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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

robmausser said:
Do you have a map like this showing Barrie and Stouffville with what double tracking they have as of today? im curious where progress has been left with those projects.
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Here you go.

The only operable double/passing track segments in operation are in green. Blue is areas where there is active track building in progress. You will note that there isn't a lot of passing capacity as yet. 2-way service is limited to hourly by what's there today. The Stouffville line is pretty close to having more capacity (although the leg from Kennedy to Union is problemmatic, thanks to construction). Barrie is just getting going.

- Paul

Barrie Stouffville DT.jpg
 
ShonTron said:
Ah, yeah, I forgot about some of the passing sidings, which were definitively needed to allow the peak service trains to deadhead back before the yard north of Gormley was opened.

For Richmond Hill, yeah, I get how running a train every two hours, when the bus service is minimal to begin with, could make sense. For Milton, though, I'd definitely prefer the frequent bus service than a train that ran less than hourly.
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It depends really. For people that need to travel to Toronto but aren't tied to a specific time period, the speed gained would be a huge help, regardless of how frequent the train is. Say you live near Erindale, and you want to travel downtown. The Milton Line can get you there in 40 mins, meanwhile the 21 takes 70 (from what I can tell - unfortunately GMaps shows vastly different numbers and routes depending on the time of day). With these time savings, a lot of people would gladly plan trips around the schedule of the train. Want to meet up with people and go to a restaurant? Get a reservation 15-20 mins after the train is scheduled to arrive at Union. Its not much, but its workable.
 
crs1026 said:
Here you go.

The only operable double/passing track segments in operation are in green. Blue is areas where there is active track building in progress. You will note that there isn't a lot of passing capacity as yet. 2-way service is limited to hourly by what's there today. The Stouffville line is pretty close to having more capacity (although the leg from Kennedy to Union is problemmatic, thanks to construction). Barrie is just getting going.

- Paul

View attachment 386935
Click to expand...

Thanks for this!

If you ride the Stouffville train between Unionville and Milliken you get to see the active double track section in action as it is used for the NB and SB trains to pass each other for the bidirectional hourly daytime service. In the blue section trains bounce back and forth between future NB and SB tracks, so for parts of the blue section you're on new track, e.g. at Agincourt Station.
 
ShonTron said:
For Milton, though, I'd definitely prefer the frequent bus service than a train that ran less than hourly.
Click to expand...

smallspy said:
So would most people, I'd think. Which is why the weekend service plans for Milton called for at least hourly service.

Of course, they'd happen to be in the same service windows as the weekday service would, so they would be of limited utility. But I guess they - Metrolinx - could at least cheer the fact that more trains were running.

Dan
Click to expand...

What would make the Milton buses more attractive is if they stopped at Kipling instead of Union. Same with Kitchener buses as well. This is why we need fare integration with GO and TTC, so we could rearrange the weekend service without there being any compromises. The long distance intercity buses can keep on using Union's bus terminal along with some GO buses that do make sense as to why they would still go there. When traffic gets back to its busy state and the Gardiner/DVP gets to insufferable levels of traffic again, I think this could be more preferred. We have Kipling, VMC, 407 and maybe Don Mills and STC as possible reroutings, as well as Downsview Park and Long Branch if the city actually allows GO buses to serve Toronto GO stations for once. Most of the buses will get replaced by weekend trains in the future anyways so it really doesn't matter where they go in the end.
 
Allandale25 said:
blog.metrolinx.com

Metrolinx Press Room

Find the latest Metrolinx news, project updates and more.
blog.metrolinx.com
Click to expand...
"Going to great lengths to avoid increasing frequency"

There, fixed it for them.


EDIT: The diagrams in the article are also incorrect. They show the locomotive pulling 4 cars out of the siding and backing them onto a 6-car set. But in fact what happens is that the locomotive takes its first 5 cars with it into the siding to slot those 4 cars between the accessibility car and the cab car. That way the accessibility car remains the 5th back from the locomotive. The text correctly describes this.
 
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reaperexpress said:
"Going to great lengths to avoid increasing frequency"

There, fixed it for them.
Click to expand...

I had the same thought at first, but replacing four-car trains with six-car trains on the Richmond Hill line and six-car trains with eight- and ten-car trains is a significant improvement in capacity, and good signal that GO is preparing to get towards normalcy.

I wish they weren’t so tight-lipped about restoring bus and train trips.
 
smallspy said:
Richmond Hill almost had limited mid-day service in 2019 and again in 2020. A single trainset is all that would be needed to run an every-2-hours schedule from Union to Old Cummer. It's not much, but it's enough to keep buses from having to come downtown, and wouldn't interfere with CN's operations at all.
Click to expand...
smallspy said:
From what I can recall of the plans, it wasn't just the Richmond Hill buses that would connect to the service though.

401 buses would also stop at Oriole Station to connect to the trains - when the trains were running, that is.
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I don't think a 2-hourly midday service from Old Cummer to Union would make any sense. The southern segment of the Richmond Hill line is notoriously slow, so it is only really competitive with the alternatives during peak periods when the DVP is jammed and the Yonge subway is overcrowded. The GO train takes 25 minutes to get from Oriole to Union, which is exactly the same time as the subway from York Mills. Currently half of the 401 GO bus routes go to York Mills, while the other half go to Finch via Sheppard-Yonge, which is 28 minutes from Union.

Even if you incorrectly assume that everyone is going specifically to Union Station you'd still be better off dropping Richmond Hill and 401 East GO bus passengers at York Mills than at Oriole.

Capture0.JPG


Line 1 runs every 4 minutes, so including 0 to 4 minutes waiting and 2 minutes walking between the platorms, it would take 27 to 31 minutes to get to Union after being dropped off at York Mills.
Timed transfers from GO buses to GO trains are scheduled with a 15-minute transfer time to minimise the risk of missing a very infrequent train. So it would take 40 minutes to get to Union after being dropped off at Oriole.

Even though it would take 401 East and Richmond Hill buses 7 minutes longer to drive to York Mills than to Oriole, York Mills would still be 2 to 6 minutes faster for the passengers headed to Union, and much much faster for passengers headed anywhere else. Sure, some passengers might still choose to take the GO train for its superior comfort, but that small benefit definitely wouldn't justify the 5 minute-delay that serving Oriole would incur for 401 East GO bus customers.
 
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ShonTron said:
I wish they weren’t so tight-lipped about restoring bus and train trips.
Click to expand...

This is totally a function of politics. Ml is explicitly forbidden to announce service changes until the Minister has had their kick at photo ops.

Ml is a performing arts company that runs trains and buses on the side. Only Mirvish fills as many seats in Toronto every day.

- Paul
 
They're coming April 2 since they usually start on the Saturday and GO Transit's schedule finder doesn't go past April 1.

I'm expecting them to be posted by the end of the week.
 
Felix An said:
I did not see that! That's perfect! Hopefully that's not an April Fool's prank! :)
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They are still very subtle about it. The schedule changes in 10 days yet they still have nothing on the website as of now. Usually they would give us at least 2-3 weeks in advance if its a big one, but not this time so I'm just hoping they don't do minor changes and technically "troll" us after waiting this long for an answer with the increased service concerns. As of what I think could happen if we get a big update, I already answered to that below.

anb said:
The service changes might come either April 1/2. For then, I'm expecting them to give us August 2021 service, just with Lakeshore being 15 mins all day added on with having some of the previously added Niagara trips, and Routes 41/56 spanning across the 407 corridor being at a 15 min or better combined service.

Express services on LSW and Kitchener are 50/50 right now on making a return but I'm not 100% sure if they would. It’s definitely preferred for the latter because i took the worst train to travel short distance (aka the 4:34PM London train with all stops included and also on a Friday). You basically had 3 different service patterns in 1 overstuffed train which obviously creates chaos. The local/express peak setup worked perfectly fine for what it did with the crowding control.

There also was a mistake they made adding 30 min all day service from Union-Bramalea to the schedules back in November, but i’m sure they’re probably planning to do that later on in the year if things keep going in the direction that we’re in right now. I can say in my own experience that it’s definitely preferred as mid day trips on the line is actually getting rather busy. It will probably continue to get more traffic as more offices open and more students (with more cheaper fares now), get back to school fully in person (and those gas prices add on to a definite reasonable option too).
Click to expand...

They keep on tweeting that they would go back to pre pandemic levels of service, but I think its safe to say they wouldn't do it all at once.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1505982965389606916
 
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