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GO Transit Electrification | Metrolinx

ssiguy2 said:
You cannot compare GO commuter with RER because they serve totally different demographics.

Commuter rail serves ABLE BODIED worker going to the office and back and that's it. RER is for off peak service where you have many more seniors, disabled persons, cyclists, parents with strollers, students with huge knapsacks, and people carrying their huge shopping bags. This brings the entry/exit loading areas to a crawl as everyone tries to negotiate around these people. Also because RER is not just a one destination service you will get many people who are going short distances and hence will linger at the entry. This is much like subways where there maybe seats available but people will just stand near the exit if they are only going a few stations.

People using RER will be a completely different demographic than those using commuter rail and this should be reflected in the trains that serve them.
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One disadvantage of RER are the people that prefer buses more than trains. There will be no needed for any buses on corridors like Kitchener, Stouffville and Barrie between their RER segment and there will be more people using go buses to secondary hubs such as york mills, 407 or finch
 
anb said:
One disadvantage of RER are the people that prefer buses more than trains. There will be no needed for any buses on corridors like Kitchener, Stouffville and Barrie between their RER segment and there will be more people using go buses to secondary hubs such as york mills, 407 or finch
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How many people actually prefer buses over trains though?
 
ARG1 said:
How many people actually prefer buses over trains though?
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It depends on the route. The 16 Hamilton Express would be much better than the 2 hour long train ride.

The 25 Waterloo-Mississauga bus stops in many places the Kitchener Line would bypass plus the bus gets you right to Square One instead of the train stopping in Brampton and one would have to take a bus to the HuLRT (cause Brampton is a dumb town). I doubt they would get rid of this route. It makes commuting from University of Waterloo to Square One much more difficult with the train.
 
Steve X said:
It depends on the route. The 16 Hamilton Express would be much better than the 2 hour long train ride.

The 25 Waterloo-Mississauga bus stops in many places the Kitchener Line would bypass plus the bus gets you right to Square One instead of the train stopping in Brampton and one would have to take a bus to the HuLRT (cause Brampton is a dumb town). I doubt they would get rid of this route. It makes commuting from University of Waterloo to Square One much more difficult with the train.
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Since when is a ride from Hamilton 2 hrs? The schedule says 1 hr 20 minutes, and that's a local trip. If I recall express trips did exist from Hamilton.

The 25 does not serve the Kitchener line, it is a Milton line bus. It's also basically a student bus at this point.

Most people that take the 25 today would very much rather take the Kitchener line if it ran reverse peak trips.
 
Steve X said:
It depends on the route. The 16 Hamilton Express would be much better than the 2 hour long train ride.
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The post GO Expansion train from Union to West Harbour is not a 2 hour trip; it should be a little under 60 minutes. That time ought to be more consistent from day-to-day than the highway too.

Today's West Harbour/Hamilton trains aren't scheduled 2 hours to Union either, closer to 80 minutes.
 
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Streety McCarface said:
Since when is a ride from Hamilton 2 hrs? The schedule says 1 hr 20 minutes, and that's a local trip. If I recall express trips did exist from Hamilton.

The 25 does not serve the Kitchener line, it is a Milton line bus. It's also basically a student bus at this point.

Most people that take the 25 today would very much rather take the Kitchener line if it ran reverse peak trips.
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Sometimes the journey could take 1:35 or even 1:50. It all depends on whats going on in the corridor at that time and if you were to take a too early or too late train to connect to the 18 as right now its every hour while the train is every 15-30

The 25 does serve the Kitchener line at Kitchener GO technically but even then the stop it serves near the station would change when the Kitchener Downtown Hub opens. And i wish the 30 would run on weekends so that meadowvale, brampton and vaughan (via connection to 407 station from bramalea), could be served 7 days a week instead of forcing these residents and/or workers to detour to square one instead
 
Kraylin said:
You have to love the habit some people have of just making up facts to suit their narrative.
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Would you care to point out which facts you find to be contrived? Would you care to offer better established facts as rebuttal? Your point?

You have to love the habit some people have of just throwing out jabs to suit their mood.

As the Python fellow once said - look, I came here for an argument :)

- Paul
 
Just to add to the Siemens hydrogen train development........

The Province of Groningen Netherlands has completed it's 6 month trial of the Alstom Hydrogen train with it's full report. It stated that the train passed all safety and operational requirements and no problem with the train or it's operations had happened. The authority clearly stated that hydrogen is a viable option for all diesel train replacements. It also found that refuelling was easier and quicker than anticipated and the drivers stated that the trains were comfortable and easy to operate. It kept to all performance expectation and timetables for both commuter and express services. The full report is available at www.railway-news.com for news day Oct 2/20.
 
Re: electrification and the work that might need to happen on lines for you guys when/if the project goes ahead.... we've seen some standards shift recently re: clearances to plan for the eventual introduction of double-stacked freighters into the port of Melbourne.

Much of the freight networks in Toronto have double-stacked freight trains, no? Anyhow, food for thought with some pics in this article and what's required in clearances for OHLE.

Anyhow, the stuff in the first part of the article is for electrification (we run 1.5kv DC... with new sections going up to 3kv - as far as I know, AC overhead requires bigger clearances).

wongm.com

Why are Melbourne railway footbridges so high? - Waking up in Geelong

You might have noticed something about Melbourne's railway station footbridges - they are bloody high, with long ramps and stairs leading up to them. So why do they need to be so high above the tracks?
wongm.com
 
2 more very interesting developments on the hydrogen train front in the last week:

First, Britain has begun testing it's new HydroFlex hydrogen trains on commercial routes. They hope the trains will lead to a complete de-carbonization of the entire British rail network. These are actually refurbished 1987 passenger trains and what makes these trains very unique is that they will be able to seamlessly transfer and take power on to both catenary AND 3rd rail lines making them accessible to most track in the UK.

Second, Japan's Toyota and Hitachi have announced plans to develop a hydrogen-battery dual mode train where they can run on one or the other.

What makes this very interesting is that they both open the door to running something that was not thought possible................underground hydrogen trains. This is essentially how bus tunnels came into being like in Seattle. They were not really feasible much before hand due to not having enough battery power and hence would have to drive thru the tunnel on diesel which produces both fumes and would be working with a combustible element underground and all the safety concerns it raises. It wasn't until battery technology advanced enough that the buses could switch over to battery seamlessly for the tunnelled route eliminating fumes and effectively turning the diesel ICE off when underground. These new trains allow for safe, emissions free battery power underground by being able to turn off the hydrogen.
 
^ I agree. Where this is relevant is for short tunnels or underground stations that maybe built in the future. As an example, if they ever decide to properly align the GO corridor with Bloor/Dundas West they could have a short tunnel using hydrogen. It would also mean that hydrogen under the new Underpass Park would not be an issue and nor would a potential new station there.
 
Surely you could do the same with a diesel hybrid with batteries. I just feel like hydrogen is a solution in search of a problem. If fuel costs the same as diesel and the capital cost is much higher, it is only justified on emissions grounds. In that case it needs to go to a proper BCR calculation vs other investments to reduce emissions. At least electrification has lower energy cost to help justify the investment.
 
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