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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

Wow no Stouffville weekend service? Nothing on Barrie?
 
crs1026 said:
CN roadswitchers are able to get from Malport down to Rexdale without conflicting with GO. There are service tracks on the north side and in places on the south side. It's a much more workable setup than the Newmarket Sub, even with all the commuter trains.

The new turnback train is interesting because at rush hour, GO is limited to single direction running due to CN and UPE conflicts and single platform at Etobicoke West. There are two usable tracks as far as Malton, but the second track is idle until midday 2 way service starts. Might as well use it to run a turnback train up to Malton. It's creative, at least.

- Paul
Click to expand...

Helpful clarifying insight. Thanks!
 
crs1026 said:
The new turnback train is interesting because at rush hour, GO is limited to single direction running due to CN and UPE conflicts and single platform at Etobicoke North. There are two usable tracks as far as Malton, but the second track is idle until midday 2 way service starts. Might as well use it to run a turnback train up to Malton. It's creative, at least.

- Paul
Click to expand...

Except for when you factor in deadheads or expresses. They will schedule those on the southern two mains, as then they won't be delaying the much-vaunted UPX trains. (The current 3pm and 3.52pm departures from Mount Pleasant will do this if necessary.)

So this train will deadhead up behind a UPX to Wice, then shift over to the north to continue on to Malton.

Its scheduling just ahead of an existing train isn't really surprising either. GO seems to like to do this when one train has become regularly overcrowded - rather than insert another train on an evenly-spaced headway.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
^ Also helpful insight Dan. Just following up on your comment from a few weeks ago that CN had apparently signed off on more service, would it be safe to assume that Metrolinx decided to hold off until at least the November window for schedule changes because the new government is doing its line by line review?
 
Why is everyone surprise that there is no weekend service on the 2 lines considering its is the only time the contractors can do their work with out stopping for a train???

Every time a train approaches a work area, all work has to stop and that could be close to 10 minute lost time per hours for the 2 trains in off peak on week day.

Just deal with it until tracks are ready for 7 day service. Safety comes first.
 
smallspy said:
Except for when you factor in deadheads or expresses. They will schedule those on the southern two mains, as then they won't be delaying the much-vaunted UPX trains. (The current 3pm and 3.52pm departures from Mount Pleasant will do this if necessary.)

So this train will deadhead up behind a UPX to Wice, then shift over to the north to continue on to Malton.
Click to expand...

Yeah - that's what I was trying to say, even if I said it badly. GO has one track available for the fleet, and only express/following use of the two UPX tracks from Strachan to Wice. From Wice westwards, they have use of two tracks up to Halwest, but without the stub track at Bramalea, that doesn't help them all that much, except to turn back at Malton.

- Paul
 
felix123 said:
I'm just surprised that you're surprised, considering how much you root for the PCs. Isn't this what you wanted?
Click to expand...

Yeah you can stuff it with your assumptions. The PCs have been in power for all of three months. Major improvements to something as major (and ossified) as GO Rail take years. If anything, it's the Liberals' fault again. But at a certain point, Liberal bashing grows wearisome (just as con bashing does).
 
Interesting for the debate above on what the PCs have done, will do, won't do, or it's too early to say is that Metrolinx tweet out today about the Bowmanville Extension and gave the impression it's still happening. That bridge over the 401 won't be cheap...

Scenarios:

1) This tweet was approved by the Minister's office;
2) The Minister's office has given them direction that they can tweet out 'existing projects underway';
3) The Minister's office hasn't given a specific direction on what not to tweet out.

2PeHxh9
 
Neutrino said:
Yeah you can stuff it with your assumptions. The PCs have been in power for all of three months. Major improvements to something as major (and ossified) as GO Rail take years. If anything, it's the Liberals' fault again. But at a certain point, Liberal bashing grows wearisome (just as con bashing does).
Click to expand...
Under the libs, we had a fairly consistent stream of GO related announcements, many of which were kind of hilarious and/or stupid (i.e. SDD holding a press conference re: a new Tim Hortons location at a GO station), but actual service enhancements became a regular feature nevertheless. And, they didn't wait until 6 days before a service change to not announce a change, mainly because their service changes had some substance.

As for making assumptions, maybe check out - oh I don't know - your entire post history? I'm making a point that anyone who wanted GO improvements and who also voted PC is now getting their ass handed to them.
 
^ But to be fair, they also made some mistakes on certain lines. Regular readers here will recall some pointing out they promised (during a press conference) the Kitchener Line 12 coach trains by a certain point in 2017. They also had a communications failure when the HTML highlights package of the 2016 budget promised weekend and evening off-peak service for the Kitchener Line by the end of the fiscal year (March 2017), but the actual budget included the disclaimer it was dependent on discussions with CN.
 
It's early days. We'll see what happens. If the cons screw up transit, I'll be the first to vote against them because I can see beyond partisanship thankfully. You flatter me by keeping such an attentive eye on my posts, Big Brother. Unfortunately, I think you'll find the cons were voted in for many different reasons - not just GO Transit expansion. Which, to be honest, is minor in the grand scheme of things. Not saying I like it, but this thread sometimes lives in a fantasy world where people expect Ontarians to vote as if transit was the only issue under the sun.
 
Was doing some thinking regarding the rumoured 15-min LSE GO service that was believed to be coming this fall. Maybe the reason we didn't see it was because the East Rail Maintenance Facility is delayed, and won't open until this fall anyways.
 
felix123 said:
Under the libs, we had a fairly consistent stream of GO related announcements, many of which were kind of hilarious and/or stupid (i.e. SDD holding a press conference re: a new Tim Hortons location at a GO station), but actual service enhancements became a regular feature nevertheless. And, they didn't wait until 6 days before a service change to not announce a change, mainly because their service changes had some substance.
Click to expand...

Actually, it was the Liberals who destroyed the organized and big-team approach to service improvements, after details of a couple of impending new services (the Niagara GO trains being an example) leaked out (as transit agencies communicated details of the connecting bus services)..... before the Minister could have a photo op. Under the Liberals, service planners for some transit agencies were a) left in the dark and b) made to sign non-disclosure agreements - which prevented them from coordinating timings of connections, etc between properties until the Minister had made their good-news, I-get-the-credit initial announcement. Frequently, this left too little time to adjust the connections, so buses didn't connect with GO trains at first after schedule changes. It was an exercise in vanity and photo op over proper inter-agency collaboration.

The PC's are just new in office and haven't really worked out a protocol. Bowmanville and Niagara were both blessed by Ford back during the campaign, so it's a pretty safe bet for ML to keep plugging on those. If ML has stopped talking about some other things - well, maybe there's a reason, too soon to tell.

- Paul
 
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