GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[ShonTron]

Don't forget Amtrak runs highish-speed* trains that are popular and reliable in the BosWash corridor (Northeast Regional/Acela and Keystone and Empire Services), a useful regional network out of Chicago and lots of long-distance trains.

The difference between Amtrak and VIA is that most long-distance trains are still daily and are more useful for people who live along the line. Amtrak is better funded as well. Yes, there are sleeper trains (I've been on two: the Empire Builder and The City of New Orleans) but it's a bit more basic level of service (though great nevertheless) with modern equipment compared to VIA's 1950s cars. VIA now runs 2 or 3 times a week on its long-distance trains, they have to market to tourists to survive.

Blame Mulroney, Chretien (but more so Paul Martin, he hated VIA Rail) and Harper for starving the beast.

 

[gweed123]

High Speed Rail does not fit VIA's brand image. Citing some examples:

I wholly expect VIA rail to give me an excellent cross-country travel experience when I'm on vacation and want to go on expedition and see some Canadian wilderness from the comfort of the panorama car. It's essentially a cruise line on rails. Good luck trying to modernize VIA into a modern intercity rail carrier, it's overloaded with nostalgia. I do not expect VIA to get me anywhere on-time; I may as well take Porter or Greyhound or rent a Dodge Charger for the weekend.

VIA's focus has shifted away from the destination and more on the journey. I'd pin this just as much on lack of federal funding driving up ticket prices as much as VIA's notoriously unreliable and infrequent scheduling, as much as VIA's lack of vision.

VIA's goals of being a more comfortable and more human way to travel run counter to providing frequent, fast, reliable service and as such, VIA should be the last corporation to be running HSR service. Give the regional stuff to GO in Ontario, AMT in Quebec, Translink in BC, ect as provincially-run agencies and let VIA keep their Canadian hinterland journey service that has no chance of competing with air travel. Set up a new inter-provincial agency to run HSR service in The Corridor.

But there's no reason why the introduction of HSR has to change any of that. The Canadian and The Ocean (and other long distance routes) would stay the exact same as they are today. When I was in university and I was going home for a weekend, I almost always took VIA. I took it because it was more comfortable than a bus, and it was less expensive than flying. If VIA had a way to change that trip from 4hrs and change to 2hrs and change, while still keeping the same comfort, price, and service level, it would have been even more of a no-brainer to take VIA. I'd also like to point out that VIA has introduced express trains on the T-O-M corridor, so clearly for some passengers a faster trip is important.

Business people by and large take VIA because they can go from downtown Toronto office to downtown Montreal office directly, without any security checks or anything. They also have on-board wifi and their cellphone works the entire time, allowing them to keep working on the train. If that trip was reduced to 2.5hrs and change, I don't think flying between the two would be the preferred choice for almost anybody.

For the T-O-M route, VIA could easily change their slogan from "The more human way to travel" to "Fast. Comfortable. Human." and still be offering the exact same type of service they currently do, only in less time.

You find it more believable that Wynne and Trudeau cooked up a secret way to roll out HSR........and Wynne, fighting for her political life, agreed with this instruction from Justin "you use the election to roll out just one part of it, the part that makes the least sense, as a stand alone stretch of HSR......and you are not to defend it by saying 'the federal liberals will fix it by announcing the good parts next year' "

i don't think so, i think the L-KW-P-U HSR was, simply, crass politics buying votes in London and KW....simple as that.....and that is how it makes sense.

That's a perfectly reasonable explanation as well. I'm just saying, I really think there's more to this HSR plan than just the Toronto-London corridor. I think at the Federal level the Liberals are very worried about giving Harper any ammunition for pre-election attack ads. It's not just transit they're holding their cards close to their chest on, it's pretty much everything. That's not because they don't have a plan, it's because they don't want to give the CPC Attack Ad Machine any ammunition if they don't need to. I mean, just look at what the CPC has done with a relatively trivial issue like legalizing pot. You'd think Justin was personally advocating for eating babies or something with the types of attacks the Liberals have had against them. Release your position on an issue too early, and without a concerted campaign to fully explain it, you open yourself to someone else framing it and explaining it for you, and probably not in the way you intended it to be.

 

[dowlingm]

Amtrak and VIA have similar mandates but different in practice, starting with Amtrak's legislative footing (49 US Code Part C) whereas VIA Rail exists as a mere decision of government, an Order in Council. The other difference is that US Republicans tend not to crap on the LD trains through the Heartland States (even they are money sinkholes) whereas a recently ex-MP/Minister/BC Tory crapped on VIA even with the Canadian running through his former (and his son's current!) riding two years ago.

