Krypto98
Active Member
How much of a cost difference and time difference is 80 mph vs 90 mph? Class 4 vs Class 5
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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)
- Thread starter drum118
- Start date
Bordercollie
Senior Member
I'm sure that would depend on if it's new or you are rebuilding it.
ack
New Member
I wonder what the deal is with Georgetown. As far as I can tell, there's only about 0.35 mile of yard track, and the rest of the slowness is on bonded track built to mainline standards.
Couldn't much of this be fixed just by tinkering with the signals? For example, letting westbound trains accelerate right after clearing the yard track (as eastbound trains do already), and signalling 25 instead of 15 mph when approaching it (as with the Bramalea stub track)?
crs1026
Superstar
There are engineering and operating restrictions on how signalling is designed, so one cannot just arbitrarily change the rules…but…The short answer is, yes, it can easily be fixed…. with money.
Depends on things like - how many power switches ML wants/can afford for the yard at Georgetown, how many tracks will be bonded…. and that may depend on the intent of the station design ie which trains use which platform tracks, etc
I suspect that with other design elements not fully nailed down (eg the flyover) it’s wiser to let this one sit for a bit. When the flyover is finalized, one would expect the Georgetown station configuration to become clear.
- Paul
smallspy
Senior Member
I don't have current line speeds for that section of the Halton Sub, but the line speed in 2015 for that area was 50mph. Crossovers were all #20s, rated at 45mph. Considering how heavily the line is used, there's no reason to think that the limits have been lowered through there.
The Guelph Sub has a speed limit of 70mph.
The issue is the GO yard and platform at Georgetown, which are not signalized and limited to 10mph.
Now despite the higher limits, part of the reason why you may see lower speeds through that section is the signal progressions through Georgetown Station. A train leaving the station is allowed to reach track speed as soon as the last axle clears the slower limits (provided it is clear to do so), but entering the station the train will see a series of more and more restrictive signal indications leading to the final signals prior to the station showing a 15 mph limit.
Dan
reaperexpress
Senior Member
The Kitchener business case estimated a 1h30 travel time from Kitchener to Union for the scenario with a CN-GO grade-separation, and 1h38 without a grade separation (for a stopping pattern with 9 intermediate stops, versus today's 6).
So for a 2h40 travel time from London to Toronto with a grade separation, London-Kitchener needs to be 1h10, which is only 3 min less than in 1976. So that's definitely achieveable with a 95 mph limit (probably already achievable with 80 mph).
Without a grade separation, London-Kitchener would need to be 1h03, which seems like it would be doable with 95 mph limits, but I'd like to do at least a back-of-the-envelope estimate before making that claim.
In theory intercity trains skipping 7 stops would save about 14 minutes compared to regional trains (assuming 2 min per stop), but while the line is still single-tracked, the amount of time that can be saved west of Georgetown is limited by the passing track locations and in practice the time saved would be less. A rough scheduling exercise I did earlier came out with an estimate of 1h20 for VIA from Kitchener to Toronto regardless of grade separation.
Krypto98
Active Member
I believe skipping Georgetown might save the most time if the main line track is used instead of the yard tracks. When I've used the train we spend 5 minutes getting into Georgetown and 5 minutes getting out.
Jonny5
Senior Member
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reaperexpress
Senior Member
Those travel times from the business case already include resolving the speed restriction at Georgetown. Relative to those travel times, skipping Georgetown is no different than skipping any other station.
Bordercollie
Senior Member
10 minutes on a 4 hour journey is nothing.
You could probably be better off fixing the track between Kitchener and London.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
- I'm pretty sure rebuilding 94 km of track west of Kitchener is a lot more expensive than adding signalling to 0.5 km of track in Georgetown.
- The number of GO trains through Georgetown is currently six times the number of GO+VIA trains west of Kitchener. Even with expanded service to London we could expect 1.5x to 2x more trains at Georgetown.
- The number of passengers per train through Georgetown is also considerably more than the passengers per train west of Kitchener, so the person-hours saved will also be correspondingly higher. Even if the track west of Kitchener were fixed up to the same standard as east of Kitchener and the local transit systems were centralized around the stations like they are at Guelph, Mount Pleasant, Brampton, Bramalea, Mount Dennis, Bloor and Union, ridership west of Kitchener would still be lower because London, St. Marys and Stratford have lower populations than Guelph, Brampton and Toronto.
I'm strongly in favour of upgrading the track west of Kitchener, but doing so is not an alternative to resolving the slow zone through Georgetown.
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mdrejhon
Senior Member
You’re not thinking the useful perspective:
It’s the COST PER MINUTE TIME SAVED
I think that the costs to save a minute through Georgetown is quite reasonable, compared to the costs to save a minute between Kitchener-London.
There are literally over a thousand separate construction projects between London-Toronto, and they might only hit, say, 50 to 100 or 200 of the most cost-effective projects. Some are a stretch of track between two signals, some are are a new switch, some are a new or rearranged signal, etc. Each may save seconds or minutes by themselves (or in combination), and some are better bang-per-dollar in long term time savings. New track never saves time by themselves, it’s the combination of new track + related signals + related switches.
New track hooked into low-speed switches, means you still must run slow on new track. New track hooked into old signals, means you still are bound by the constraints of the old signals and layout. So some projects need to be done as a combination, to get the maximal time savings. You literally have to TETRIS all those related mini construction projects together to unlock the best bang-for-dollar. Even forgetting to do some items or postponing some items, means you’ve punted time savings down the road — just look at what happened to the Georgetown Corridor, they had to punt a few things down the road, not all time savings were fully unlocked (and still isn’t yet).
They should find the cheapest minutes to fix (as individual projects and packages of projects), and fix ALL of them.
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anb
Active Member
How would a weekend Kitchener train work if it was implemented right now. Would it be Niagara-esque running express and only stopping at the major destinations, or would it be like the Barrie train on the weekends and run all stops on its entire route with a frequency of 3-4 hours apart, or something completely different either for better or worse as the corridor is already well developed for most of its run.
Bordercollie
Senior Member
And by making it inconvenient for passengers and eliminating an important community.You’re not thinking the useful perspective:
It’s the COST PER MINUTE TIME SAVED
I think that the costs to save a minute through Georgetown is quite reasonable, compared to the costs to save a minute between Kitchener-London.
There are literally over a thousand separate construction projects between London-Toronto, and they might only hit, say, 50 to 100 or 200 of the most cost-effective projects. Some are a stretch of track between two signals, some are are a new switch, some are a new or rearranged signal, etc. Each may save seconds or minutes by themselves (or in combination), and some are better bang-per-dollar in long term time savings. New track never saves time by themselves, it’s the combination of new track + related signals + related switches.
New track hooked into low-speed switches, means you still must run slow on new track. New track hooked into old signals, means you still are bound by the constraints of the old signals and layout. So some projects need to be done as a combination, to get the maximal time savings. You literally have to TETRIS all those related mini construction projects together to unlock the best bang-for-dollar. Even forgetting to do some items or postponing some items, means you’ve punted time savings down the road — just look at what happened to the Georgetown Corridor, they had to punt a few things down the road, not all time savings were fully unlocked (and still isn’t yet).
They should find the cheapest minutes to fix (as individual projects and packages of projects), and fix ALL of them.
I would rather the train take another 10 minutes and potentially serve 40k people.
Bordercollie
Senior Member
It would make sense to serve all stops.
It's about trying to serve as many people as possible.
If VIA would bring their service back to Niagara they would stop at Oakville, Aldershot, Grimsby, ST Catharines, and Niagara. Stoney Creek could be served using West Harbor if they can do it without backing up.