GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[Urban Sky]

Funnily enough Belleville is about the same distance as London is to Toronto. I dreamed of a GO line going to maybe Coburg one day which would honestly be reasonable in the future so to see Belleville or even a long stretch, but Kingston in the mix wouldn't be as surprising anymore. Thankfully there is more than enough decent Via service going to those places and that's all we need for now.

Assuming HFR it might actually make sense IMO. There's a hell of a lot more demand on the Toronto - Kingston corridor than Kingston - Ottawa and Kingston - Montreal. Much as a I keep saying about London, something provincially driven starts to look like a reasonable approach if VIA is focusing on the end to end passengers and on a different corridor at that.

I have to admit that I was about to dismiss the idea as unrealistic, but Newcastle (pop. 10k) and Brighton (pop. 6k) might be stations which could be served by one or two peak-hour GO trains running all-stop (at least East of Oshawa) from Belleville to Toronto, allowing the commuter-hour VIA trains to just stop at Cobourg and Ottawa west of Belleville. However, I don't see GO taking over the Lakeshore service from VIA, as they would either have to serve all the way to Ottawa/Montreal or destroy connectivity between places like Belleville and Cobourg with Ottawa/Montreal...

***

Right, but this service isn't Kitchener-London to be fair. It's London-Toronto, which is where all the (fair skepticism) comes from. If we go to the London Free Press website, people are talking about access to Toronto and not Kitchener. Ancedotal I know, but that's what people are hearing from the market.

Just because a train operates four hour from-end-to-end doesn't mean it can be reasonably useful for intermediary markets and Metrolinx has made very clear that London-Toronto is not the main focus here:

Critics of four-hour London-Toronto GO trip missing big picture: Metrolinx head​

The service about to roll better connects London to other communities, says the head of the southern Ontario mass-transit super-agency overseeing the expansion.
Norman De Bono
Oct 14 2021

[...]

“If you focus constantly on the four-hour journey to Toronto, you’re getting only half the picture. There is a big part of this initiative that is about connecting London to intermediate stations,” Verster said.

That big green passenger rail car will also stop in St. Marys, Stratford, Kitchener and Guelph after departing London, he said.

Just to highlight that you can't just judge a train's utility by looking at the end-to-end travel time, there is ICE 1223, which originates in my birth city of Darmstadt every morning and terminates in Munich 8:21 hours later. However, if you wait some 2 hours longer, you can get to Munich almost 5 hours faster (i.e. in 3:32 hours), because the two cities are just 288 km ("as the crow flies") apart:

Source: Fernbahn.de timetable database


You don't have to take ICE 1223 all the way from Darmstadt to Munich to realize that this certainly isn't its purpose, but with its 22 stops, it serves 230 ([22*21/2]-1) other O-Ds (many of which with highly attractive travel times):

***

The 30 minute counter peak was part of the September updates. I saw quite a few people getting off at bramalea in the morning so I wouldn't be surprised if they made it all day

Not the 11:04 and 12:04 trains, which appeared in the screenshot @nfitz posted (here the previous schedule, effective 2021-09-04, which shows the same trains which the 2021-10-16 he posted showed):

 

[Krypto98]

I compiled the new trips from looking at Go Transit's trip planer and London extension into a schedule. The new trips/extension are dark green

 

[Urban Sky]

I compiled the new trips from looking at Go Transit's trip planer and London extension into a schedule. The new trips/extension are dark green
View attachment 356076
View attachment 356075

But that raises the question why the trains leaving Bramalea at 10:22, 11:22, 12:22, 13:22, 14:22 15:22 and 16:22 or Union at 09:04, 10:04, 11:04, 12:04, 13:04, 14:04 and 15:04 are missing in the official PDF schedule (the one which is valid as of today)...

 

[Haydenpoon]

But that raises the question why the trains leaving Bramalea at 10:22, 11:22, 12:22, 13:22, 14:22 15:22 and 16:22 or Union at 09:04, 10:04, 11:04, 12:04, 13:04, 14:04 and 15:04 are missing in the official PDF schedule (the one which is valid as of today)...

