that comes even remotely close to the downtown and London in general having inadequate roads and horrific. traffic. As an example, if you go to Google maps you will see that from Ingersol to downtown is 36 minutes driving and from Strathroy 38 minutes but with even slow VIA it's only 21 minutes. This doesn't make commuter rail time competitive but rather a HUGE time advantage.

The VIA station is right downtown an a short block from the BRT Downtown Loop easily connecting the big 3 employers in London........ huge Western, Fanshawe {the 6th largest college in the country} and SWO's largest hospital, the London Health Sciences Centre.

GO commuter would be very successful in London which is one of the fastest growing Metros in the country.............shame they didn't bother to ask Londoners what THEY wanted.
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If you are going to commute from London to Toronto you would take the southern route.

This is for people travelling between London and Kitchener and back and in-between. This has been discussed over and over again.
 
I was curious as to how the scheduled travel time has changed over time between London and Kitchener, so I took a sampling from @Urban Sky 's incredible VIA Rail Timetable archive.

In 1976, there were 4 trains per day, and the travel time was 1h13 (77 km/h average)
In 2021, there are 2 trains per day, and the travel time is 2h10 (43 km/h average)

LDN-trends.JPG


Travel time (basically the inverse of the above chart)
LDN-TT.JPG



Here is the raw data I entered: (link to spreadsheet)
ScheduleSummary.JPG
 
innsertnamehere said:
First update I’ve seen on Confederation GO in a year and a half so that’s good, I guess.

I imagine Metrolinx is trying to get Caledonia GO built by smart centres next door.
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If Smart Centre is smart, it will tell ML thanks but no thanks for building the station on their dime regardless the redevelopment of the plaza. ML miss the boat 12 years ago by not planning for the future or when the LRT was to be build by not having a knockout wall to allow direct connection between the LRT and GO Station. Would been easy to issue a change order for the connection during the design of the LRT station.

Again, why build the Confederation Station when ridership is non existing to COVID 19 regardless it will take 2 years to build?? Until ridership start to return, ML will push the station as well others down the road.
 
drum118 said:
If Smart Centre is smart, it will tell ML thanks but no thanks for building the station on their dime regardless the redevelopment of the plaza. ML miss the boat 12 years ago by not planning for the future or when the LRT was to be build by not having a knockout wall to allow direct connection between the LRT and GO Station. Would been easy to issue a change order for the connection during the design of the LRT station.

Again, why build the Confederation Station when ridership is non existing to COVID 19 regardless it will take 2 years to build?? Until ridership start to return, ML will push the station as well others down the road.
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Because eventually things will get back to normal and if you don't start now it will be too late.
 
Bordercollie said:
Because eventually things will get back to normal and if you don't start now it will be too late.
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You are talking ML that is slow doing things or the wrong way.

If ML had built the station as plan, it would be a white elephants at this time and wasting funds to keep the lights on as well funds to CN for track maintenance.
 
reaperexpress said:
I was curious as to how the scheduled travel time has changed over time between London and Kitchener, so I took a sampling from @Urban Sky 's incredible VIA Rail Timetable archive.

In 1976, there were 4 trains per day, and the travel time was 1h13 (77 km/h average)
In 2021, there are 2 trains per day, and the travel time is 2h10 (43 km/h average)

View attachment 368247

Travel time (basically the inverse of the above chart)
View attachment 368248


Here is the raw data I entered: (link to spreadsheet)
View attachment 368249
Click to expand...
Thanks for the Koodos and happy to see that my archive was useful to you, but I can really feel the pain of compiling all the data for such a relatively simple post!

I will gladly share my timetable database spreadsheet with you, with which you will be able to aggregate and extract timetable data in a few seconds' time into handy graphs and tables like the following:

1639203322404.png


1639203346541.png


1639203620867.png


1639203226771.png

Have a great weekend and keep up the excellent work!
 
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SaugeenJunction said:
In this section, it’s probably because the tracks run down the centre of a road like an LRT (it’s fenced however). Probably just an arbitrary limit in case if a derailment.
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Yes exactly this.

If youve been through the area by train im actually surprised they even managed to raise it to 72kmh
 
robmausser said:
Yes exactly this.

If youve been through the area by train im actually surprised they even managed to raise it to 72kmh
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I’m curious if freights are limited to 72 km/h or have a lower limit. The GO trains are either accelerating out of or slowing down for Guelph Station. Seeing a CN freight pound this section at track speed would be quite a sight.
 
SaugeenJunction said:
I’m curious if freights are limited to 72 km/h or have a lower limit. The GO trains are either accelerating out of or slowing down for Guelph Station. Seeing a CN freight pound this section at track speed would be quite a sight.
Click to expand...
Freights always have a slower speed for a set area than passenger rail. Not just on track class but things like crossings etc.
 
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