 

[1overcosc]

High Speed Rail does not fit VIA's brand image. Citing some examples:

I wholly expect VIA rail to give me an excellent cross-country travel experience when I'm on vacation and want to go on expedition and see some Canadian wilderness from the comfort of the panorama car. It's essentially a cruise line on rails. Good luck trying to modernize VIA into a modern intercity rail carrier, it's overloaded with nostalgia. I do not expect VIA to get me anywhere on-time; I may as well take Porter or Greyhound or rent a Dodge Charger for the weekend.

VIA's focus has shifted away from the destination and more on the journey. I'd pin this just as much on lack of federal funding driving up ticket prices as much as VIA's notoriously unreliable and infrequent scheduling, as much as VIA's lack of vision.

VIA's goals of being a more comfortable and more human way to travel run counter to providing frequent, fast, reliable service and as such, VIA should be the last corporation to be running HSR service. Give the regional stuff to GO in Ontario, AMT in Quebec, Translink in BC, ect as provincially-run agencies and let VIA keep their Canadian hinterland journey service that has no chance of competing with air travel. Set up a new inter-provincial agency to run HSR service in The Corridor.

Exaggeration much? VIA provides very good intercity service between Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa, and Montreal. It's frequent (bihourly), affordable, fast and it's almost always on time. I'm a regular, I've taken VIA dozens of times in the past 5 years and only once has it ever been more than 10 minutes late. For travel between Kingston and Ottawa it is by a huge margin the best option as Greyhound sucks horribly in that corridor (only 1 bus a day during the week, stops by the highway in Ottawa as opposed to VIA which stops right on the transitway).

That statement of yours may have been true 15 years ago, but it's nowhere near the case today. There's been huge investments in speed and reliability over the past few years... Over a billion dollars spent on improvements between 2009 and 2012 alone. And fares haven't gone up, they've simply switched over from the fixed price-per-km model to a more modern yield management model (the ones the airlines use). Fares are now variable depending on what time of day you travel & how far in advance you book. I recently got a ticket from Ottawa to Toronto for $39. That was never possible in the old days.

 

[dunkalunk]

Exaggeration much? VIA provides very good intercity service between Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa, and Montreal. It's frequent (bihourly), affordable, fast and it's almost always on time. I'm a regular, I've taken VIA dozens of times in the past 5 years and only once has it ever been more than 10 minutes late. For travel between Kingston and Ottawa it is by a huge margin the best option as Greyhound sucks horribly in that corridor (only 1 bus a day during the week, stops by the highway in Ottawa as opposed to VIA which stops right on the transitway).

That statement of yours may have been true 15 years ago, but it's nowhere near the case today. There's been huge investments in speed and reliability over the past few years... Over a billion dollars spent on improvements between 2009 and 2012 alone. And fares haven't gone up, they've simply switched over from the fixed price-per-km model to a more modern yield management model (the ones the airlines use). Fares are now variable depending on what time of day you travel & how far in advance you book. I recently got a ticket from Ottawa to Toronto for $39. That was never possible in the old days.

Try taking a VIA train anywhere west of Toronto and talk to me again. My experience of VIA is out of Kitchener where service cut after service cut has made VIA unreasonable. The Toronto-Montreal corridor is VIA's bread and butter, everything else has been stuck by the wayside waiting for freight.

 

[timio]

Try taking a VIA train anywhere west of Toronto and talk to me again. My experience of VIA is out of Kitchener where service cut after service cut has made VIA unreasonable. The Toronto-Montreal corridor is VIA's bread and butter, everything else has been stuck by the wayside waiting for freight.

I've picked up passengers in Sarnia a fair number of times and the train is typically 30-40 minutes late in arriving in my experience. Too much priority given to non-Via routes in these areas so the VIA trains are stuck on sidings while the freight passes. CTC might make things a bit better, but only time will tell.

 

[Jonny5]

Do GO Train engineers/staff not understand that the operations booth in the cab car is not soundproof?

I was on a Toronto bound trip on Lakeshore West on Thursday, so I was surprised anyone was even in there. The man was talking on his cellphone to someone complaining about other staff at what I guess is the dispatch office. "F***" was about 50% of his vocabulary. He also mentioned he was recently asked to move a train with a fuel leak, which he thought was extremely dangerous, and he said his concerns were ignored. He then joked there was a 1 in 10 chance the train would have exploded and vapourized a platform of passengers.

