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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

denfromoakvillemilton said:
My issue is the 4 hour trip. That's a long time, and I'm not sure either the conductors/staff and riders are ready for it.
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There are washrooms nearby with plenty of opportunity to steal 5 minutes here and there; and they can bring both water and snacks with them; a 5-hour run shouldn't be too much of an issue.

The split-shift (9am through 4pm break) to return back to London would make it a bit of a nightmare. If it can be treated as a single 20-hour shift followed by a 2 to 3 day break then I'd go for that.
 
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Urban Sky said:
I can't imagine that anyone who can't adapt to 4-5 hour shifts would chose a career as a crew member for a passenger rail service...
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The CSA on GO trains between stations with long gaps just reads a book. Based on my experience being in the same car pre covid. So unless there’s in incident they’ll have plenty of time to read between Kitchener and London. Sweet gig.
 
WislaHD said:
This London to Toronto talk hurts my head,

Wouldn't it make a lot more sense for Metrolinx to begin planning a standalone London GO network with downtown London as the hub? Four lines going in the cardinal directions, with terminus stations at Strathroy, Port Stanley, Woodstock, and Stratford(/Kitchener).

London should be built up as a regional employment centre rather than yet another bedroom community for Toronto.
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Exactly right which is why this will basically fail.

Metrolinx and GO are transit organization designed and built for Torontonians and assumes that that's where everybody wants to go. I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't even a single Londoner at the Board meeting.

The London commuter shed of about a 60km radius is now over 800,000 and growing at one of the fastest rates in the country. The City itself is already at 435,000. Despite this, this "service" does absolutely nothing for any of them. London is an ideal. centre for a commuter rail system because it a rail centre with spokes going out in all directions. Added to this is that London has no urban freeways and a generally lousy road network with horrific traffic for it's size. When compare to any other city in the country of a less than a million people, London has the worst traffic by a long shot. This means that commuter trains going downtown really are time competitive with taking the car and in many potential routes would be significantly faster. This is a draw that few mid-sized cities benefit from.
 
ssiguy2 said:
Exactly right which is why this will basically fail.

Metrolinx and GO are transit organization designed and built for Torontonians and assumes that that's where everybody wants to go. I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't even a single Londoner at the Board meeting.

The London commuter shed of about a 60km radius is now over 800,000 and growing at one of the fastest rates in the country. The City itself is already at 435,000. Despite this, this "service" does absolutely nothing for any of them. London is an ideal. centre for a commuter rail system because it a rail centre with spokes going out in all directions. Added to this is that London has no urban freeways and a generally lousy road network with horrific traffic for it's size. When compare to any other city in the country of a less than a million people, London has the worst traffic by a long shot. This means that commuter trains going downtown really are time competitive with taking the car and in many potential routes would be significantly faster. This is a draw that few mid-sized cities benefit from.
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To put things into perspective: by your own number, there are only 365,000 people (i.e. somewhere between the respective CMA populations of Windsor and Victoria) living outside the city of London, but within its commuter orbit. In the meanwhile, the GTHA population which lives outside the city of Toronto (3.4 out of 6.3 million people) still outnumbers the entire CMA population of Vancouver.
 
Urban Sky said:
To put things into perspective: by your own number, there are only 365,000 people (i.e. somewhere between the respective CMA populations of Windsor and Victoria) living outside the city of London, but within its commuter orbit. In the meanwhile, the GTHA population which lives outside the city of Toronto (3.4 out of 6.3 million people) still outnumbers the entire CMA population of Vancouver.
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Hm. The thing is, London's not big enough to be a hub (except with trains to Sarnia, Windsor, Kitchener, and Hamilton), but it's large enough to have traffic woes.

What is to be done?

Personally, I am not convinced of the need for London-centric commuter service, except where it can be interlined with intercity trains towards the 4 cities mentioned above.
 
DirectionNorth said:
Hm. The thing is, London's not big enough to be a hub (except with trains to Sarnia, Windsor, Kitchener, and Hamilton), but it's large enough to have traffic woes.

What is to be done?

Personally, I am not convinced of the need for London-centric commuter service, except where it can be interlined with intercity trains towards the 4 cities mentioned above.
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Can there be a meeting in the middle here?

London, aside from employment, draws from beyond its urban boundary for shopping, healthcare (London Health Science is the primary hospital for all of S-W Ontario ); but also for education with Western and Fanshawe.

It has moderate sized communities nearby from which it draws, including St Thomas and Woodstock.

I'm not about to suggest that those connections require hourly GO Service with L12s......LOL
But there is certainly the case for GO Bus service, and perhaps for rush-hour/every other hour rail service with much shorter, smaller trains.

Carefully interwoven with mainline through services from Windsor/Sarnia to the west, K-W and Toronto to the east, and Hamilton/Brantford to the south-east, there could be a pretty respectable service level there.
Clearly the City itself needs to invest considerably more in transit as part of evolving a culture of use around such things. But there is something there to build off, I think.
 
Northern Light said:
Can there be a meeting in the middle here?

London, aside from employment, draws from beyond its urban boundary for shopping, healthcare (London Health Science is the primary hospital for all of S-W Ontario ); but also for education with Western and Fanshawe.

It has moderate sized communities nearby from which it draws, including St Thomas and Woodstock.

I'm not about to suggest that those connections require hourly GO Service with L12s......LOL
But there is certainly the case for GO Bus service, and perhaps for rush-hour/every other hour rail service with much shorter, smaller trains.

Carefully interwoven with mainline through services from Windsor/Sarnia to the west, K-W and Toronto to the east, and Hamilton/Brantford to the south-east, there could be a pretty respectable service level there.
Clearly the City itself needs to invest considerably more in transit as part of evolving a culture of use around such things. But there is something there to build off, I think.
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GO Bus is a good idea.

I think the city needs BRT more than commuter buses. And 10-15 minute frequency on major arterials, at least 16 hours a day, seven days a week.
 
^I don't detect the same single-destination, dense downtown employment district in London. There's no direct "If we don't build GO, we will run out of freeway capacity" business case as there was when GO started in Toronto. There are many trips but many end points, a great many not downtown. Bedroom communities outside London exist, but commuting is more dispersed. I doubt that any of the communities that one could connect to downtown London by rail would fill more than a DMU or two.

London desperately needs investment in transit, but a Regional network is not sustainable yet. I would definitely argue for better stops and connectivity in those outlying towns, however, for VIA and (where it happens) GO intercity/regional. That would probably suffice.

- Paul
 
rbt said:
There are washrooms nearby with plenty of opportunity to steal 5 minutes here and there; and they can bring both water and snacks with them; a 5-hour run shouldn't be too much of an issue.

The split-shift (9am through 4pm break) to return back to London would make it a bit of a nightmare. If it can be treated as a single 20-hour shift followed by a 2 to 3 day break then I'd go for that.
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So would the crew take a cab from mimico to get to London in the morning?
How would that work?
 
Bordercollie said:
So would the crew take a cab from mimico to get to London in the morning?
How would that work?
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The crew who took the train to London in the evening would stay at a hotel and will be the crew. for the early morning trip back. It’s standard with crews on airlines to remote areas and VIA does the same thing with its crew in White River.
 
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