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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)


Great article about GO service to Cambridge. Pours some cold water on the Fergus Spur plan as there are some proposed developments on adjacent properties along the rail corridor which will prevent expanded rail use.

Unfortunately, it appears the only future this line has is as a trail since CN wants to abandon it.
 

Great article about GO service to Cambridge. Pours some cold water on the Fergus Spur plan as there are some proposed developments on adjacent properties along the rail corridor which will prevent expanded rail use.

Unfortunately, it appears the only future this line has is as a trail since CN wants to abandon it.
CN is not abandoning that line anytime soon. It's a vey popular for freight. Just because a blogpost says it doesn't mean it will happen.
 
CN is not abandoning that line anytime soon. It's a vey popular for freight. Just because a blogpost says it doesn't mean it will happen.
They are down to one customer in Cambridge with service once per week. That's a lot of track miles and several high maintenance bridges and crossing for very little revenue. CN wants out of the Fergus Spur and the only reason it has stuck around this long is because they are speculating on selling it for GO service. If the Fergus Spur GO plan falls through, the line is done, and as highlighted above, it will be redeveloped, permanently erasing the corridor.

Regardless, the Fergus Spur compares poorly with a Milton Line extension, and any Cambridge to Guelph traffic is much better served by busses.
 
Relevant new article
https://www.therecord.com/news/wate...cle_12961ebf-5bfb-567c-8e2c-93d06bb71747.html

"A study for the preliminary design of a GO connection between Cambridge and Guelph is underway, with an update expected in the spring and a final report next fall, said regional transportation commissioner Mathieu Goetzke."
Well that was fast. The author might be reading this thread...

Great to hear. Hopefully either Metrolinx or Guelph Junction Railway purchases the the Fergus sub. which is confusing because the line no longer goes to Fergus.
 
They are down to one customer in Cambridge with service once per week. That's a lot of track miles and several high maintenance bridges and crossing for very little revenue. CN wants out of the Fergus Spur and the only reason it has stuck around this long is because they are speculating on selling it for GO service. If the Fergus Spur GO plan falls through, the line is done, and as highlighted above, it will be redeveloped, permanently erasing the corridor.

Regardless, the Fergus Spur compares poorly with a Milton Line extension, and any Cambridge to Guelph traffic is much better served by busses.
I don’t see how a Milton extension is better. Not only is CP’s mainline a tough duck to expand service on, it also doesn’t have as many options for local trips or leave much room for service expansion if successful. The number of people going from Cambridge to Milton is low compared to Guelph; perhaps even lower than those going from Cambridge to Toronto.

The Fergus spur is a very lucrative option because it will use track we are already heavily investing in (the Kitchener Line), can serve local trips, and doesn’t require negotiating with CP/CN for anything new. If we can/will run AD2W to Kitchener, but only peak service to Milton, why try to give Cambridge that lower service cap option? We could bake in $billions in expansion work to bring it up to par, or we could just hook the city into a line already at said standard. Not to mention it would be owned by Mx, something that is always a net positive versus not.

I get the implication that the Fergus spur might cost more to fix up than the cost to enable service from Milton onwards, but I think that’s really up in the air at this point. It’s essentially both the more useful and easier option for Cambridge and GO respectively. Maybe if we poured a bunch of money into the Milton Line, it would be a different story.
 
Does this mean that this will be the first GO line that has more than one termini that will see trains not serve all stations of the line depending on the termini?
Something to Cambridge has been a long time coming. Hopefully Next can be an extension to Bradford, either through using the Dundas sub,or the old ROW from Cambridge.
 

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