Those extra trip only appears on Oct 18-21 in the trip planner. Weird. Maybe they are running test trains but mistakenly imported them into the trip planner?

 

[Krypto98]

Those extra trip only appears on Oct 18-21 in the trip planner. Weird. Maybe they are running test trains but mistakenly imported them into the trip planner?

Perhaps it's for the New Year Schedule update, which would include the Guelph Speed upgrades as well.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

I have to admit that I was about to dismiss the idea as unrealistic, but Newcastle (pop. 10k) and Brighton (pop. 6k) might be stations which could be served by one or two peak-hour GO trains running all-stop (at least East of Oshawa) from Belleville to Toronto, allowing the commuter-hour VIA trains to just stop at Cobourg and Ottawa west of Belleville. However, I don't see GO taking over the Lakeshore service from VIA, as they would either have to serve all the way to Ottawa/Montreal or destroy connectivity between places like Belleville and Cobourg with Ottawa/Montreal...

***


Just because a train operates four hour from-end-to-end doesn't mean it can be reasonably useful for intermediary markets and Metrolinx has made very clear that London-Toronto is not the main focus here:



Just to highlight that you can't just judge a train's utility by looking at the end-to-end travel time, there is ICE 1223, which originates in my birth city of Darmstadt every morning and terminates in Munich 8:21 hours later. However, if you wait some 2 hours longer, you can get to Munich almost 5 hours faster (i.e. in 3:32 hours), because the two cities are just 288 km ("as the crow flies") apart:
View attachment 356069
Source: Fernbahn.de timetable database


You don't have to take ICE 1223 all the way from Darmstadt to Munich to realize that this certainly isn't its purpose, but with its 22 stops, it serves 230 ([22*21/2]-1) other O-Ds (many of which with highly attractive travel times):
View attachment 356071

***


Not the 11:04 and 12:04 trains, which appeared in the screenshot @nfitz posted (here the previous schedule, effective 2021-09-04, which shows the same trains which the 2021-10-16 he posted showed):
View attachment 356068

I know Phil said that, I saw the prep for the conference prior to it happening. What I amsaying is that there is no guarantee the majority of users will be getting off in Kitchener from London. Most people in London want the connection to Toronto, and at the momement this is too slow. We'll see either way. If Metrolinx wants this to be intermediary focused, it must market it as such.

Nice trips of germany I hope to visit someday.

 

[Krypto98]

I filmed the Guelph - Kitchener Segment from my trip to Kitchener last week.

 

[anb]

Need the other two Brampton stations but thats great. Will change the commute pattern by a lot.

30 min to Mount Pleasant and 60 min to Georgetown would be the dream service to have, even if the latter is far from a TOD, and the former is all about that. I guess we gotta wait until Kitchener gets hourly all day service for that to happen.

Those extra trip only appears on Oct 18-21 in the trip planner. Weird. Maybe they are running test trains but mistakenly imported them into the trip planner?

That’s one thing i did notice. Triplinx, Transit App, and Apple/Google Maps are all telling me different things, but the 30 min service thing is consistent on all of them. It’s unfortunate if this was added too early maybe and we might get the service later on? They were also really low key about it, as the focus is more on the London extension if anything, but i’m 100% sure people would prefer the increased service news more…

 

[Krypto98]

30 min to Mount Pleasant and 60 min to Georgetown would be the dream service to have, even if the latter is far from a TOD, and the former is all about that. I guess we gotta wait until Kitchener gets hourly all day service for that to happen.