Probably hyperbole, but I don't think that's something passengers want to hear.

 

[Jonny5]

On another note - Lakeshore West carried insane passenger loads yesterday. I had to travel from Clarkson to Eglinton. At Clarkson the lineup for the ticket machine stretched 200 metres into the parking lot. The actual ticket booth sellers were overwhelmed. Thankfully I had a Presto card with cash loaded. The people in line looked at me like I was conducting witchcraft when I tapped on and passed them all. Though I blame part of this lineup scenario on the very poor design of the new ticket vending machines which require you to spell out the name of your destination. 99% want a return to Union, so just add that to the home screen menu!

The trains were crush loaded. Even the upper decks were full of standees. People were left behind at Port Credit. Everyone was left behind at Mimico. I guess with a Jays game, TFC game, The Ex, and the Fan Expo, it was a confluence of events to crush everyone in during a short time window. However even the normally sleepy late night return trip I took from Eglinton to Clarkson was inundated at the Ex. Lakeshore looks to be subsidizing the annual operating costs of all other lines combined.

 

[nfitz]

Yeah, I noticed it was hugely busy on Saturday - I've never seen so many standing heading west at Danforth on a weekend. Normally this weekend they run extra Lakeshore trains (until 2012). But I guess they thought that was unnecessary with the 30-minute service. I don't recall it being this bad last year on this weekend, but perhaps there was no Jays game as well.

 

[TOareaFan]

On another note - Lakeshore West carried insane passenger loads yesterday. I had to travel from Clarkson to Eglinton. At Clarkson the lineup for the ticket machine stretched 200 metres into the parking lot. The actual ticket booth sellers were overwhelmed. Thankfully I had a Presto card with cash loaded. The people in line looked at me like I was conducting witchcraft when I tapped on and passed them all. Though I blame part of this lineup scenario on the very poor design of the new ticket vending machines which require you to spell out the name of your destination. 99% want a return to Union, so just add that to the home screen menu!

The trains were crush loaded. Even the upper decks were full of standees. People were left behind at Port Credit. Everyone was left behind at Mimico. I guess with a Jays game, TFC game, The Ex, and the Fan Expo, it was a confluence of events to crush everyone in during a short time window. However even the normally sleepy late night return trip I took from Eglinton to Clarkson was inundated at the Ex.

I was on the train on Saturday too and yes, going and coming was very busy and it was a good day for GO to see how impactful they can be on special event days. That said, I think your impression of how full it was depends on where you sat. For example, my wife and I caught the second train westbound after the end of the TFC match there were lots of people, yes, loading onto the train (took about 5 minutes from train arrival to departure).....but our car was sparsely populated. She and I (as every other couple on our car did) shared a block of 4 seats between us and no one stood....we were on the lower level of the most westerly car of a 12 car train......at stops like Exhibition they really need to find a way to even out where people stand waiting for the train to even that out.

Lakeshore looks to be subsidizing the annual operating costs of all other lines combined.

That is a bizarre conclusion....since no other line has off peak service, no other line has (for example) 11 pm trains on a tuesday in November where nothing is going on.....so no other line has trains that are running at 10% occupancy, ever. The non-lakeshore lines run all their trains at, near or over capacity.

What great days like yesterday do is help subsidize the rest of the off peak service.....which is only an issue on Lakeshore......and days like yesterday are included in the occasional release of "average usage" that GO/ML release and what was the last one of those....350 or so passengers per off peak train?

That aside, as I got to my car at Long Branch yesterday I was curious as to where people came from to the station. From my drivers seat before I pulled out of my parking spot I looked around....may just be a curious coincident but every car that I could see easily that had a dealership identifier on it had been purchased from a dealer in areas served by other GO lines (Meadowvale, Georgetown, Brampton, Rexdale).....so, in part, any subsidy that days like yesterday provide to the off peak Lakeshore service is coming from people who would be better served by service improvements elsewhere.

 

[innsertnamehere]

The off peak stouffville trains probably run close to 10% capacity, but yes. The only reason they run is because they couldn't handle the demand with buses at that point, they probably have ~200 people on them on average, once they end at unionville 3-4 buses take the passengers further on.

 

[TOareaFan]

The off peak stouffville trains probably run close to 10% capacity, but yes. The only reason they run is because they couldn't handle the demand with buses at that point, they probably have ~200 people on them on average.

Didn't know that Stouffeville had off peak trains. The only train that runs anywhere near that level on the KW line is the very bizarre (as in not sure what its purpose is) 9:40 a.m. departure from Bramalea....it is an orphaned train with no obvious purpose without a full schedule around it.

