GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[ssiguy2]

Wynne's HSR line to London {little alone Windsor} was nothing more than a plan written on the back of a napkin a couple months before the election.

HSR to Windsor would be nice but not really necessary. If VIA would invest in track twinning and overpasses and offer a Windsor/London/Union express than speeds would increase dramatically. At 180km/hr top speed the trip to London could easily take less than 90 minutes and, equally importantly, be reliable. VIA, however, has made it quite clear that they have no intention of improving the route and as it stands now it is unreliable and painfully slow so I could see GO wanting to take the southern route as well. God knows the people of SWO couldn't possibly be worse off.

 

[EnviroTO]

Wynne's HSR line to London {little alone Windsor} was nothing more than a plan written on the back of a napkin a couple months before the election.

Not really. October 2015 David Collenette was appointed as Special Advisor on High Speed Rail for Ontario, December 2016 the recommendation came out to build high-speed rail using RER investments from Toronto to Kitchener and a new track from there to London on the edge of an existing Hydro Corridor as phase one of HSR in Ontario. An announcement May 2017 of $15 million for preliminary design work and an environmental assessment, followed by the start of that environmental assessment on March 2018. The choice of Toronto - London was due to deliverability (cost and lower risks) and synergies with RER investments and corridor purchases. Investments into RER Kitchener would get paid off more quickly because it would also serve as the primary corridor for passenger traffic to London and beyond. It was around this same time that Ontario purchased Silver to Kitchener trackage.

 

[robmausser]

Wynne's HSR line to London {little alone Windsor} was nothing more than a plan written on the back of a napkin a couple months before the election.

HSR to Windsor would be nice but not really necessary. If VIA would invest in track twinning and overpasses and offer a Windsor/London/Union express than speeds would increase dramatically. At 180km/hr top speed the trip to London could easily take less than 90 minutes and, equally importantly, be reliable. VIA, however, has made it quite clear that they have no intention of improving the route and as it stands now it is unreliable and painfully slow so I could see GO wanting to take the southern route as well. God knows the people of SWO couldn't possibly be worse off.

Its really annoying because a final plan of a 200kmh VIA HFR going Windsor > London > Kitchener > Toronto > Ottawa > Montreal > Quebec City would do amazing things for 1/3 of the population of Canada. It simply complicates things and adds frustrations if they are done by 2 different Federal/Provincial services. Anyone going from London to Ottawa for example, that has to change trains in Toronto and pay 2 fares for 2 different services is just going to say "why bother" and drive or fly.

 

[rbt]

Anyone going from London to Ottawa for example, that has to change trains in Toronto and pay 2 fares for 2 different services is just going to say "why bother" and drive or fly.

Transfers aren't unusual in the better used railway networks. Most passengers in Spain/France/Germany making 500km+ trips would be transferring. Cross platform timed transfer points makes these extremely smooth; far smoother flying from London to Ottawa would be.


Fare integration is wholly political. There no technical reason why a single entity couldn't sell a combined VIA/GO/... trip ticket. Many times when people fly they don't even know who's operating the aircraft, only who they bought the ticket from; selling tickets on another companies flight is common.

 

[Bordercollie]

Transfers aren't unusual in the better used railway networks. Most passengers in Spain/France/Germany making 500km+ trips would be transferring. Cross platform timed transfer points makes these extremely smooth; far smoother flying from London to Ottawa would be.


Fare integration is wholly political. There no technical reason why a single entity couldn't sell a combined VIA/GO/... trip ticket. Many times when people fly they don't even know who's operating the aircraft, only who they bought the ticket from; selling tickets on another companies flight is common.

When air Canada or WestJet buys VIA tickets for customers who have cancellations, how does that work? Last time I bought my own ticket and had to wait a month for a refund. Is that how it always works? And they rebooked me for a flight 3 days out, makes no sense.

 

[reaperexpress]

Its really annoying because a final plan of a 200kmh VIA HFR going Windsor > London > Kitchener > Toronto > Ottawa > Montreal > Quebec City would do amazing things for 1/3 of the population of Canada. It simply complicates things and adds frustrations if they are done by 2 different Federal/Provincial services. Anyone going from London to Ottawa for example, that has to change trains in Toronto and pay 2 fares for 2 different services is just going to say "why bother" and drive or fly.

