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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

Does anyone know why GO has train 3937 (final train of the night departing at 10:34 from Union) terminating at Guelph Central instead of Kitchener GO? Presumably since they have 10 trains per day Kitchener-Union and only 9 per day Union-Kitchener, this train ends up continuing to Kitchener to overnight there, so it seems a bit odd that they wouldn't just continue service there too. Only thing I can think of is that perhaps there is interference with the freight train to Elmira that runs overnight on the Spur Line.
 
jamincan said:
Does anyone know why GO has train 3937 (final train of the night departing at 10:34 from Union) terminating at Guelph Central instead of Kitchener GO? Presumably since they have 10 trains per day Kitchener-Union and only 9 per day Union-Kitchener, this train ends up continuing to Kitchener to overnight there, so it seems a bit odd that they wouldn't just continue service there too. Only thing I can think of is that perhaps there is interference with the freight train to Elmira that runs overnight on the Spur Line.
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Small spy mentioned this years back when service started (fall 2019) and its for the reason you describe - CN switching in Kitchener to serve Elmira. So if the GO train is held up it’s no big deal.
 
reaperexpress said:
My comments on the new service changes:

Lakeshore West
The weekday AM Niagara train now departs Niagara Falls at 06:39, which is far more reasonable than the old 05:23 departure time. Now it actually runs during a time of day when there is congestion on the QEW. The trip now is scheduled for 2h21, a slight improvement from the 2h27 pre-pandemic. For some reason these trip is completely missing from the Lakeshore West timetables. The weekend trains had already been missing from the tables for a few years now, but now the weekday ones are missing too, despite clearly following the same clockface stopping pattern for express trains:

September 2021 AM Peak schedule, I have filled in the unlisted train trip in green:
View attachment 344196

It's also great to see the Hamilton Centre trips running express again. As I expected, peak period service is now 4 tph local + 2 tph express, rather than the 2 tph local + 4 tph express we had pre-pandemic.

Unfortunately, evening service continues to only run hourly on weekdays, which is a huge drop after the 6 tph peak and 4 tph counterpeak service. On weekends, service maintains 2 tph until about midnight.

I'm very pleased to see the new Route 18K which runs every 2 hours between Hamilton Centre to St Catharines, including a timed connection to trains at West Harbour. I'd previously suggested that Route 12 be rerouted along this exact routing to downtown, but this new route achieves a similar effect. There is a 6 minute transfer at Grimsby P&R for eastbound passengers from Burlington on Route 12 transfering to Route 18K toward downtown St Catharines or Brock, but this unfortunately means nearly an hour transfer for passengers heading from Hamilton on Route 18K to Niagara Falls on Route 12. Westbound, the transfers from Niagara Falls (route 12) to Hamilton (route 18K) and from St Cathrines/Brock (route 18K) to Burlington (route 12) are both about 30 minutes.
View attachment 344263
I think that they should have taken this opportunity to drop Beamsville (Ontario St. @ QEW) P&R from route 12. That would cut about 7 minutes off the travel time, allowing Route 12 to provide more competitive travel times between Toronto and Niagara Falls, while route 18K provides local service in between. Beamsville P&R generally annoys me since it's only accessible by car anyway, so "local access" is not a valid justification for wasting everyone's time getting off the highway and driving around in circles, often without dropping anyone off or picking anyone up.

I also would have used St Catherines Bus Terminal as the downtown St Catharines stop rather than St Catharines Station, since it has far better bus connections and far more destinations nearby. I suppose they wanted to provide more options for people who parked at St Catharines Station to take the peak-period GO train.

Kitchener Line
There are now 11 daily round trips between Kitchener and Toronto (10 GO + 1 VIA), which is more than there has ever been before. The AM peak service from Kitchener now extends until 8:39, compared to 7:57 pre-pandemic. This is very helpful since buses leaving Kitchener or Guelph around 8:00-8:30 would still get stuck in rush hour traffic.

My marked-up version of the September 2021 AM Peak timetable, highlighting changes relative to August 2021.
View attachment 344262

The new trips also make a totally practical commuter schedule for people living in Kitchener and working in Guelph.
View attachment 344259

The travel time for express trips is now 1:41 eastbound, which is the fastest it has ever been. It is 4 minutes faster than pre-pandemic, and 9 minutes faster than before Metrolinx started the current track upgrade project. This nearly achieves the 10 minutes which were promised as part of that project. However, the travel time between Kitchener and Georgetown is still the same as in the September 2020 schedule, so I'm not sure if the recent work in Guelph has been accounted for yet.

