ProjectEnd
Superstar
And now he's dead. Good riddance.
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GO Transit: Construction Projects (Metrolinx, various)
- Thread starter drum118
- Start date
micheal_can
Senior Member
Where would trains from SWO and from the rest of Canada go to switch out crews?
crs1026
Superstar
Agreed, but nobody is bringing back hump yards.
The awkward reality is, he was ahead of the curve on a lot of stuff. How he imposed his changes was pretty reprehensible, but those changes may have been coming regardless of personalities.
- Paul
crs1026
Superstar
I never understood this one. Too far east to be useful. I would have predicted Spence-Alliston, as a place to extract non-eastern traffic freom transcon trains, and bring it down to the GTA to connect with Chicago, Buffalo, and beyond. Add this to Kinnear and Wolverton.
CP’s proven inability to cope without Lambton is a sign of that need.
Moving the diesel shop that far east made no sense either.
Trenton might be a good place to seap blocks for traffic to/from Montreal and beyond, but that is only one segment of the traffic. Agincourt has other roles that Trenton won’t help much.
- Paul
Metroscapes
Active Member
I'm glad I'm not the only one singing the praises of that document (note: drafted in 2006, approved in 2008). I'll be frank: we'd be in a bigger mess if it weren't for that document. It's been something to go off of. It kickstarted implementation of a number of projects (including the takeover of the UPX and Georgetown South project, to name one) and started planning on a number of others.
Well, sending CPKC up above the city is absolutely one plain solution. It could be a permutation of that (e.g. co-locating with the 500 kV transmission corridor and/or the 407), or something else entirely (e.g. merging with / replacing Highway 413). But you hit the nail on the head: it needs a massive agreement between governments and the railway(s). The feds are the party most notably absent, as they have the regulatory benefit, industrial strategy and money coffers to overcome the barriers. It's stupid we're still talking about this and not doing anything.
ProjectEnd
Superstar
My understanding is he was at the forefront of PSR which, while good for corporations, has been an absolute disaster for those working on the railroads and has led to a far more dangerous and less enjoyable workplace. You can't use the 'f word' here, but emphatically: eff that guy.
WB62
Senior Member
Back then with the Big Move, Metrolinx focused a lot more on the expansion of the network over service increases, if you read the document there’s a ton of proposed rail service expansions (mapped above) and very little service increases for the existing network, obviously this has changed, with both GO Expansion and RER focusing a lot more on service increases (to date we’ve only seen 5 of these network expansions happen out of the 11 proposed).
In my opinion it was a much better decision to focus more on increasing service, since it benefits way more people than any of those extensions would have.
Metroscapes
Active Member
Update from Guelph Central GO. There's glass being installed, the wiring appears ready for electrical outfit, and a fence between the tracks is being completed. Most of the flashing is done, paving appears done.
drum118
Superstar
The best area for CP is on the south end as it has longer tracks to hold trains either going to western Canada or the US along with local needs. Anything north of the engine facility can be use for TTC as well ML since has obtain land on the north side of the yard.
Line 2 can be extended north of Sheppard underground and then branch off McCowan and surface to an area that can be use as an subway complex. The whole area that can be use as an yard for TTC would have to be fully redevelop to house an maintenance complex and yard tracks. It would be a better option than using Obico Yard as well been cheaper.to do.
CP prefer unit trains and trains going point to point than breaking trains down or up of mixed traffic as they make more money..
WB62
Senior Member
Throwback to 1972 and 1994 when they wanted to use both or all three sets of track surrounding the CP yard
smallspy
Senior Member
The reasoning is that the land in the GTA is just too bloody valuable to have it tied up by tracks with cars sitting on them. The yards and facilities can be located just about anywhere, but preferably somewhere with cheap(-ish) land.
One of the ideas I've heard about for CN is the Belleville area.
A little bit of context here is necessary, I think.
Hunter Harrison wanted to get rid of hump yards for two main reasons:
- The primary one is that the railways are in the business of moving goods - and hump yards are (largely) an anathema to that. Every day that a car spends in a hump yard is hundreds of miles that it could have traveled to get it closer to its destination. And he had gone on record as saying precisely this.
