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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

I think their eventual plan is to move all VIA trains to the Brantford route, including the Sarnia train which should shave off at least an hour on the entire trip, while prioritizing GO on the Stratford route. They did say that they were pushing for 2 way all day service to Kitchener so if track improvements increase service eventually, it’ll be easier to run trains 2-3 hour trains each direction to London with a reasonable time of the same length as well.

Is there any word on if GO buses will service London? Maybe an extension would work and the 15 that goes to Brantford could naturally be extended, but would drive customers in the wrong intention as that’s more of LW’s bus and doesn’t serve Waterloo at all. So maybe an extension of the 30? but that just got an extension to University of Waterloo so i guess a new route has to be set in place.
 
anb said:
Is there any word on if GO buses will service London? Maybe an extension would work and the 15 that goes to Brantford could naturally be extended, but would drive customers in the wrong intention as that’s more of LW’s bus and doesn’t serve Waterloo at all. So maybe an extension of the 30? but that just got an extension to University of Waterloo so i guess a new route has to be set in place.
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I doubt they're doing buses as well since it's a 'pilot' and they're not even bothering to set up Presto west of Kitchener.
 
Yes, it is a pilot at the same time most downtown offices are still largely closed due to the pandemic, prior to improving the tracks, with a four hour trip time, and only on weekdays during commute hours. The target audience is who? Students... no they don't commute. People working in offices... no they are still working from home. People going to a social event... no those are on weekends or afternoons, not early morning.

Maybe this is the way to put money into CN's hands to get them to improve their own infrastructure that the province is unwilling to buy or CN is not wanting to sell, and it is undesirable to hand CN money to improve an asset that they end up owning.
 
^ I marvel at the number of posters who make one set of assumptions for HFR east of Toronto and the opposite set of assumption west of Toronto…. the key assumption being the premise that passenger trains (VIA or GO) will fit on CN’s mainline through Brantford and CN will happily accept them.
The Brantford line is just as busy freight-wise as the Kingston line, and it has more operational constraints, ie more switching locations where freight can tie up track for longer periods. And there is the climb up the Niagara Escarpment, which slows wesbound freights often to a crawl, or worse.. Good luck running more frequent passenger trains on this route.
I’m told that VIA may have retained rights to run one or two more trains daily through Brantford, and that could form the basis of a de minimus Brantford GO service…. but if you believe there is room for more than that, you have to say the same for the Kingston route, in which case HFR isn’t necessary. Many see the plan to get passenger away from CN’s main line as the better option. It’s a sound proposition.

- Paul
 
dowlingm said:
Where there a plan to make St Mary's and Stratford transit-served bedroom communities for Kitchener (first) and London (later) capable of substantially filling even L6s, this might make some sense in terms of $m net spend/million passenger-km moved to transit, but that would transform those communities in a way which might (likely would) generate strong resistance from those who like things the way they are. Hell, even making London appropriately dense and transit-first generates plenty of drama. When a hard-seat 4 hour GO train is described as a "service to Toronto" it seems clear to me that there is no big picture thinking going on here, just an unpopular provincial government shoring up rural support/using up spare rolling stock/justifying work for North Bay in life extensions. If there were, the first sign of this extension would have been public discussions at Metrolinx board, not a test train.
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I was reviewing the Initial Business Case Update from 2019 that Metrolinx prepared for the Kitchener Line Expansion for 2-way all-day service (pdf) and noticed this little bit regarding when they are mandated to prepare a business case:
Business case analyses are mandated by Metrolinx for all projects that exceed $50M in capital costs. As
projects develop in scope and construction, business cases are completed to define the rationale and
requirements for delivering said investment.
Click to expand...
This definitely seems like something that would normally happen through a business case, but I suppose as a pilot project it is quite plausible that there is less than $50M in capital costs for this, and maybe it also somewhat explains its bare bones nature at this stage.

That said, it definitely seems like this has been implemented due to direction from cabinet, as Metrolinx has never approached service expansion in this way to the best of my knowledge. Regardless, I'm not really convinced that it is entirely just electioneering. This will do nothing to shore up support amongst the OPC base, and they have said nothing about equipment life extensions leading to more jobs in North Bay or other things along those lines. If this was simple politics, I would have expected better coordination with the CPC campaign as well.

Instead, it seems more plausible to me that there is some sort of strategy to improve the Guelph Subdivision to allow better passenger rail service between SWO and Toronto. This would be a strategy that would be occurring at the cabinet level and would therefore explain why this didn't follow the normal business case process that we would expect for a project like this. This would also explain why there are hints of federal cooperation.
 
jamincan said:
That said, it definitely seems like this has been implemented due to direction from cabinet, as Metrolinx has never approached service expansion in this way to the best of my knowledge. Regardless, I'm not really convinced that it is entirely just electioneering. This will do nothing to shore up support amongst the OPC base, and they have said nothing about equipment life extensions leading to more jobs in North Bay or other things along those lines. If this was simple politics, I would have expected better coordination with the CPC campaign as well.
Click to expand...
If this was indeed at least partly motivated by "electioneering", wouldn't it have made more sense to implement it ahead of the election rather than a few weeks after? One would assume that the departure of the first train would have been a good photo op, though probably not at 5am...
 
jamincan said:
That said, it definitely seems like this has been implemented due to direction from cabinet, as Metrolinx has never approached service expansion in this way to the best of my knowledge. Regardless, I'm not really convinced that it is entirely just electioneering. This will do nothing to shore up support amongst the OPC base, and they have said nothing about equipment life extensions leading to more jobs in North Bay or other things along those lines. If this was simple politics, I would have expected better coordination with the CPC campaign as well.
Click to expand...

