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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

W. K. Lis said:
Wonder if they could extend the Waterloo ION light rail line past Cambridge to Hamilton, as a "tram train"?

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Legally, Waterloo ion is a tram train already as it travels partly on mainline track. Depending on how much funding there is, the "Cambridge GO line" could likely be a tram. I think a tram train to st Jacobs would be cool (Waterloo owns the track currently)
 
W. K. Lis said:
Wonder if they could extend the Waterloo ION light rail line past Cambridge to Hamilton, as a "tram train"?
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In a perfect world, this happens along with the Milton line fully being all day frequent service and extended to Cambridge. Maybe while we're at it, OBRY gets bought by ML and Orangeville line exists with all day frequent service, giving a more convenient regional connection with it and Cambridge, and the rest of the ION/Waterloo region as well.
 
anb said:
In a perfect world, this happens along with the Milton line fully being all day frequent service and extended to Cambridge. Maybe while we're at it, OBRY gets bought by ML and Orangeville line exists with all day frequent service, giving a more convenient regional connection with it and Cambridge, and the rest of the ION/Waterloo region as well.
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With the Galt Sub being part of CP‘s Toronto-Chicago spine, it would be terribly expensive to extend the Milton line to Cambridge, with basically no major settlement en-route. Much better to build a branch from the Kitchener Corridor by reactivating the Fergus Sub from Guelph, which allows separate stops at Hespeler, Preston and near Cambridges bus terminal…
 
Urban Sky said:
With the Galt Sub being part of CP‘s Toronto-Chicago spine, it would be terribly expensive to extend the Milton line to Cambridge, with basically no major settlement en-route. Much better to build a branch from the Kitchener Corridor by reactivating the Fergus Sub from Guelph, which allows separate stops at Hespeler, Preston and near Cambridges bus terminal…
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Are you sure about that? Major upgrades would need to be done to the Fergus spur... at the current moment it's single track R105 territory with 10/15 mph maximum speed. And per some old ETTs the maximum speed was 20-30 mph with OCS (dark territory mainline)

At the current moment the Galt sub from Guelph Junction westward is single track ABS which is OCS with intermediate block signals.

It probably depends more on which option has more long term benefits than short term.
 
Krypto98 said:
Are you sure about that? Major upgrades would need to be done to the Fergus spur... at the current moment it's single track R105 territory with 10/15 mph maximum speed. And per some old ETTs the maximum speed was 20-30 mph with OCS (dark territory mainline)

At the current moment the Galt sub from Guelph Junction westward is single track ABS which is OCS with intermediate block signals.

It probably depends more on which option has more long term benefits than short term.
Click to expand...
Much of the Guelph sub was in a bad state before ML purchased it.

The Milton line if good if you want to shuttle people straight to Union
but
The Fergus sub is better as it serves local trips ex Galt->Hespeler and Guelph. By the time you get to Cambridge the amount of peak oriented commuters to DT is rather small and internal trips dominate.
 
Krypto98 said:
Are you sure about that? Major upgrades would need to be done to the Fergus spur... at the current moment it's single track R105 territory with 10/15 mph maximum speed. And per some old ETTs the maximum speed was 20-30 mph with OCS (dark territory mainline)

At the current moment the Galt sub from Guelph Junction westward is single track ABS which is OCS with intermediate block signals.

It probably depends more on which option has more long term benefits than short term.
Click to expand...
From the Region of Waterloo's own Planning and Works committee (skip to page 113 in the PDF):
Connecting Cambridge to the GO rail network via the Fergus subdivision has a higher degree of constructability and deliverability compared to the Milton GO Line extension given the ability to bypass the need for any negotiations with the Canadian Pacific Railway company (CP). Based on current and future travel patterns, the midline stations along the Kitchener GO Line corridor offer a higher potential to be transformed to key destination stations for future riders compared to midline stations along the Milton Line GO corridor. In terms of future ridership growth potential, this makes providing a passenger rail connection to Cambridge via the Fergus subdivision more attractive than via the Milton GO Line extension
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One just has to look at a map to figure out which alignment connects all three constituent cities of Cambridge (Galt, Hespeler and Preston) over a length of 24 km to the closest CMA and which one just only connects Galt through a 40 km void:
1674158537239.png
 
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Krypto98 said:
Are you sure about that? Major upgrades would need to be done to the Fergus spur... at the current moment it's single track R105 territory with 10/15 mph maximum speed. And per some old ETTs the maximum speed was 20-30 mph with OCS (dark territory mainline)

At the current moment the Galt sub from Guelph Junction westward is single track ABS which is OCS with intermediate block signals.

It probably depends more on which option has more long term benefits than short term.
Click to expand...

The current plan is to use the Fergus spur to get into Cambridge. Thats what has been studied

 
Krypto98 said:
Are you sure about that? Major upgrades would need to be done to the Fergus spur... at the current moment it's single track R105 territory with 10/15 mph maximum speed. And per some old ETTs the maximum speed was 20-30 mph with OCS (dark territory mainline)

At the current moment the Galt sub from Guelph Junction westward is single track ABS which is OCS with intermediate block signals.

It probably depends more on which option has more long term benefits than short term.
Click to expand...

If this was such an issue, VIA would not be exploring the HFR proposal.

It's much easier to repair track that CN actively wants to get rid of over trying to negotiate with a freight line on their main line through Canada.
 
innsertnamehere said:
The waterloo airport averaged like 300 passengers a day in 2019. At a high estimate of 10% modal share, that would be a whopping 30 transit passengers, most of which would likely prefer local connections into Waterloo and Guelph.
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I'd think most would just drive there - it's not like parking is an issue. Or take a taxi.
 
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