With an average speed of 61.2 km/h, the Kitchener express is now the fastest peak-period train service in the GO network. It is also slightly faster than the fastest AM peak service pre-pandemic, which was the Lakeshore East express.

There is now regular counter-peak service between Union and Bramalea, operating every 30 minutes in the AM Peak, and every 60 minutes in the PM Peak.
View attachment 344261
View attachment 344260
Click to expand...
Looking at the digital schedule, the 7:59 am train from Malton to Union actually starts from Bramalea at 7:52 am, making it a truly 15 mins(4tph) service to Union from 6:53 am to 9:22 am. GO Transit made another error again in creating pdf schedules. The westbound train arrives at Bramalea at 7:40 am before turning back so there is no reason not to start at Bramalea for the eastbound 7:52 am train.
 
Garuda said:
Small spy mentioned this years back when service started (fall 2019) and its for the reason you describe - CN switching in Kitchener to serve Elmira. So if the GO train is held up it’s no big deal.
Click to expand...
I assume that train is one of the ones stored at Shirley yard in the east end of Kitchener, so going out of service in Guelph allows it to avoid going into downtown Kitchener at all.

It's also interesting to note that there are 7 morning departures from Kitchener even though there are only 6 overnight storage spots (2 west of the station and 4 east). I assume that some of the trains are committed to remain 6-car sets so they can double up in a single 12-car storage track.
 
Tristen said:
Anyone have access to the new route 25 schedule?
Click to expand...

It’s finally up.


There are more bus trips, but every bus trip is an all-stops local 25. Route 25C, which offered a much faster trip direct to UW and WLU, is nowhere to be seen.

Route 30 via Bramalea offers this faster trip, but it only runs weekdays and from Mississauga, it requires backtracking from Square One to Bramalea or getting to the Meadowvale Business Park.
 
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ShonTron said:
It’s finally up.


There are more bus trips, but every bus trip is an all-stops local 25. Route 25F, which offered a much faster trip.

Route 30 via Bramalea offers this faster trip, but it only runs weekdays and from Mississauga, it requires backtracking from Square One to Bramalea or getting to the Meadowvale Business Park.
Click to expand...
When I lived in Waterloo I avoided the 25 local at all costs, and most other people seemed to as well. The express services, on the other hand, were great. On Fridays all the express services would be packed (every 15 minutes to Square One, and every 30 minutes to Bramalea/York) while the hourly local buses were fairly empty.

It is excruciating how slow the local branch is. I literally had a nightmare one time where I dreamed that I had mistakenly gotten on a local bus at square one and started panicking about how I was going to be trapped for two hours before the bus would get to Waterloo. Thankfully I woke up and found that I was in my bed, not the route 25 local bus.

If GO thinks that students are captive clients who will take the bus no matter how slow it is, they are sorely mistaken. From my experience, if there weren't any GO express buses running, students would seek other options like Greyhound or carpooling, or simply not travel because it would be too much of a hassle.

I can accept that the newly-extended Route 30 (UW-Kitchener-Bramalea) replaces the old Route 25F (UW-Bramalea-407) given that there's frequent service from Bramalea to Highway 407 station anyway. But they really need to bring back the 25C express from UW to Square One. I guarantee that running 1 bus per hour each on the 25 local and 25C express would generate more ridership than their current schedule with 2 local buses per hour. All while requiring fewer buses and operators thanks to the massively reduced round trip times.
 
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The Aberfoyle stop is such a time suck. Cutting that stop alone would save 8-10 minutes each way.

I’d also argue that there’s no need for both a Cambridge DumbCentres stop and a Sportsworld stop. Pick one, and eliminate the other.

There. I just saved 15 minutes off the Route 25.

The Milton park-and-ride location isn’t great, especially as the local transit connection is quite poor (just the Route 1, which serves employment lands). But I see its utility. The two Transitway stops at Erin Mills and WCB are not an easy on and off Highway 403, thanks largely to it being value-engineered to the point of near-uselessness.
 
ShonTron said:
The Aberfoyle stop is such a time suck. Cutting that stop alone would save 8-10 minutes each way.
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Yeah I timed it. It took dead on 10 minutes from getting off the highway eastbound to getting back on in the same location.
 
Looking at the schedules. An odd service cut for Lakeshore West on weekday evenings (unless there is yet another typo in the schedules).

