GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[crs1026]

take a break for a second: are you telling me that you really believe that Metrolinx would have ever received the funds to purchase almost a hundred kilometers of CN mainline without having operated a single revenue train over it? This is not to deny that Metrolinx would have taken less avoidable risks if they had at least waited until some (not even: additional, but: any) sidings were built between Kitchener and Georgetown, but in the end, there can only be one criterion on which we can judge the wisdom of the decision to go ahead now, even if that means (for now) a 5:20 departure out of London: if it indeed fails (as you seem to suggest) to survive the trial period, it would have been a reckless suicidal mission, but if it becomes permanent, won't you join me in applauding their bold decision?

Despite giving this argument some time to digest, I still have trouble with it… because I can see it applying equally well, if not better, to portions of HFR, especially Quebec-Montreal.

Would we expect VIA to mount a single weekday Quebec-Montreal round trip via Trois-Rivieres, using the existing track in whatever condition G&W currently maintains it, with less than best available railcars, in order to validate the potential of HFR? If that were done, with the likely poor ridership response, would you consider it as compelling data on which to build the case (or not) for HFR?

I think it’s quite fair to suggest that there is a minimum threshold for a trial service offering, below which the trial has no utility. Some minimum standard for trip frequency, time of day, trip time, and price point are all mandatory elements of that minimum starting point.

I’m very much a believer in both Quebec HFR and GO to London. And while I can’t decypher whatever the motives and interests of CN, Ontario, and Ottawa might be, I’m eager to see this become win-win-win for all. But I have to believe that launching the test train, without a forward strategy of some sort, is not sound decisionmaking. It ignores much known fact, lacks common sense, and it reeks of pure politics.

I would be interested in what in your mind differentiates the end vision of service on these routes, and why the strategy for getting to yes would be the opposite between these two proposed services.

- Paul

 

[Urban Sky]

I would be interested in what in your mind differentiates the end vision of service on these routes, and why the strategy for getting to yes would be the opposite between these two proposed services.

- Paul

GO to London is about expanding the current service area (centered on Toronto) to a city which is almost twice as far from its central node than any other point it previously served. HFR via Trois-Rivières or Peterborough is about diverting existing services which are already among VIA’s busiest routes.

Nobody needs to validate the ridership potential in Trois-Rivières and Peterborough because it’s absolutely peripheral to the business case for HFR…

 

[Krypto98]

There's a lot of commuter demand between Western University and the GTA. It may not be daily 9-5 but it exists.

If this service ran on the Dundas sub it would likely be more successful, but I don't think there's enough track time unless GO replaces all/some of the existing VIA service.

This is probably why Friday nights are much busier than other nights. Likely UW students going back home to London for the weekend.

 

[nfitz]

Would we expect VIA to mount a single weekday Quebec-Montreal round trip via Trois-Rivieres, using the existing track in whatever condition G&W currently maintains it, with less than best available railcars, in order to validate the potential of HFR? If that were done, with the likely poor ridership response, would you consider it as compelling data on which to build the case (or not) for HFR?

Could probably just look at what the previous ridership was. My recollection the last time I took it, it was a 2-car train, and more empty than full. Though I think half of one was baggage.

Of course, now that they've finished A-40 all the way to Quebec City, ridership wouldn't be as high.

They certainly were less-than-best available. You could see the wooden floor in places.

 

[Urban Sky]

Could probably just look at what the previous ridership was. My recollection the last time I took it, it was a 2-car train, and more empty than full. Though I think half of one was baggage.

Of course, now that they've finished A-40 all the way to Quebec City, ridership wouldn't be as high.

They certainly were less-than-best available. You could see the wooden floor in places.

I appreciate your anecdotal evidence from a time where I probably wasn’t even born, but historic ridership figures for the North Shore service are pretty irrelevant for validating the business case for HFR as the South Shore route via Drummondville has absorbed most of the rail traffic between Montreal and Quebec (i.e. the dominating O-D for any service between these two cities) since at least the re-opening of the Gare du Palais, if not: the restoration of CN service into Quebec City…

 

[Urban Sky]

It's not unthinkable that a railway purchase be approved without first operating revenue service.
In 1988 GO opened a brand new railway which they had built at a cost of $106 Million, extending the Lakeshore East Line to Whitby, where they had never operated trains before.
In 2001 GO purchased the entire CN Uxbridge subdivision as far as Uxbridge, just in case they might want to operate there in the future.
Also in 2001, GO purchased the CN Newmarket subdivision up to Barrie, though at the time they only operated as far as Bradford. They fixed up the line to high standards before extending service to Barrie South in 2007. (Yes I know they operated briefly to Allandale in the 90's).
In 2021 the State of Virginia purchased all of the CSXT-owned (but out of service) right-of-way between Petersburg and Ridgeway, N.C. (known as the S-Line), and all of the CSXT-owned right-of-way between Doswell and Clifton, Forge, never having run any trains on either.