I have to agree. As much as I criticise ML for many things, they have shown a lot of discipline in their overall methodology of Develop Business Case > Request Investment Commitment > Execute. It is an organizational strength. This decision throws all that rigour and due diligence out the window. This has to be a political move, and a fiarly knee jerk one at that. Even ML would have the expertise to recognise how futile this train will be in its present form. (If they don’t, or just don’t care, there’s a statement in that).

I don’t see this as tied to the federal election, although I suppose it might have been a ploy to foreclose the threat of a LPC promise, by getting something going quickly and making any such promise moot. I find that unlikely, as the current LPC Minister has shown no signs of doing anything concrete And, while it arguably might be an attempt to show Ottawa up, in an election where Ford has been banished to the cellar, it would be difficult to pull that off.

My conspiracy theory is that it is a first step towards a promise for the next Provincial election. I wonder if this is a way to appease or even highlight some SW Ontario pols who might be thinking of throwing their hat in the provincial ring. London mayor Ed Holder has been getting profile on this file. Just speculating.

- Paul
 
crs1026 said:
^ I marvel at the number of posters who make one set of assumptions for HFR east of Toronto and the opposite set of assumption west of Toronto…. the key assumption being the premise that passenger trains (VIA or GO) will fit on CN’s mainline through Brantford and CN will happily accept them.
The Brantford line is just as busy freight-wise as the Kingston line, and it has more operational constraints, ie more switching locations where freight can tie up track for longer periods. And there is the climb up the Niagara Escarpment, which slows wesbound freights often to a crawl, or worse.. Good luck running more frequent passenger trains on this route.
I’m told that VIA may have retained rights to run one or two more trains daily through Brantford, and that could form the basis of a de minimus Brantford GO service…. but if you believe there is room for more than that, you have to say the same for the Kingston route, in which case HFR isn’t necessary. Many see the plan to get passenger away from CN’s main line as the better option. It’s a sound proposition.

- Paul
Click to expand...
One or two more trains through Brantford would form the basis of moving the pre-Covid VIA NML/Sarnia schedule (at different running times and probably with an offload-hold-onload at London) over to that line.

West of Toronto did not, to my recollection, get anything like the investment CN Kingston (notoriously) got, so some additional public support of capacity improvements is not out of line (it would help if Metrolinx wrote VIA a cheque for the depreciated value of the $25m they spent on Georgetown-London CTC). While some pinch points will probably remain due to topographic realities, some are fixable. Larger scale projects beyond restoration of singled sections to double track in the vicinity of Brantford would might also result in more complex local consultation issues than elsewhere in the province. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/haldimand-tract-development-moratorium-1.5993081
 
Haldimand Tract stuff is complex, over a very wide stretch of land, and even then I don't think would effect any rail expansion which would consult with indigenous groups regardless. I also don't think they would be upset by an additional track to an existing corridor.

getting some additional track on the corridor from London to Aldershot would go a long way in being able to increase frequencies on that stretch. Ideally we see some dedicated VIA track along the corridor with some 177km/h design speeds to try to help with travel times too.

The Feds seem to finally be willing to actually spend some real money on VIA, it would be nice to see some spending outside of the HFR program on things like that.
 
Urban Sky said:
If this was indeed at least partly motivated by "electioneering", wouldn't it have made more sense to implement it ahead of the election rather than a few weeks after? One would assume that the departure of the first train would have been a good photo op, though probably not at 5am...
Click to expand...
This is a 2022 (Ont) election thing, I think. (Of course, depending on how this one goes, there might be another fed one then...)
 
Just some observations taking the 2:41 GO Train from Kitchener. The amount of people returning to using the train showed me that the service is very quickly gaining back it's ridership from outer suburbs quickly, especially from both Guelph and Kitchener. While part of it may be a Friday thing, I could count about a hundred or more people at both stations. Some making Kitchener to Guelph trips. Others to Bloor and Union. Also some bringing their bikes too.

This was the platform at Guelph, lined about this busy the entire train length. This is a contrast to me having taken it last summer with nobody taking the train on fridays. Extra service (and protections) have really helped.

PXL_20210917_190224416.jpg
 
I'm going to start this like all the other conspiracy sellers and say "I have figured this out". GO trains are going to go to London, GO transit operates these trains, Metrolinx owns GO transit and funding for this service will come through Metrolinx and here is where it gets interesting, an agreement with VIA Rail. You see VIA Rail is funded by the federal government which operates CSIS (Canada's Secret Intelligence Service) and they need to get information out of people while still following the Geneva convention. Boom, if the people they are interrogating don't talk you tell them they are going on another 4 hour train ride to London on a GO train and they will cave in and tell CSIS what they need to know. Nobody can stand that torture! Also, it isn't covered under the Geneva convention. GO trains to London is a CSIS operation!
 
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