Currently there's eastbound runs arriving at Union at 8 pm, 8:30 pm, 9:30 pm, 10:30 pm, 11:30 pm, and 12:30 am (would bringing back the half-hourly service kill them?) But with the September schedule it actually gets worse as the last 4 trains are replaced with only 3 trains, at 9:15 pm, 10:15 pm, and 11:15 pm ending 75 minutes earlier (though there is a late bus, which skips all the stations I frequently use)!

But then it gets odder, when you look at Lakeshore East. There the eastbound trains remain on the old half-hour schedule (even though the West train is only arriving hourly). But instead of the trains arriving on the hour at 9:30, 10:30, etc., and leaving at 9:35, 10:35, etc. .... how the train arrives 15 minutes earlier, with no change in departure time! continuing eastbound!.

When you look at Lakeshore East, there is no change, with the full half-hourly service until almost midnight, and then a final hourly train arriving at 12:45 AM - 90 minutes after the last Lakeshore West arrives!

Another issue (which was there in the last schedule as well), is on weekdays, the westbound Lakeshore East arrives Union at 8:50 pm, 9:20 pm, 9:50 pm, 10:20 pm ... etc. But the westbound Lakeshore West not only departing 5 minutes earlier - but is only hourly! Meaning a 55-minute wait at Union!!

There's certainly some improvements ... but some oddities.
 
Looking at the other schedules.

So after years of construction of that massive behemoth for GO Buses at Kipling GO - the entire Kipling GO bus service consists of a once per hour bus up to the Transitway to Square One (and Guelph). That's it?

Did I miss something?
 
ShonTron said:
The Aberfoyle stop is such a time suck. Cutting that stop alone would save 8-10 minutes each way.

I’d also argue that there’s no need for both a Cambridge DumbCentres stop and a Sportsworld stop. Pick one, and eliminate the other.

There. I just saved 15 minutes off the Route 25.

The Milton park-and-ride location isn’t great, especially as the local transit connection is quite poor (just the Route 1, which serves employment lands). But I see its utility. The two Transitway stops at Erin Mills and WCB are not an easy on and off Highway 403, thanks largely to it being value-engineered to the point of near-uselessness.
Click to expand...
It really needs to be split into three routes, because the 25 is doing the heavy lifting for three different demographics.

1. UW > WLU > towards Mississauga: Heavy student focus
2. Kitchener Terminal > Sportsworld > toward Mississauga: For KW locals
3. Ainslie Terminal > Cambridge Centre Terminal > towards Mississauga: For Cambridge locals and UW Architecture students.

They should move the GO terminal at Aberfoyle to south of the 401 (there's already a carpool lot there! Why weren't these consolidated?!), and maybe they can make a DT Kitchener > Breslau > Guelph Centre > u Guelph > Aberfoyle route).
 
reaperexpress said:
I assume that train is one of the ones stored at Shirley yard in the east end of Kitchener, so going out of service in Guelph allows it to avoid going into downtown Kitchener at all.

It's also interesting to note that there are 7 morning departures from Kitchener even though there are only 6 overnight storage spots (2 west of the station and 4 east). I assume that some of the trains are committed to remain 6-car sets so they can double up in a single 12-car storage track.
Click to expand...
Do they hook the train up to power overnight? It appears that way from Google satellite view, but I could be mistaken. Would they be able to do that with 2 six car trains in one storage track?
 
DKsan said:
It really needs to be split into three routes, because the 25 is doing the heavy lifting for three different demographics.

1. UW > WLU > towards Mississauga: Heavy student focus
2. Kitchener Terminal > Sportsworld > toward Mississauga: For KW locals
3. Ainslie Terminal > Cambridge Centre Terminal > towards Mississauga: For Cambridge locals and UW Architecture students.

They should move the GO terminal at Aberfoyle to south of the 401 (there's already a carpool lot there! Why weren't these consolidated?!), and maybe they can make a DT Kitchener > Breslau > Guelph Centre > u Guelph > Aberfoyle route).
Click to expand...

Don’t stop that last route at Aberfoyle! Run it down to Aldershot.
 
My work is just off the 401 between Mississauga Rd. and Winston Churchill, and I live in Kitchener. When I started working there, the options for using GO were simply not tenable for me, but I noticed that Rt 30 stops at the Meadowvale Business Park, which makes the route actually plausible to use. Out of curiousity, I checked how much it would cost... and it would be $460/mo. I know GO is more expensive than local transit and I was familiar with single ride fares being substantially higher than local transit, but that monthly cost seems astronomical to me.
 
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