The lack of fare integration is an issue regardless of which agency operates the Windsor-Toronto service. There are plenty of situations where people are already dissuaded from riding trains due to the double fares. At Oshawa, VIA passengers from Ottawa or Montréal can connect to the Lakeshore East line which normally runs every 15 minutes, guaranteeing a convenient transfer regardless of how delayed the VIA train is. So in theory, VIA should be able to run non-stop from Oshawa to Union while also having excellent coverage for the intermediate area via GO.

But due to the total lack of fare integration, passengers making this transfer get dinged by a big fare penalty. A trip on train 41 from Kingston to Union on 29 June 2022 costs $54 at the moment,

but a trip to Scarborough, which is between Kingston and Toronto, costs $65.

And don't get me started on the insane conditions on GO tickets sold by VIA, namely that you need to take the specific train listed on your ticket, even when the VIA trip planner tells you to wait 1h15 for a service which runs every 30 minutes.

The $11 difference in cost matches the cash price for a GO ticket from Oshawa to Scarborough. VIA doesn't even get the Presto discount, let alone integrated fares.

By definition, the passengers who transfer from VIA to GO at Oshawa will not be riding all the way to Union. Since they exit the train before the busiest point of the route, they have no impact on GO's operating costs (frequency/length of trains). GO should be able to offer VIA a good discount on tickets, and still end up with a net profit thanks to the increased ticket sales on the outer portions of the routes.

If there were fare integration, it wouldn't be that big of a deal for VIA to eliminate minor stops such as Malton or Georgetown, since passengers could connect to VIA at Guelph. Currently the 17:40 VIA train to Kitchener spends most of its time jockeying with the 17:34 GO train which has approximately the same average speed. The trains cross each others' paths numerous times, basically guaranteeing that one of them will delay the other at some point.

Current schedule, westbound

If VIA skipped Malton, it could easily overtake the GO train there and be done with it, and start clawing back the 30-minute gap behind the previous GO train. If VIA skipped Georgetown, they would no longer need to cross all the CN tracks there, reducing the chance of delays. These changes, combined with updating schedules to reflect recent track upgrades, would enable VIA to cover Toronto-Kitchener in under 90 minutes today.

Proposed schedule, westbound

 

[rbt]

When air Canada or WestJet buys VIA tickets for customers who have cancellations, how does that work? Last time I bought my own ticket and had to wait a month for a refund. Is that how it always works? And they rebooked me for a flight 3 days out, makes no sense.

It would work however the companies negotiate it to work.

When to you go to the SNCF website and buy a ticket from Paris to Munich, and mid-way get a transfer onto a DB train, it still works as a single trip. If the first train is cancelled or delayed, the second portion of your trip is adjusted.

When you go to the Air Canada website and buy a ticket from Toronto to Auckland, and mid-way you transfer onto an Air New Zealand aircraft, it still works as a single trip. If the first flight from Toronto to Vancouver is cancelled or delayed, the second portion of your trip is adjusted.

There is precedence for VIA and their partner airline to both have some flexibility in these bookings. If you book from Peterborough Ontario to London England, and the VIA train (with transfer at Dorval) is delayed or cancelled, the flight portion of your trip could be adjusted just as if you flew from Peterborough to Montreal.

What you've described is not a technical issue; it's a contractual issue. If VIA allows sales with standard commissions and flexibility (as European railways typically allow; Portugal is/was a notable exception), then problems will be handled in the standard way. You contact the agent you used to purchase the ticket (Air Canada, VIA, or another travel agency) and have them fix the problem.

With HFR, I hope VIA starts pushing their ticketing through Amadeus and Travelport GDS systems (both already carry some railway scheduling), and negotiates code-sharing with major airlines from there.

 

[robmausser]

Transfers aren't unusual in the better used railway networks. Most passengers in Spain/France/Germany making 500km+ trips would be transferring. Cross platform timed transfer points makes these extremely smooth; far smoother flying from London to Ottawa would be.


Fare integration is wholly political. There no technical reason why a single entity couldn't sell a combined VIA/GO/... trip ticket. Many times when people fly they don't even know who's operating the aircraft, only who they bought the ticket from; selling tickets on another companies flight is common.

Transfers might work in Europe and Asia with a large network where people are accustomed to such things, but this isn't Europe or Asia. Europe and Asia have people willing to do things for transit because cars and gas are much more relatively expensive to them than in Canada, even with the gas prices we have recently. It's not a car culture there as much, in a nutshell.

The majority of North American's have been turned off of trains because of poor service, and you are going to have to do everything to ensure it is a smooth ride that is nicer and cheaper than taking the car. A transfer at Union between two trains from London to Ottawa would kill the service here, even if it didn't elsewhere.

 

[reaperexpress]

Transfers might work in Europe and Asia with a large network where people are accustomed to such things, but this isn't Europe or Asia. Europe and Asia have people willing to do things for transit because cars and gas are much more relatively expensive to them than in Canada, even with the gas prices we have recently. It's not a car culture there as much, in a nutshell.

The majority of North American's have been turned off of trains because of poor service, and you are going to have to do everything to ensure it is a smooth ride that is nicer and cheaper than taking the car. A transfer at Union between two trains from London to Ottawa would kill the service here, even if it didn't elsewhere.

London to Ottawa? Is that really what we're optimising our railway network on?

Sure, transfers are always a disincentive to travel, but they are inevitable. It isn't practical to operate a reliable service if you're operating a one-seat ride from Québec City to Windsor. You need to split up the service somewhere, and in order to minimise the number of people who need to transfer, that split should occur where the highest turnover is in the train. Which is obviously at Toronto Union Station.

 

[crs1026]

London to Ottawa? Is that really what we're optimising our railway network on?

Sure, transfers are always a disincentive to travel, but they are inevitable. It isn't practical to operate a reliable service if you're operating a one-seat ride from Québec City to Windsor. You need to split up the service somewhere, and in order to minimise the number of people who need to transfer, that split should occur where the highest turnover is in the train. That is obviously Toronto Union Station.

There is a middle ground - we could likely do some (but not all) through trains much better once routes both east and west of Toronto are in GO/VIA's hands so there is more reliable timekeeping. But we could also do the transfers much better, especially if Union were remodelled with more of an upstairs "concourse" so that transfers are either across-platform or at least without the need to go downstairs and up again.

- Paul

 

[reaperexpress]

What's the length of this new 10 mph slow order?

Following VIA 84 on Moving Maps today, CN's new 10 mph slow order in Kitchener seems to be from Fisher Hallman Road to Park Street. At a length of 2.9 km (1.8 miles), it's nearly double the length of the former 10 mph slow zone in Guelph.

Before reaching the slow order, VIA 84 was expected to arrive in Kitchener 4 minutes late. (The below screenshot was taken slightly later, when the delay increased).

It ended up arriving in Kitchener 11 minutes late.

East of Park Street, the line is owned by Metrolinx, so it's actually maintained properly. For the last few hundred metres before Kitchener station, the train briefly accelerated up to 46 km/h before needing to brake for the station.

This morning's London GO train was similarly impacted. Approaching Kitchener it was on time,

but it arrived at Kitchener station nearly 10 minutes late.

 

[robmausser]

Following VIA 84 on Moving Maps today, CN's new 10 mph slow order in Kitchener seems to be from Fisher Hallman Road to Park Street. At a length of 2.9 km (1.8 miles), it's nearly double the length of the former 10 mph slow zone in Guelph.
View attachment 400934

Prior the start of the slow order, VIA 84 was expected to arrive in Kitchener 4 minutes late. (I didn't know where the slow order started so the screenshot is slightly later, with an estimated delay of 5 min).
View attachment 400931

It ended up arriving in Kitchener 11 minutes late.
View attachment 400933

East of Park Street, the line is owned by Metrolinx, so it's actually maintained properly. For the last few hundred metres before Kitchener station, the train briefly accelerated up to 46 km/h before needing to brake for the station.
View attachment 400932

This morning's London GO train was similarly impacted

Does anyone know the reason for the slow order?

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

The whole London thing is just not a good idea. Being stuck on a GO Train for 4 hours is not an ideal night no matter how you slice it.

 

[Northern Light]

The whole London thing is just not a good idea. Being stuck on a GO Train for 4 hours is not an ideal night no matter how you slice it.

This is not about taking a GO Train from London-Toronto, its about taking a GO Train from London To Stratford, or Kitchener.

There may the odd customer who would take the whole route, but London-Toronto is already available from VIA.

This is additional service targeting a different customer overall.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

This is not about taking a GO Train from London-Toronto, its about taking a GO Train from London To Stratford, or Kitchener.

There may the odd customer who would take the whole route, but London-Toronto is already available from VIA.

This is additional service targeting a different customer overall.

Via already stops in these places though. The idea is good but the implementation is awful.