All that said, when the 30 minute off peak service on Lakeshore(s) was introduced, the cost (in terms of annual increase to subsidy) was described at $7 million a year. If great days like yesterday help reduce that (although we have no idea what MLSE paid for the free ride home yesterday) then that is great but reducing the annual subsidy of the Lakeshore 30 minute service is a far (very far) distance away from "Lakeshore looks to be subsidizing the annual operating costs of all other lines combined." which is what I was responding to

 

[gweed123]

On another note - Lakeshore West carried insane passenger loads yesterday. I had to travel from Clarkson to Eglinton. At Clarkson the lineup for the ticket machine stretched 200 metres into the parking lot. The actual ticket booth sellers were overwhelmed. Thankfully I had a Presto card with cash loaded. The people in line looked at me like I was conducting witchcraft when I tapped on and passed them all. Though I blame part of this lineup scenario on the very poor design of the new ticket vending machines which require you to spell out the name of your destination. 99% want a return to Union, so just add that to the home screen menu!

The trains were crush loaded. Even the upper decks were full of standees. People were left behind at Port Credit. Everyone was left behind at Mimico. I guess with a Jays game, TFC game, The Ex, and the Fan Expo, it was a confluence of events to crush everyone in during a short time window. However even the normally sleepy late night return trip I took from Eglinton to Clarkson was inundated at the Ex. Lakeshore looks to be subsidizing the annual operating costs of all other lines combined.

The UI on the ticket vending machines is absolutely awful. Even if you know exactly what you want, it takes probably a minute to go through the entire sequence, when it should be about 15-20 seconds. It really needs a redesign.

And yes, I've had quite a few near crush load experiences on Lakeshore West recently. I purposely avoid the first train out after a weekend Jays game, because it's usually standing room only (even in the last car).

The off peak stouffville trains probably run close to 10% capacity, but yes. The only reason they run is because they couldn't handle the demand with buses at that point, they probably have ~200 people on them on average, once they end at unionville 3-4 buses take the passengers further on.

Honest question: At what load does a GO bus trip actually turn a profit? Just curious if it's a money-loser no matter what, or if break-even is every seat is filled or something like that.

RE People from other lines using Lakeshore: Anecdotally, I can say that this is true, especially for stations like Clarkson and Port Credit. Just last weekend I met up with some friends at the Jays game, all of whom are from Brampton, who drove to Port Credit and took the train from there instead of taking the GO bus from Brampton, because the drive + train was both faster and cheaper.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Stouffville has 2 off peak trains in the afternoon and 1 in the morning, morning is a 9:15 departure from unionville and afternoons are 2:18 and 3:18 from union, with regular peak service starting at 4:18.

Stouffville runs a very, very busy off peak bus service, possibly because the entire line is served by a single bus trip. (Well, unionville and north, stations in Toronto don't get off peak service) buses run every 30 minutes and often have an express tier system during busier times with a bus serving Markham, Mount Joy, and Stouffville, and another serving Centennial and Unionville, as a single bus cannot handle the passenger loads. They run every 30 minutes almost all day long.

The 1:20 union arrival (11:40 Uxbridge departure) bus would routinely be standing room only (4-5 passengers standing after unionville) until they switched it to the 2 bus express system earlier this year. Its a busy line, and has a pretty strong case for off peak train service IMO.

 

[TOareaFan]

Stouffville has 2 off peak trains in the afternoon and 1 in the morning, morning is a 9:15 departure from unionville and afternoons are 2:18 and 3:18 from union, with regular peak service starting at 4:18.

Stouffville runs a very, very busy off peak bus service, possibly because the entire line is served by a single bus trip. (Well, unionville and north, stations in Toronto don't get off peak service) buses run every 30 minutes and often have an express tier system during busier times with a bus serving Markham, Mount Joy, and Stouffville, and another serving Centennial and Unionville, as a single bus cannot handle the passenger loads. They run every 30 minutes almost all day long.

The 1:20 union arrival (11:40 Uxbridge departure) bus would routinely be standing room only (4-5 passengers standing after unionville) until they switched it to the 2 bus express system earlier this year. Its a busy line, and has a pretty strong case for off peak train service IMO.

I happen to think that all lines should have, on minimum, hourly off peak trains...this was not meant to open that debate again. I just take offence to the notion that busy days like yesterday on the Lakeshore line are subsidizing the annual operating costs of all other lines.