- The secondary one is that carload and less-than-carload traffic - think of things like boxcars and tank cars - are much harder to make a big profit on, as they require much more handling by the railways. While yes, the amount of that traffic on the railways of North America has dropped precipitously in the past 50 years (and there are a LOT of reasons for that, not just the railways turning away that business), taking away the hump yards - which are specifically designed to handle exactly that kind of traffic - was seen as another way of focusing more on the high-profitability traffic like bulk goods and containers. And in this case, this was more of a stick than a carrot - being detrimental to the carload/less-than-carload business and making it harder to deal with.
Anywhere they want. It frequently doesn't happen at yards today.
I can't say that I understand it either, but......
If the land at Agincourt is worth too much when compared to land elsewhere - and while it may not be yet, it is certainly trending that way - they'll make it work.
I only found this out recently, but there was apparently quite the uproar when Vaughan was disclosed as their location for a container facility, as it was seen as "the middle of nowhere" and "miles away from anything". Now, though.....
I think a lot of people place a lot of the industry's current ills on PSR, which is a bit unfair. PSR has its own problems vis-a-vis the industry as a whole and the way it deals with its customers, but staffing requirements aren't really integral to it's being.
And honestly, he was cutting crews - and their associated costs - long before he ever announced the idea of PSR.
Dan
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crs1026
Superstar
That (kind of) makes sense, as there are enough customers and routes east of Belleville to do all the swapping and shunting there. CP is a different story - to this spectator, far less of the tonnage that moves through Agincourt has an eastern origin or destination.
Yyeah, that's how railways think.... it may be disfunctional, but it's the cheapest option,, so figure it out.
EHH gets heavily slammed (deservedly) for his contempt of rail workers and unions. What gets less play is his equal contempt for downstream customers and shippers.
PSR and EHh are a bit of a Venn diagram where people overestimate the degree of overlap between the two circles. PSR is an attractive proposition in the sense that it looks very critically at effort vs return, and is far more stingy with capital than previous models. Achieving favourable operating ratios and concentrating on high return traffic only is something that investors drool over.... the investors, not EHH, are the real culprits. As public policy, though, it sucks.... and when implemented by destroying peoples'' lives, it's definitely abusive. But efficiency is mostly win-win if done properly.
- Paul
Metroscapes
Active Member
Awesome map, as always. But I will have to object to that characterization of service in the plan. The 15-year plan outlined "Regional Rail (full-day, 2-way)" most GO lines within the Greenbelt, as well as "Express Rail" service on the Lakeshore lines, as well as Union to Brampton. The 25-year plan expanded this a bit. These terms were defined in the glossary:
lenaitch
Senior Member
If you hang around the world enough years, you hear that a lot. I remember when the York sub was pushed through farm fields, Malton was a village with an airport and going to visit a buddy who's parents moved the family to the dark wilds of Mount Albert
urbancog
Active Member
It's going to be interesting to see the results of Metrolinx's 2051 Strategic Transit Plan that they've out sourced to HDR Inc.
www.hdrinc.com
In her report for the 30-Nov Board Mtg, the Chief Planning Officer specifically ties the work to MTO's 2022 Transportation Plan. "The updates will bring the RTP into conformity with Connecting the GGH: A Transportation Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, the multimodal plan for the region released by the province in 2022." so the work should move the 33 transit plans a little further down the plan-design-construct path.
She also states "We are targeting the submission of a draft RTP to the Ministry of Transportation at the end of the first quarter in the 2024-25 fiscal year.", which I think means June 2024. So hopefully we will get to see the results by September of that year.
Transit
Mobility for Tomorrow Today’s connected cities need transportation options proven to enhance economies, build resiliency and improve livability. Transit infrastructure does all three. It forms a central network for multimodal systems, expanding access to education, healthcare and employment.
www.hdrinc.com
In her report for the 30-Nov Board Mtg, the Chief Planning Officer specifically ties the work to MTO's 2022 Transportation Plan. "The updates will bring the RTP into conformity with Connecting the GGH: A Transportation Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, the multimodal plan for the region released by the province in 2022." so the work should move the 33 transit plans a little further down the plan-design-construct path.
She also states "We are targeting the submission of a draft RTP to the Ministry of Transportation at the end of the first quarter in the 2024-25 fiscal year.", which I think means June 2024. So hopefully we will get to see the results by September of that year.