Northern Light
Superstar
Train crews are employees of Alstom
|
|
|
GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)
- Thread starter drum118
- Start date
Train crews are employees of Alstom
generalcanada
Senior Member
i didnt mention train operators. nonetheless, that does prove my point
crs1026
Superstar
Your point being.... train operators are calling in sick because some other union (that doesn't represent train operators) has received a strike mandate ?????
- Paul
generalcanada
Senior Member
no, trains cant run without dispatchers, maintenance workers. like conductors arent the only people who make sure trains run safely
smallspy
Senior Member
Well, herein lies the rub, doesn't it?
The whole point of contracting out services is, if you listen to the right politicians, to "save money". Less well known is the ability for plausible deniability, and to give the ability to allow for a location to point the blame to when things go wrong. Like right now.
I've used "save money" because there have been a lot of cases over the years where contracting out the operation of various services has not, in fact, saved any money and has actually cost taxpayers in the long run. (Toronto garbage collection, I'm looking in your direction.)
Bombardier, and subsequently Alstom, and managed to keep their costs low - and thus profits high - by paying their staff less. This has resulted in difficulty retaining staff, as once trained they are able to use those skills elsewhere at a higher pay rate. This is not just a job market stealing from one to pay the other, this is far more of a "show me the money" situation. CN, CP and VIA are showing the crews the money.
Now, I'm no "bicycle riding commie pinko" as a brief hockey-coaching baboon* once said, but at the same time I fully realize that if you are going to run a public service that it needs to be reliable to the people using it. And to be reliable, you need to have people. Right now, the service that Alstom is operating is not, and has none. Meanwhile, GO's bus division - which certainly not smelling like roses, with its own potential strike coming - is certainly nowhere close to being in the same boat. Nor is the TTC, nor most of the other transit agencies in the GTA.
Dan
*I humbly apologize to any baboons offended by getting lumped in with said brief hockey-coaching moron.
Krypto98
Active Member
At macmillan we've lost 4 guys that either went to GO or to VIA, 2 locomotive engineers and 2 conductors... yes the pay is probably less at GO but at least they get a schedule a week in advance and not the day of...
Krypto98
Active Member
The thing with GO is... even if you've been a locomotive engineer or conductor for 5 years at CN you still have to be a CSA for 2 years then conductor for 5 years before you are back at the controls again...
Krypto98
Active Member
Just wondering, what's the grade for the weston tunnel and the west toronto tunnel on the weston sub?
smallspy
Senior Member
And in that same time, Alstom has lost a dozen to CN, CP and VIA. Yes, the flows have been both ways, but they've also been predominately out of GO.
That's right, although the minumum for someone to a CSA before they can move up is 1 year.
Whereas once you're in the running trades at GO, you can easily move to be a conductor at CN or CP. And VIA will gladly hire someone who's been in the head end for the minimum 2 year period.
Not quite 2-ish% on both ramps.
Dan
tmlittle
Active Member
This is a good way of looking at things in my opinion. One of the flaws even with "Nu Metrolinx" planning is that, yes, they've moved toward endorsing smaller trains, frequent service, electrification, etc, but the assumption is that this should only be on "core" parts of the network - which still shows a focus of drawing people inward toward Toronto as the driving force. With the Kitchener line in particular, and other lines as well to an extent, you have Toronto, the GTA, then rural Greenbelt lands, then some larger regional centres (Guelph, Kitchener) mixed in with the small towns in their orbit (Breslau, Baden, New Hamburg), then with the London extension it's totally different territory.
There's been a lot of commuter-oriented housing development around Baden and I personally know people who car commute in from there to downtown Kitchener. Transit connections right now are pretty minimal with just a basic GRT rural minibus route that's not particularly fast or frequent.
Looking at Kitchener and Guelph as a strong city pairing, you have two whole yards in Kitchener that could at least theoretically accommodate some smaller trains, that in theory could take the 100% Metrolinx owned track back and forth, and in the future expand more into a regional network centred around Kitchener. Not all of this would need to happen at once, but establishing these kinds of small networks would help make GO more polycentric and less rigidly Toronto oriented and eliminate a lot of the vestigial problems created by the downtown Toronto 9-5 commuter model. If this was done across board with Metrolinx getting a big order of, say, bimode EMU/DMUs or something, you could use them both on the "inner network" and also spread them out to be based in some more outer yards to connect strong city pairings. Kitchener-Guelph can't be the only one.