The last 3 are somewhat different in that they were saving lines from abandonment, but the point is that you don't necessarily need to run a revenue passenger service as a "test drive" before buying a railway. A well-used bus service can be just as useful as a precedent. See also: every subway extension ever.

I think the point I wanted to make is less that you absolutely have to run a service first before you buy the tracks (in which case, @crs1026 would be right to ask if VIA has to start a pop-up intercity service to Trois-Rivières and Peterborough as a pre-requisite for HFR), but how central that purchase would be to fulfilling its mandate:

• For VIA, Toronto-London(-Sarnia) is probably the worst Corridor route (only the Maple Leaf might be worse, but that service has at least some strategic significance) and I'm not optimistic about its medium-term prospects as Sarnia might eventually get rerouted, whereas improved GO service will continue to eat into its KITC-TRTO and GUEL-KITC markets (as the two largest markets along that route).
• For GO, expanding rail service to anything West of Kitchener breaks with their model of providing Commuter Rail service centered onto Toronto, as I would consider 2 hours one-way as the absolute upper limit of commutability. If you look at the distance covered to London, it's three times further than any other existing GO Train termini except Kitchener, Barrie and Niagara Falls (see table below).

Distance (route-km) from Toronto	Stations along Kitchener(-London) Corridor	Terminal Stations along other GO Corridors
6	Bloor
13	Weston
17	Etobicoke North
23	Malton
28	Bramalea
34	Brampton
39	Mount Pleasant
47	Georgetown	Bloomington (46 km), Lincolnville (49 km), Milton (50 km), Oshawa (51 km)
57	Acton	Aldershot (55 km), Hamilton (65 km)
78	Guelph
101	Kitchener	Barrie (101 km)
143	Stratford	Niagara Falls (134 km)
161	St. Marys
195	London

Based on the above, I find it difficult to justify investing into the Kitchener-London infrastructure for either railroad (note that GO's expansion to Niagara Falls required very little capital expenditure), but that of course doesn't answer why no bus feeder service was trialed first.

At the end of the day, you and I have the same underlying goal: we want the line to see improved passenger rail service. My intuition, based on my experience dealing with municipal governments, is just that the greater ridership which would be attracted by a faster and more frequent bus service would be a stronger political motivator than a train service which nobody uses. However, I recognize that you probably have some experience (or have heard about colleagues' experience) dealing with the federal government so your intuition may well be more relevant than mine.

If it does turn out that this pilot service kickstarted a move to purchase and fix up the rails between London and Kitchener, then I will absolutely join you in applauding their bold decision!

No worries, I didn't really doubt any of that!

I am well aware of the regular diversions between Utrecht and Düsseldorf. I have gone down to 's Hertogenbosch to see ICE's running where they normally don't, and when I went to Vienna I made sure to plan dates where the NightJet was operating over the normal route via Arnhem.

Koodos for the railfanning! I actually travelled both routes on the same day when I visited the NHTV in Breda when I was considering to study there (in which case I would have never met my wife or ended up commenting in a Canadian rail forum!): with the ICE Wiesbaden to Cologne* and the next day with regional trains via Mönchengladbach and the single-tracked line to Venlo and further to Breda, from which I returned in the afternoon with an InterCity to Arnhem and then an ICE back to Frankfurt....

*using Europe's most-underutilized HSR segment, a 13 km long double-tracked segment which sees a pathetic 2 train pairs operating Mondays-to-Friday only!

I don't quite see your point here. Are you saying that we should run train services prior to upgrading the railway so that we can have the enjoyment of long and inconvenient diversions during construction? Or are you saying that we should not upgrade railways because doing so requires inconvenient diversions and cancellations?
It seems better to consistently have a bus service until the tracks are ready than to start a train service which then needs to be frequently cancelled and replaced by buses to enable track upgrades.