That’s one thing i did notice. Triplinx, Transit App, and Apple/Google Maps are all telling me different things, but the 30 min service thing is consistent on all of them. It’s unfortunate if this was added too early maybe and we might get the service later on? They were also really low key about it, as the focus is more on the London extension if anything, but i’m 100% sure people would prefer the increased service news more…

I believe 30 minutes to Mount Pleasant would require extra tracks at Brampton Go

 

[Krypto98]

Quick order-of-magnitude benefits of this new raised speed limit for the 1 mile (1.6 km) zone through Guelph:

1 mile @ 10 mph = 6 minutes
1 mile @ 45 mph = 1.3 minutes

Net time savings: 4.7 minutes

The trains of course need to accelerate from 10 mph to 45 mph within Guelph, but that should approximately cancel out with the time they used to need to accelerate from 10 mph to 45 mph west of Guelph (en route to 70 mph).

Kitchener Station - Guelph Station travel times assuming a conservative 3-minute improvement:
Current: 21 minutes (63.6 km/h average)
December: 18 minutes (74.2 km/h average)
By comparison, Google Maps estimates the car driving time at 29 minutes without traffic.

Once Kitchener Central Station opens (providing easy access to GO trains from across Waterloo Region) and Guelph Station gets its second platform (allowing hourly all-day train service), I expect that GO will capture a sizeable chunk of the Kitchener-Guelph travel market.

A 3-minute improvement would reduce the Kitchener to Toronto travel time to 1h38 for express trains (63 km/h average) and 1h46 for local trains (58 km/h average). We've come a long way from the 2+ hour travel times when the service was first introduced.

__

On a semi-related note, I happened across this description of speed limits on the Guelph Subdivision (London-Georgetown) in a TSB report on a derailment in 2004:


So it sounds like welding the rails would indeed be a prerequisite to getting the Kitchener-London speeds back up to the historical 70 mph (112 km/h), up from the current 30 mph (50 km/h) and 40 mph (64 km/h) speed restrictions.

I did some basic calculations assuming a speed upgrade on the London-Kitchener Segment to an average of 85km/hr and with your calculation for guelph

An upgrade to the London - Kitchener Segment of the line would save at least 45 minutes and maybe an hour depending how fast they can get the tracks to. The potential upgrades at Georgetown could also save another 10 minutes but aren't shown here. the total time would then be 2hr 35 minutes for London-Toronto and 1hr 28 minutes for Kitchener - Toronto.
Also for anyone interested here are the current average speeds for the local stops between Bramalea - Union

 

[nfitz]

But that raises the question why the trains leaving Bramalea at 10:22, 11:22, 12:22, 13:22, 14:22 15:22 and 16:22 or Union at 09:04, 10:04, 11:04, 12:04, 13:04, 14:04 and 15:04 are missing in the official PDF schedule (the one which is valid as of today)...

GO has confirmed the service is only hourly.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1449787079311953922

 

[anb]

GO has confirmed the service is only hourly.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1449787079311953922

So i guess the service is coming soon in a few months because there’s no way they would input the data this early if it wasn’t. Maybe they are saving it for January to start off 2022 or waiting until Malton’s construction finishes as i’m sure they can still run 2 way 30 min trains despite the 401/409 tunnel not complete yet.

 

[Krypto98]

So i guess the service is coming soon in a few months because there’s no way they would input the data this early if it wasn’t. Maybe they are saving it for January to start off 2022 or waiting until Malton’s construction finishes as i’m sure they can still run 2 way 30 min trains despite the 401/409 tunnel not complete yet.

The schedule is also supposed to change in January to reflect the Guelph time savings as well. So likely the 30 minute bramalea mid-day trains will be added then. Plus a few universities such as Ryerson and UofT will be fully in person in January

 

[Krypto98]

So i guess the service is coming soon in a few months because there’s no way they would input the data this early if it wasn’t. Maybe they are saving it for January to start off 2022 or waiting until Malton’s construction finishes as i’m sure they can still run 2 way 30 min trains despite the 401/409 tunnel not complete yet.

At the current moment, trains are switching tracks to the 2 south tracks to/from Etobicoke North at Humberview instead of Nickel. This is because of the platform construction at Weston Go

 

[Allandale25]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1450057825368031234