GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[stevensontransit]

Lakeshore West: the Niagara train is now described as a seasonal service until Thanksgiving. Sure, let's just pretend it wasn't previously year-round. There are now only 3 daily round trips, compared to 4 in previous years.
There is still no weekday express service. The weekday Niagara Train takes 2h33, making all station stops. By comparison, weekend express trips take 2h05.



Kitchener: Limited midday service and evening service from Kitchener is back. There are now 8 daily round trips from Kitchener station, which is the same as pre-pandemic, but short of the 10 which were scheduled in September 2021.
Still no weekday express service. The London train takes 3h55, making all station stops. Still no counter-peak service to Bramalea either.


Stouffville: Hourly evening and weekend service is back.


Barrie: Hourly evening and weekend service is back as far as Aurora, as well as limited midday service to/from Barrie on weekdays as well as weekends.


UP Express: 15-minute service is back, but only during peak and shoulder-peak periods. Off-peak service remains only every 30 minutes.


No significant changes for Lakeshore East, Milton, or Richmond Hill.
No signifcant changes to bus service, just cancelling/shifting trips to connect to the adjusted/added train trips.

GO really needs to bring back pre pandemic 20-30 minute service levels on the 16 Hamilton express. That route is proven very popular.

 

[Richard White]

I was hoping there would be more Niagara trains this year, but instead they cut the last trip of the day in both directions. Also, seasonal for 5 months instead of year round sucks. Metrolinx disappoints as usual.

Personally I was hoping they would fix the Niagara service this year. It stops far too often and is far too overcrowded.

When I took it last year it took forever to get from Union to Niagara because the train was overloaded with people and it stopped at almost every station along the way. The sheer amount of people getting on and off caused delays departing the stations.

It would have been nice to have a super express from Toronto to Niagara with more local service for smaller towns and the escarpment.

 

[dkt]

Found out thanks to a transit app notification of all things....

COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Safety Updates | UP Express

Learn about our enhanced COVID-19 safety measures and UP Express schedule changes. It’s our top priority to keep you healthy and safe every time you travel with us.

www.upexpress.com

Also decided to check GO's website, and there is indeed an update but for now I can see only 50% of it (the Bus updates for now), but it does give a clue what to expect for the train service that's about to come. You'll see what I mean when you click the link if its not updated yet

Edit: Nvm, we can see the train service updates now..

Train Schedule Changes | Service Updates | GO Transit

We’re making time changes to some weekday Lakeshore East and Lakeshore West train trips, some weekday and weekend Barrie line trips, and to some GO bus trips.

www.gotransit.com

woo, one eastbound evening trip on the Kitchener line! let's go

the link to the new Kitchener schedule on the full schedules page seems to be broken...

 

[Allandale25]

Found out thanks to a transit app notification of all things....

COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Safety Updates | UP Express

Learn about our enhanced COVID-19 safety measures and UP Express schedule changes. It’s our top priority to keep you healthy and safe every time you travel with us.

www.upexpress.com

Also decided to check GO's website, and there is indeed an update but for now I can see only 50% of it (the Bus updates for now), but it does give a clue what to expect for the train service that's about to come. You'll see what I mean when you click the link if its not updated yet

Edit: Nvm, we can see the train service updates now..

Train Schedule Changes | Service Updates | GO Transit

We’re making time changes to some weekday Lakeshore East and Lakeshore West train trips, some weekday and weekend Barrie line trips, and to some GO bus trips.

www.gotransit.com

Blog post now up:

Metrolinx Press Room

Find the latest Metrolinx news, project updates and more.

blog.metrolinx.com

 

[applepill]

Blog post now up:

Metrolinx Press Room

Find the latest Metrolinx news, project updates and more.

blog.metrolinx.com

Glad about the returning weekend service, but there's still so many gaps that need to be brought up back to pre-pandemic levels. Glad that Kitchener is getting mid day service again.

 

[LNahid2000]

When I took it last year it took forever to get from Union to Niagara because the train was overloaded with people and it stopped at almost every station along the way. The sheer amount of people getting on and off caused delays departing the stations.

It looks like their solution for this was to pad the schedules by an extra 5 minutes compared to last year

 

[ARG1]

Lakeshore West: the Niagara train is now described as a seasonal service until Thanksgiving. Sure, let's just pretend it wasn't previously year-round. There are now only 3 daily round trips, compared to 4 in previous years.
There is still no weekday express service. The weekday Niagara Train takes 2h33, making all station stops. By comparison, weekend express trips take 2h05.



Kitchener: Limited midday service and evening service from Kitchener is back. There are now 8 daily round trips from Kitchener station, which is the same as pre-pandemic, but short of the 10 which were scheduled in September 2021.
Still no weekday express service. The London train takes 3h55, making all station stops. Still no counter-peak service to Bramalea either.


Stouffville: Hourly evening and weekend service is back.


Barrie: Hourly evening and weekend service is back as far as Aurora, as well as limited midday service to/from Barrie on weekdays as well as weekends.


UP Express: 15-minute service is back, but only during peak and shoulder-peak periods. Off-peak service remains only every 30 minutes.


