Bit ranty but In regards to Reece’s video, You’d assume that the closest comparable systems to GO post-electrification would be the systems of Australia and Germany. But station spacing would say otherwise with it staying typical of Loco-hauled North American Commuter services. You could easily halve our station spacing by building infill stations before even thinking bout getting EMU’s. Obviously thinking longterm, GO should be planning to order EMU’s once the necessary stations and infrastructure are built and the existing railcars are getting to retirement age.
(side note GO could lease out Amtrak’s ASC-64’s for relatively cheap as they are planning to replace them by 2030 with the new Siemens fleet as a quick way to electrify our services.)
Station Spacing comparison:
- Melbourne Metro: 450km with 250 stations - 1.8
- Berlin S-Bahn: 350km and 175 stations - 2
- Sydney Trains: 375km and 170 stations - 2.20
- Hamburg S-Bahn:175km and 70 stations - 2.5
- Frankfurt S-Bahn: 300km and 112 stations - 2.67
- Munich S-Bahn: 434km and 150 stations - 2.89
- Septa: 450km, 155 stations - 2.90*
- Metra: 785km and 241 stations - 3.25
- Caltrain: 125km, 31 stations - 4
- Brisbane Cityrail: 750km and 175 stations - 4.28
- LIRR: 512km (1100km) and 126 stations - 4.06 (8.73) - 6.39(av)*
- GO: 550km and 80 stations - 6.87
- MARC: 300km, 42 stations - 7.14
- Metro North: 620km (1275km) and 124 stations - 4.92 (10.28) - 7.6(av)*
- NJ Transit: 1615km, 166 stations - 9.72
- Metrolink: 880km, 67 stations - 13.13
*use both loco hauled and EMU trains in service with a much denser station stop spacing on the lines served by EMU’s*
This is not a relevant assessment of GO's stop spacing, because the video was not suggesting to use EMUs all across the existing network, it was suggesting to use EMUs on some services on the core part of the network in the future.
This entails two key points:
1. Only the core 260 km of the network is being electrified, so obviously that's where EMUs would operate. The stop spacing outside of this area is irrelevant to the tradeoff between Electric locmotives and EMUs.
2. Many new stations are planned within the core network, so by the time the lines are electrified, station spacings will be closer than they are today.
Here are the stop spacings for the core local services in the future network. These are the services which would be the top candidates for EMUs. The remainder of services can happily continue using BiLevels with Electric, Bi-Mode or Diesel locomotives for the forseeable future.
Based on these spacings, it seems that the Bramalea-Unionville local service would be a great candidate to be run by EMUs. So when it inevitably comes time to buy some new trains to accommodate ridership growth and replace old coaches, it would make sense for those new trains to be EMUs. Those new trains could be assigned to that service, and then gradually rolled out to other local services.
Of the 47 inter-station distances in the future core network, 26 are under 5km:
I think we all agree that electric locomotives are a good jumping-off point into electrification, but if GO does not seriously consider EMUs at this point in the design process, they will get locked in to buying new locomotives and coaches indefinitely into the future. This pertains primarily to the design of their maintenance facilities, which have different requirements if EMUs are to be serviced.
Metrolinx did tweet that they decided to only use locomotives instead of EMUs, but that was immediately after OnExpress was selected as the preferred proponent - far too early for them to have actually made a solid decision on that point. I think it is still worth discussing the merits of EMUs, even if they aren't necessarily part of the initial rollout of electrification.