I might have also expressed myself poorly here, as the more relevant example would have been how GO operates a bus bridge during major construction work, as on the Lakeshore West and East lines on several weekends this year (and didn't they cancel mid-day service to Bramalea for multiple years while they were upgrading the Weston Sub?). However, my point remains that track upgrades which might only take place in a few years' time are a poor reason to delay the launch of a passenger service, but the ridiculously poor achievable speeds and timings would have certainly a much more compelling reason to pull the plug before the departure of the first train. Nevertheless, as a fait accompli, we can only hope that it will be remembered as the moment Metrolinx started to transform itself towards a more regional rather than metropolitan network rather than a vanity stunt…

 

[crs1026]

I might have also expressed myself poorly here, as the more relevant example would have been how GO operates a bus bridge during major construction work, as on the Lakeshore West and East lines on several weekends this year (and didn't they cancel mid-day service to Bramalea for multiple years while they were upgrading the Weston Sub?). However, my point remains that track upgrades which might only take place in a few years' time are a poor reason to delay the launch of a passenger service, but the ridiculously poor achievable speeds and timings would have certainly a much more compelling reason to pull the plug before the departure of the first train. However, as a fait accompli, we can only hope that it will be remembered as the moment Metrolinx started to transform itself towards a more regional rather than metropolitan network...

It’s a bit like a fluke goal in hockey…. nobody who scored one ever says, hey that one doesn’t count, you can take it off the scoreboard. So if this is what it took to get a regional rail movement launched, then despite all my griping, I will take it.

I don’t buy into the conspiracy theory that this service was launched with a desire to fail…. but I think the fears that it will sour the political will to go further are valid. We can’t discount the possibility that the political level is so badly informed that it believes this service can succeed in its present form. If it fails to please, they may just give up on the whole idea and look elsewhere to score points with voters. I just hope that some ML staffer is actually burning the midnight oil writing some sort of proposal that can be rolled out before the provincial election.

I am hopeful that this may actually open the door for policymakers to begin writing and exchanging ideas about regional rail service. I cringe at how long and how disfunctional those policy exercises can be… especially if province and federal levels are trying to throw the hot potato to each other. But one has to start somewhere, I guess.

- Paul

PS - You may be close to the mark by noting that actually buying a rail line is somehow a political third rail …. even if it is sensible and has precedent. I wonder if Ontario got sick of waiting for Ottawa to launch HFR so that the purchase of the Stratford segment either fell off the radar screen or used HFR as precedent…. while Ottawa hoped Ontario would move first so that they didn’t have to commit to,anything west of Toronto. Just a theory, but there seems to be a lot of odd volleying between the two levels.

 

[ssiguy2]

Not helped by the fact that SWO has absolutely no representation at the Cabinet.

 

[dowlingm]

This might be a bit of a long shot, but following on from the train meets discussion a few pages back, would any consideration be given to relocating the Stratford railyard east of Romeo using powers and funding under the Railway Relocation and Crossing Act? Would allow creation of a multiple track station area, free up space for park and ride/bus loops, maybe some light TOD, perhaps some extra street grid connections.

Aside from other negative considerations, it might rip open the same demands in Hamilton, but it seems to me that it would strengthen the urban fabric of that part of Stratford (the TOD adding to the tax roll) and relocate the switching noise/inconvenience to the big box zone to the east away from the bulk of residential use.

 

[ShonTron]

That yard is used by CN and GEXR, mostly to exchange cars destined for GEXR, which continues to use the Stratford station building as its crew office.

Though the yard track certainly can be moved eastward, especially with the removal of the Drumbo and Newton Subdivisions in the 1980s and 1990s, the land will likely need serious soil remediation. It’d be a huge cost to move the yard and clean the old yard lands.

 

[DirectionNorth]

This might be a bit of a long shot, but following on from the train meets discussion a few pages back, would any consideration be given to relocating the Stratford railyard east of Romeo using powers and funding under the Railway Relocation and Crossing Act? Would allow creation of a multiple track station area, free up space for park and ride/bus loops, maybe some light TOD, perhaps some extra street grid connections.

Aside from other negative considerations, it might rip open the same demands in Hamilton, but it seems to me that it would strengthen the urban fabric of that part of Stratford (the TOD adding to the tax roll) and relocate the switching noise/inconvenience to the big box zone to the east away from the bulk of residential use.
View attachment 368959

Interesting idea. Use the funds to fund London GO improvements.

I do question the demand for TOD in Stratford. How many people would move here (probably lots, actually).

It's a chicken/egg situation where you can't really do TOD until there's good service, and you can't really have good service without funding. It's food for thought though.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I doubt demand is high for high density TOD in Stratford.

 

[Nomad_87]

Maybe the Yard could be used partly for a GO layover yard instead of having it in Baden.

 

[dowlingm]

Interesting idea. Use the funds to fund London GO improvements.

I do question the demand for TOD in Stratford. How many people would move here (probably lots, actually).

It's a chicken/egg situation where you can't really do TOD until there's good service, and you can't really have good service without funding. It's food for thought though.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1470716580120207361

 

[Coolstar]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1470867235304456192