Bureaucromancer
Active Member
Bear in mind that a Fergus sub Guelph - Cambridge shuttle is precisely the recommendation of the the Cambridge GO feasibility study.
Personally I am strongly of the view that this is the ABSOLUTELY PERFECT use case for a tram train, eliminating southbound transfers at Pinebush. Ideally I’d see this service as battery EMU operated, direct to Galt via Hespeler Rd, with in motion charging on the ION shared portion, stationary charger at the Guelph platform and revision of the Pinebush platform to an island for cross platform transfers to northbound Ion trains. While this is viewed as more or less a GO line in the study (and that might well make sense operationally) I’d really rather see this as an ION line and add a stop at Guelph Ave for Hespeler, and possibly a park and ride just east of Hwy 24.
As far as the Kitchener shuttle goes, I do like the idea, but frankly see Cambridge as having better potential as a stage 1. Stage 2 though... It is definitely something that should be on the table, although I’d really like to see GO running at least 4 TPH into Toronto (if this is actually half hourly express plus half hourly local there’s definitely still room for a true local). I’m inclined to think that it should, at a minimum be extended to Ira Needles (actually, I wonder if the GO trains proper should possibly serve this station - the other things I mention other than Breslau are pretty clearly wholly local) for links to the conceptual Ion Stage 3, and seriously consider adding additional stops between Ira Needle and Central and between Central and Breslau.
Other than that, I’d want to think about additional stops on the west side of Guelph…. Hwy 6 / Silvercreek park and ride on the Fergus line and Elmira Rd on Kitchener?
Personally I am strongly of the view that this is the ABSOLUTELY PERFECT use case for a tram train, eliminating southbound transfers at Pinebush. Ideally I’d see this service as battery EMU operated, direct to Galt via Hespeler Rd, with in motion charging on the ION shared portion, stationary charger at the Guelph platform and revision of the Pinebush platform to an island for cross platform transfers to northbound Ion trains. While this is viewed as more or less a GO line in the study (and that might well make sense operationally) I’d really rather see this as an ION line and add a stop at Guelph Ave for Hespeler, and possibly a park and ride just east of Hwy 24.
As far as the Kitchener shuttle goes, I do like the idea, but frankly see Cambridge as having better potential as a stage 1. Stage 2 though... It is definitely something that should be on the table, although I’d really like to see GO running at least 4 TPH into Toronto (if this is actually half hourly express plus half hourly local there’s definitely still room for a true local). I’m inclined to think that it should, at a minimum be extended to Ira Needles (actually, I wonder if the GO trains proper should possibly serve this station - the other things I mention other than Breslau are pretty clearly wholly local) for links to the conceptual Ion Stage 3, and seriously consider adding additional stops between Ira Needle and Central and between Central and Breslau.
Other than that, I’d want to think about additional stops on the west side of Guelph…. Hwy 6 / Silvercreek park and ride on the Fergus line and Elmira Rd on Kitchener?
Last edited:
Bordercollie
Senior Member
It would require an exemption to run non FRA standard equipment on a heavy rail line and would require any switching moves by CN to be done after hours. That might be a problem.
Also cannot be used by Go to move equipment between the two lines while the LRT is running.
ARG1
Senior Member
If anything, a Guelph-Cambridge Line is the perfect case to implement something akin to the Trillium Line. We can use Battery EMUs if we want, but Diesel-electric Stadler FLIRTs should be just fine, running mostly single tracked.
Bureaucromancer
Active Member
I'd say less current Trillium as such than O-Train day 0 pilot project. It really should be possible to implement a minimal DMU service on Fergus at very little cost.
crs1026
Superstar
The line needs new rail - a point the business case overlooked. (They talked about the need for Class 3 or better track, but didn’t assess what an upgrade to that level would require).(It won’t be cheap).
The difference between upgrading for vanilla GO equipment versus a lighter vehicle probably isn’t that significant, so I would argue for upgrading to GO standard so that all options are open.
When that cost is tabled, the plan may not look so attractive.
- Paul
Last edited: