GO Transit: Construction Projects (Metrolinx, various)

[reaperexpress]

I‘d like to just add the perspective of a Rail Operations Analyst to that final sentence:

• If the suburban train goes into a siding track, it will lose a bit of time due to speed restrictions entering/leaving that track and a lot more (maybe 2 minutes), while waiting for the intercity train to overtake. That intercity train will have a longer dwell time at Kennedy than the suburban train, thus delaying the latter even more.
• Conversely, even if you let the suburban train wait for a minute in order to let the intercity train merge into the shared segment first, it will suffer no further delays, as the additional stop at Lawrence will buy the intercity train enough time to finish its stop at Kennedy (despite the longer dwell time) without slowing down the suburban train.

In general, siding tracks only start to work efficiently for your purposes (let intercity trains swim in suburban traffic and overtake the latter without causing delays) if they allow the faster train to bypass at least two station stops of the slower train at a time…

Yes I have explained that in detail several times before. The station at Lawrence East is irrelevant to reason I'm sharing the diagram. I doubt that station would ever get built anyway since they're now building a subway station further east along Lawrence.

 

[hw621]

Maybe Alto is part of the reason they're in no hurry to get the Highland Creek bridge unstuck, given that that's the location where Alto would be joining the corridor. But I don't think Alto can be an excuse to delay the other projects in the pipeline. The Mount Joy second platform is necessary to extend half-hourly service north of Unionville, which makes no difference to Alto since they won't use that part of the corridor. The second platform at Kennedy is just an extension of the existing double-track segment that GO uses for 30-minute service during peak periods. So its benefit is primarily a speed and reliability improvement for existing services, not an increase in frequency. The latest "mission" for the Stouffville line is only 4 trains per hour between Unionville and Union, so I don't think there'd be any need to build any additional tracks for Alto at Kennedy. All trains would stop there so there's no need for an overtaking opportunity.

Maybe having intercity trains on Stouffville between Highland Creek and Union would affect their decision to delete the Scarbrough Junction rail-to-rail grade separation, to let Alto trains access the express tracks on the quad-tracked segment between Scarborough Junction and Union. But I doubt it. Unless the feds force them to play nice with Alto, Metrolinx would presumably just do what they do to Via and make Alto trains plod along behind GO local trains on the same track.

Here's a conceptual layout I made back in the HFR days, but I think it would still apply to Alto. The main difference compared to the current plans is that Scarborough station is on the Lakeshore East local service rather than the Stouffville line, to minimize the speed differential between Stouffville line trains and intercity trains.

There would also be non-revenue track connections not shown on the map. Obviously the quad-track segment at Lawrence east is only required if they build that station.

Will there be an Alto station in Markham?!

 

[T-Bor]

At the risk of asking a question that's already been answered, do we have a sense of when 15-minute all-day will return on LSE and LSW?

The recent Metrolinx document suggests it's short-term, but I can't tell if that's 12-months, or 5 years

 

[Urban Sky]

Yes I have explained that in detail several times before. The station at Lawrence East is irrelevant to reason I'm sharing the diagram. I doubt that station would ever get built anyway since they're now building a subway station further east along Lawrence.

I was solely commenting on the question whether additional tracks were necessary if a hypothetical station was to be added at Lawrence East by sharing my professional suspicion that this additional station would be less disruptive if it was located at the main tracks without any passing tracks. I strongly believe that the longer dwell times and lower acceleration capabilities of intercity vs. suburban EMUs would allow a much more harmonious co-existence of GO and ALTO than most people here seem to be able to imagine…

 

[nfitz]

Will there be an Alto station in Markham?!

The only alignment that's been discussed that even enters Markham is CP's Peterborough track (the Havelock subdivision) - and that only clips the SE corner, being entirely east of Donald Cousens Parkway, and mostly in the Rouge National Park. There used to be a station at Locust Hill, if I remember correctly. If they go that alignment, I'd think the station would be further south.

The new Sheppard East subway station may be a possibility, though between the distance between the station and the CP track, and being in the middle of the junction between the Belleville Subdivision and Havelock Subdivision, that may be difficult.

On the other hand, there's a lot of land, if you do something like build an underground HSR station south of the CP track, closer to Nugget, and then exit it, curving north under the Agincourt yard to Finch west of Markham Road it might work. No more complex than what HS2 is doing at Old Oak Common station - and that station is only costing about $3 billion (2019$) - though that does include the new surface level Elizabeth line "Tube" in-fill station.

 

[chrisw]

Will there be an Alto station in Markham?!

Well, Markham did study a strategic business case of a station at Box Grove. That doesn't mean that there will be one though.

https://pub-markham.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=81330

 

[nfitz]

Well, Markham did study a strategic business case of a station at Box Grove. That doesn't mean that there will be one though.

https://pub-markham.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=81330

Oh cool. And the map shows the Havelock Sub very well. Though that's for the now-dead VIA HFR not Alto HST.

Hmm ... it is hard though to take seriously a proposal that thinks that Provincial Highway 69 is going to be extended down Ninth Line to Box Grove. It's to take such amateur scribbling seriously.

Maybe the answer is building the station half-way between Locust Hill and Box Grove, and combine it with a subway station along the 407 transitway alignment. Though that does put the station in the middle of the National Park!

 

[Sauga89]

The Simcoe Street bridge replacement in Oshawa is set to begin next month.