No significant changes for Lakeshore East, Milton, or Richmond Hill.
No signifcant changes to bus service, just cancelling/shifting trips to connect to the adjusted/added train trips.

One minor detail you missed. The Stouffville Line once again has 3 trains per day to and from Old Elm on weekends, something that (I believe) hasn't happened since COVID started (even then it only operated briefly).

 

[ViveleCanada]

The only shame about this is that we don't get the express trips on the Kitchener runs, or the local trains serving all stops to Bramalea. That seemed the most effective way to deal with capacity issues and it also goes beyond just giving UP Express 15 mins to only serve Weston and Bloor in the process which all the current peak trains do anyways. At least we have the midday trips back to and from Kitchener which will definitely drive up ridership and efficiency going there.

Good news is that the restored Kitchener trains will still make it to Union in 1 hour 43 minutes (about the same time as the previous express service). So they seemed to now have accounted for the upgraded Guelph section. Will be exciting to see how fast the the express trains can get to Union once they return as well.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Kitchener should should be down to 1:20 once they are done imo.

Just need weekend service now.

Barrie is ok but they have got to get to hourly to Barrie, it's taking a long time. Also the Mulock station needs to be built soon.

 

[Krypto98]

Good news is that the restored Kitchener trains will still make it to Union in 1 hour 43 minutes (about the same time as the previous express service). So they seemed to now have accounted for the upgraded Guelph section. Will be exciting to see how fast the the express trains can get to Union once they return as well.

Any word on fixing the rule 105 zone at Georgetown? With that and express sub 1:30 should be possible.

 

[ShonTron]

I don't get why the 8:34 from Union to Mount Pleasant is cut - and replaced by a single "31X" bus that makes all stops from Malton to Mount Pleasant. That just seems weird, unless there are still not enough train crews to make that work when extending other trains to Kitchener, or if the capacity is given up for UP Express.

 

[ARG1]

I don't get why the 8:34 from Union to Mount Pleasant is cut - and replaced by a single "31X" bus that makes all stops from Malton to Mount Pleasant. That just seems weird, unless there are still not enough train crews to make that work when extending other trains to Kitchener, or if the capacity is given up for UP Express.

I can't imagine capacity to be the bottleneck, unless the bottleneck is somehow their ability to stick with a clockface schedule.

 

[reaperexpress]

One minor detail you missed. The Stouffville Line once again has 3 trains per day to and from Old Elm on weekends, something that (I believe) hasn't happened since COVID started (even then it only operated briefly).

I didn't miss that there are 3 weekend trains to/from Lincolnville, it just isn't notable. Running an hourly service to Mount Joy requires three trainsets, and the trains are stored in Lincolnville.

Kitchener should should be down to 1:20 once they are done imo.

I'm not sure what you mean by "done", but in September 2021 the express service was 8 min faster than the local service (2 minutes per stop skipped), so that would work out to 1h35 if it were implemented tomorrow. Their plans to fix up slow areas such as Georgetown and the Union Station corridor will save another few minutes, bringing it down to 1h30 as described in the Kitchener Expansion business case.

The bad news though is that the time saved will be eaten up by 8 minutes of schedule padding at Georgetown to account for CN sidelining GO trains until the rail-to-rail grade separation is built.

Barrie is ok but they have got to get to hourly to Barrie, it's taking a long time.

The travel time from Barrie to Aurora is under an hour, so given that the line will already be double tracked south of Aurora, all that's needed for hourly service to Barrie is a single siding 20-25 minutes south of Barrie. That places it somewhere between Innisfil and Bradford. Unfortunately the existing siding in Bradford is too far south (28 min from Barrie).

 

[cbrown2009]

And can I ask why still no weekend/holiday train service on the Kitchener line at least as far as Mount Pleasant? With maybe a few trains extended to Kitchener? It would seem that should be theoretically possible now..

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

I didn't miss that there are 3 weekend trains to/from Lincolnville, it just isn't notable. Running an hourly service to Mount Joy requires three trainsets, and the trains are stored in Lincolnville.



I'm not sure what you mean by "done", but in September 2021 the express service was 8 min faster than the local service (2 minutes per stop skipped), so that would work out to 1h35 if it were implemented tomorrow. Their plans to fix up slow areas such as Georgetown and the Union Station corridor will save another few minutes, bringing it down to 1h30 as described in the Kitchener Expansion business case.

The bad news though is that the time saved will be eaten up by 8 minutes of schedule padding at Georgetown to account for CN sidelining GO trains until the rail-to-rail grade separation is built.


The travel time from Barrie to Aurora is under an hour, so given that the line will already be double tracked south of Aurora, all that's needed for hourly service to Barrie is a single siding 20-25 minutes south of Barrie. That places it somewhere between Innisfil and Bradford. Unfortunately the existing siding in Bradford is too far south (28 min from Barrie).

I mean in terms of track improvements. They should reconsider full double-tracking but the upgrades should be enough to get to 90 minutes. Weekend service needs to happen to Mount Pleasant now though.

Thanks for the update on Barrie. I wish they would move the south Newmarket station, it feels like they won't do the second platform at Newmarket GO. Barrie south needs a second platform no?