GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[mdrejhon]

According to the Greater Region website, express service is still the plan.

Yup:

"**Express service will be offered between Oakville and Union Station."

The timeline may be up in the air obviously (e.g. slower spending) even if the ship continues sailing forward (ever slowly) with delayed dates thanks to politics. Agree it'll happen, just a naturally hairpulling question of "when".

On that topic, I was trying to math things out...
(not as well as reaperexpress can do, mind you):

One hour to Hamilton may be doable. Today's Lakeshore West "express that skips Clarkson" tends to take approximately ~55min from Union to Aldershot when skipping Clarkson. With a few additional optimizations including USRC, etc, doing ~50min may be reliably possible (GO pads their schedules quite a fair bit). In addition to activating the extra track over Desjardins Canal and hopefully the speeds a bit past Aldershot (in theory) thanks to new track -- this may make Union-Hamilton a lot closer to a more tolerable "hour" rather than today's "1h15min" (which recently shrunk slightly, 1h12min including Clarkson stop)

This will produce service speed roughly equal to Hamilton 16 Express Bus average time, if some trains are replacing some buses during future allday GO trains. 16 can take as little as 45-50min offpeak (like late evening off-event) but that happens a lot more rarely due to offpeak traffic (small bits of random traffic, events, long weekends, accidents, etc) and almost always averages roughly an hour or more no matter what part of the day. Minor optimizations to Lakeshore West will potentially be able create a competitive "hour-ish" even with an Oakville express.

I've already seen late peak trains catch up schedules and make it Toronto-Hamilton in approximately 1h09min (ish) despite stopping at Clarkson. So shaving off 9 more minutes by skipping Clarkson and other optimizations under way, probably could make the "1 hour" possible.

Reaperexpress could have lots of fun analyzing this, perhaps: Can the hourly train reliably be timetabled to be just 1 hour Union-Hamilton for "express to Oakville, allstop after"? Assuming pre-existing ongoing corridor optimization completed (Bridge replacements, new Burloak grade separation, USRC resignal, Desjardins complete, Oakville RTC open, etc)?

Many Hamiltonians prefer using the 16 bus because in the best case, it's half an hour faster (45min versus 1h15min). The train's ability to happily replace every other 16 Express Bus, is hugely dependent on not being reputationally slower than the bus. Shattering the hour barrier for would solve this.

 

[nfitz]

According to the Greater Region website, express service is still the plan.

According to that website, the Sheppard East LRT is still there! http://www.metrolinx.com/en/greaterregion/projects/Default.aspx

Presumably there are some post-Ford edits pending!

 

[Sandpit]

According to that website, the Sheppard East LRT is still there! http://www.metrolinx.com/en/greaterregion/projects/Default.aspx

Presumably there are some post-Ford edits pending!

View attachment 160049

The map for "Viva Rapidways" is still all wrong, months after we discussed this on UT. Guess they never noticed and no one told them.

 

[mdrejhon]

Throwback Thursday time.

Fifty years ago.
September 25th, 1968.
Canada celebrated their Centennial last year.
GO trains on Lakeshore just started last year.

GO Barrie/GO Richmond Hill/GO Georgetown was still a distant dream.
There were car windshield stickers on 60s Chevys and Fords, reading "GO North" to advocate for the first north-south GO route.

 

[Leo_Chan]

The map for "Viva Rapidways" is still all wrong, months after we discussed this on UT. Guess they never noticed and no one told them.

I just got a reply about this on Twitter.

 

[reaperexpress]

The whole point of this trip is to try and off-load some of the demand of that following trip. This is how GO tries to deal with crowding conditions, rather than improve/reduce the headway between trips in an even - and potentially clockface - fashion.

If you look around GO's many timetables, you will find almost literally hundreds of examples of this kind of thing.

I'm familiar with the practice, the old Maple-Union AM trips come to mind. What's surprising to me is that the 9:13 arrival into Union would need relief rather than the 8:50 arrival. The 8:50 train has a a 43-minute headway west of Georgetown and a 30-minute headway east of Georgetown, compared to a 23-minute headway for the entire length of the 9:13 arrival. My impression was also that the 8:20-8:50 arrivals into Union tend to be busier than the 8:50-9:20 arrivals.

If the late-AM Kitchener Line trains are in fact quite busy, then that would support extending the 9:53 arrival to Kitchener, replacing the current Kitchener-Bramalea bus trip which gets stuck in traffic. Since Kitchener Yard can only store 4 trains*, another Kitchener trip would need to be sacrificed, but I think that's fine because replacing the 5:24 train with a bus actually speeds up the trip despite the added transfer because there's no traffic at 5:30 in the morning.

*the east Kitchener Yard can store 4 trains and the west Kitchener yard can store an additional 2 trains, but the west yard is supposed to be temporary so I'm assuming only 4 trains can be stored in Kitchener.

 

[chinesehorse]

Kind of off topic, but I couldn't find a better thread to ask this question. According to this Metrolinx blog post featuring a former GO Transit employee who worked on creating the bilevels, "the trains actually had blue paint when they first rolled out onto the rails, more than 50 years ago."

Wondering if there are any photos of blue GO Transit railcars.

 

[Richard White]

Kind of off topic, but I couldn't find a better thread to ask this question. According to this Metrolinx blog post featuring a former GO Transit employee who worked on creating the bilevels, "the trains actually had blue paint when they first rolled out onto the rails, more than 50 years ago."

Wondering if there are any photos of blue GO Transit railcars.

This makes sense really as John Robarts was in power then. The PCs were in the midst of a dynasty that lasted nearly 45 years. My guess is they didn't want to brand the trains any colour that could tie them to the party should the experiment go badly.

 

[crs1026]

Kind of off topic, but I couldn't find a better thread to ask this question. According to this Metrolinx blog post featuring a former GO Transit employee who worked on creating the bilevels, "the trains actually had blue paint when they first rolled out onto the rails, more than 50 years ago."

Wondering if there are any photos of blue GO Transit railcars.

I haven't seen the exact text of this gentleman's statements, but I believe it may have been mangled a little in the journalists' telling. He may be referring to the original GP40TC locomotives, which did roll out as blue in late 1966. By 1974, they were being repainted into green, and at that same time the newer GP40 locomotives (some bought second hand, and some bought new) were appearing in green, as were the new APCU units. The bilevel cars didn't arrive until what- 1978, iirc - and all the published photos of these cars - even the prototype factory photos - appear to show green. Given this chronology, I'm doubtful that there was ever a move to paint the GO fleet blue. Nor does it seem likely that any of the original single level GO coaches would have been painted blue, as they were aluminum and paint of any shade, green or otherwise, was never an option for these either.

It's not uncommon for a single railcar to be painted in a trial scheme - perhaps even only on one side - for "real life" consideration. Such schemes don't necessarily ever get into revenue service....VIA has a number of examples of this in its history. The CN noodle scheme had test versions also. Perhaps one of the early bilevels got this treatment, and it got nixed. But I have never seen a photo of such a car, and the new fleet certainly was photographed intensively by enthusiasts and by industry/GO insiders. Given the groundbreaking design, there were lots of publicity photos of the first cars circulated, many taken right at the factory. I'm sure if such a photo exists, it would have made the rounds at the time or more recently. Can't say with 100% certainty, but it strikes me as highly unlikely given everything I have heard from other oldtimers. (I may ask further next time I'm in their company).

But certainly, how the original GP40TC's got to be blue must be an interesting bit of history.

- Paul

 

[reaperexpress]

I haven't seen the exact text of this gentleman's statements, but I believe it may have been mangled a little in the journalists' telling. He may be referring to the original GP40TC locomotives, which did roll out as blue in late 1966. By 1974, they were being repainted into green, and at that same time the newer GP40 locomotives (some bought second hand, and some bought new) were appearing in green, as were the new APCU units. The bilevel cars didn't arrive until what- 1978, iirc - and all the published photos of these cars - even the prototype factory photos - appear to show green. Given this chronology, I'm doubtful that there was ever a move to paint the GO fleet blue. Nor does it seem likely that any of the original single level GO coaches would have been painted blue, as they were aluminum and paint of any shade, green or otherwise, was never an option for these either.

It's not uncommon for a single railcar to be painted in a trial scheme - perhaps even only on one side - for "real life" consideration. Such schemes don't necessarily ever get into revenue service....VIA has a number of examples of this in its history. The CN noodle scheme had test versions also. Perhaps one of the early bilevels got this treatment, and it got nixed. But I have never seen a photo of such a car, and the new fleet certainly was photographed intensively by enthusiasts and by industry/GO insiders. Given the groundbreaking design, there were lots of publicity photos of the first cars circulated, many taken right at the factory. I'm sure if such a photo exists, it would have made the rounds at the time or more recently. Can't say with 100% certainty, but it strikes me as highly unlikely given everything I have heard from other oldtimers. (I may ask further next time I'm in their company).

But certainly, how the original GP40TC's got to be blue must be an interesting bit of history.

Yes the reporter has clearly mixed up two different statements. Like you said, there were no BiLevels in 1966, the blue trains he's talking about were the GP40 locomotives.

from CPTDB wiki:

Because they were delivered well in advance of the beginning of service, the units were delivered in a dark blue scheme with a small CN "Noodle" on the cab sides. They operated in freight service on CN for several months prior to being handed over to GO for testing and acceptance in March of 1967. Several weeks prior to the beginning of service, they were repainted again, this time with a white cab and a large green GO logo on the long hood.

"GP40TC CN 603 one of seven units (except 600) leased 11/1966 by CN waiting startup of GO trains."

image: Jim Parker at Old Time Trains

Same locomotive a few months later in 1967:

image: Dave Burroughs at Old Time Trains

Same locomotive in 1978, repainted into a more recent scheme and renumbered 503:

image: Alan Pitman at railpictures.ca

Same locomotive in 1989 in Chicago (in 1988 GO sold it to Amtrak, who renumbered it 195):

image: Paul Hunnell at hebners.net

Same locomotive in 2006 (in 2004 Amtrak rebuilt it as a GP38H-3 and renumbered it 523)

image: Lee Adams at hebners.net

It is still in service - here it is in 2016:

 

[steveintoronto]

^The excellent TV series Orphan Black used GO Transit in various episodes, but the green was altered in editing to blue:

Space TV

https://torontolife.com/culture/movies-and-tv/orphan-black-toronto-locations/

 

[reaperexpress]

On that topic, I was trying to math things out...
(not as well as reaperexpress can do, mind you):

One hour to Hamilton may be doable. Today's Lakeshore West "express that skips Clarkson" tends to take approximately ~55min from Union to Aldershot when skipping Clarkson. With a few additional optimizations including USRC, etc, doing ~50min may be reliably possible (GO pads their schedules quite a fair bit). In addition to activating the extra track over Desjardins Canal and hopefully the speeds a bit past Aldershot (in theory) thanks to new track -- this may make Union-Hamilton a lot closer to a more tolerable "hour" rather than today's "1h15min" (which recently shrunk slightly, 1h12min including Clarkson stop)

This will produce service speed roughly equal to Hamilton 16 Express Bus average time, if some trains are replacing some buses during future allday GO trains. 16 can take as little as 45-50min offpeak (like late evening off-event) but that happens a lot more rarely due to offpeak traffic (small bits of random traffic, events, long weekends, accidents, etc) and almost always averages roughly an hour or more no matter what part of the day. Minor optimizations to Lakeshore West will potentially be able create a competitive "hour-ish" even with an Oakville express.

I've already seen late peak trains catch up schedules and make it Toronto-Hamilton in approximately 1h09min (ish) despite stopping at Clarkson. So shaving off 9 more minutes by skipping Clarkson and other optimizations under way, probably could make the "1 hour" possible.

Reaperexpress could have lots of fun analyzing this, perhaps: Can the hourly train reliably be timetabled to be just 1 hour Union-Hamilton for "express to Oakville, allstop after"? Assuming pre-existing ongoing corridor optimization completed (Bridge replacements, new Burloak grade separation, USRC resignal, Desjardins complete, Oakville RTC open, etc)?

Many Hamiltonians prefer using the 16 bus because in the best case, it's half an hour faster (45min versus 1h15min). The train's ability to happily replace every other 16 Express Bus, is hugely dependent on not being reputationally slower than the bus. Shattering the hour barrier for would solve this.

One hour to Hamilton is easily doable, as you and I have both illustrated before. Personally I think the off-peak express trains should serve a regional rail stopping pattern rather than a commuter-express stopping pattern. The whole 'all-stops to _x_ then non-stop to Toronto' is based on the premise that everyone's going to Union, which is not the case on this service connecting two major cities.

I hope that the bizarre 30-minute gaps in the weekday midday schedule are placeholders for a future express service:

My preferred stopping pattern would be the same as the Niagara Express trains, minus Exhibition, plus Aldershot.

Splicing together the AM Peak schedule (all stops West Harbour to Burlington) with the Niagara Express schedule (Limited stops Burlington to Union) gives a travel time of 61 minutes. Subtract 2 minutes for skipping Exhibition and add 1 minute for the slower acceleration of 10-car trains vs the 8-car Niagara trains and you get a 60-minute flat travel time.

An express train could operate the same eastbound track as local service, departing Aldershot just ahead of the next local train. At Mimico, the corridor widens to 4 tracks and local trains pull off onto the new eastbound track, allowing the express to overtake the local train in front. Stopping at Aldershot and skipping Exhibition reduces catch-up where the express shares the local track and facilitates overtaking where there is an express track.

All-day express service also fits surprisingly nicely into the existing AM Peak schedule too:

Trainset ID represents where the train originated:
Ald = Aldershot
Bur = Burlington
Ham = Hamilton Centre
Uni = Union (often a continuation of some other trip)
Lew = Hamilton Harbour (Lewis Yard)
Wil = Oakville (Willowbrook)
(This is all amateur guesswork, I don't have a source to confirm where trains actually originate in the morning)

Notes:
- I applied my proposed limited-express stopping pattern to the existing West Harbour trips, which provides a faster option for longer-distance trips and introduces express service to Port Credit.
- I swapped the order of West Harbour vs. Hamilton Centre trips to manage spacing between the faster West Harbour and slower Hamilton Centre express trains
- Starting a new trip from Lewis Yard allows a westbound trip to return eastbound from Burlington as local rather than express, replacing the current local trip from Oakville, which in turn eliminates a quasi-deadhead trip from Union to Oakville:

 

[DonValleyRainbow]

Kind of off topic, but I couldn't find a better thread to ask this question. According to this Metrolinx blog post featuring a former GO Transit employee who worked on creating the bilevels, "the trains actually had blue paint when they first rolled out onto the rails, more than 50 years ago."

Wondering if there are any photos of blue GO Transit railcars.

This makes sense really as John Robarts was in power then. The PCs were in the midst of a dynasty that lasted nearly 45 years. My guess is they didn't want to brand the trains any colour that could tie them to the party should the experiment go badly.

There was that time the Harper Government changed them in their federal budget.

 

[gweed123]

One hour to Hamilton is easily doable, as you and I have both illustrated before. Personally I think the off-peak express trains should serve a regional rail stopping pattern rather than a commuter-express stopping pattern. The whole 'all-stops to _x_ then non-stop to Toronto' is based on the premise that everyone's going to Union, which is not the case on this service connecting two major cities.

I hope that the bizarre 30-minute gaps in the weekday midday schedule are placeholders for a future express service:

Great analysis, thanks! And yes, I would definitely be fine with the "stop only at major stops along the way" as opposed to the "local to here, express to Union" type of operation. The end goal is really to bring travel times down for those stations towards the end of the line.

I do also agree that the desired stop pattern for off-peak trips is slightly different than for peak trips.

 

[mdrejhon]

One hour to Hamilton is easily doable, as you and I have both illustrated before. Personally I think the off-peak express trains should serve a regional rail stopping pattern rather than a commuter-express stopping pattern. The whole 'all-stops to _x_ then non-stop to Toronto' is based on the premise that everyone's going to Union, which is not the case on this service connecting two major cities.

I hope that the bizarre 30-minute gaps in the weekday midday schedule are placeholders for a future express service:

My preferred stopping pattern would be the same as the Niagara Express trains, minus Exhibition, plus Aldershot.

That is an interesting concept.

I'm not sure Metrolinx is ready to insert some odd stopping patterns yet (until Union station RER-friendly signage becomes unbigiously clear) but they would be more feasible than "Express to Burlington, allstop after" with complete removals of stops closer to Union than Burlington.

....but this would be more feasible than proposed "Express to Burlington, allstop after" with complete removals of stops closer to Union than Burlington.