GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[crs1026]

Interesting discussion

Interesting, yes, plenty to agree with. Some of which is indeed being advanced. But it is presented inside out. As usual with enthusiast articles, the thing obsesses about fleet and EMU's and electric locomotives - which most agree are the right direction, but are not the silver bullet they are always presented as.

The bigger need is for track, wires, signals, and platforms in the right places. Fleet comes later. First, decide on the mission. GO historically did not address movement within the 416. There has been considerable motion to change that. But GO cannot be hijacked to be the 416's transit solution. And if it were, how well does it meet regional and intercity needs? It has to balance the two, and the capacity for both must be built into the design. Pushing the pendulum too far by adding too many 416 stations risks undermining the longer distance throughput - yes, electrification will allow more stops within the same footprint, but only to a point.

I compare it to a 80 storey condo or office tower. There will likely be express elevators, because nobody wants to stop 78 times on the way to the top floor. One can analyse ridership and note that the express elevators only benefit half the riders, because half the residents get off below the 40th floor. Doesn't mean the express component is wrong. A good designer will be astute in where the crossover floors are. Switching to elevators that move faster doesn't change the agony of stopping at all 79 floors. So some express component has to fit in the design.

I may trigger a bit quickly when discussion focuses on electric fleet, but I see lots of frustration and complaining because posters think ML isn't moving fast enough to procure same. (As if switchgear and power control components can be ordered online and arrive by courier). We can't string wires until we have the track built and the signals activated. We need more common understanding of the system design.

- Paul

 

[afransen]

I may trigger a bit quickly when discussion focuses on electric fleet, but I see lots of frustration and complaining because posters think ML isn't moving fast enough to procure same. (As if switchgear and power control components can be ordered online and arrive by courier). We can't string wires until we have the track built and the signals activated. We need more common understanding of the system design.

To be fair, I think it is objectively true that progress to date on GO expansion has been very slow. This is compounded by Metrolinx's lack of transparency. We are promised that the development phase will be completed in the next few months. I, perhaps cynically, don't expect that ML will reveal their plans at that time.

 

[crs1026]

To be fair, I think it is objectively true that progress to date on GO expansion has been very slow. This is compounded by Metrolinx's lack of transparency. We are promised that the development phase will be completed in the next few months. I, perhaps cynically, don't expect that ML will reveal their plans at that time.

Completely agree. The slow pace is compounded by ML's internal lack of project discipline, bad staging and habitual redesign. And politics.
The steady drip drip drip of gleeful PR is egregious considering that ML will not engage in any meaningful discussion of timelines or tcd's. Lots to be dissatisfied about.

- Paul

 

[generalcanada]

Hmm toronto sun coming out with a useful article? colour me suprised

LILLEY: German firm taking over GO trains promises increased efficiency

The stereotype of German efficiency is coming to the GO Transit train system in four months' time.

torontosun.com

This is actually interesting, though, query in what time frame those 12 trains exist? 12 more at once? 12 more trains per hour?

Speaking with Niko Warbanoff, the CEO of Deutsche Bahn’s international operations, the promise is clear. He says that by applying new IT, built around industry standards, there will be 12 more trains available to service commuters without actually adding any cars to the rolling stock of the Go Train system.



“So, one result will be, and we know that already today, that by using the new IT, that we will be able to have 12 additional trains per day, more on the network than today, and this increase in capacity is without any changes in the infrastructure or anything else,” Warbanoff said during an interview in Toronto last month.

 

[chrisw]

And what does the new IT mean?

 

[Northern Light]

Hmm toronto sun coming out with a useful article? colour me suprised

LILLEY: German firm taking over GO trains promises increased efficiency

The stereotype of German efficiency is coming to the GO Transit train system in four months' time.

torontosun.com

This is actually interesting, though, query in what time frame those 12 trains exist? 12 more at once? 12 more trains per hour?

12 trains, on the entire network, over a typical day's service span wouldn't be much at all, that's less than one train per hour on a single line.

I mean, great, as far as it goes, but certainly nothing too exciting.

It may well be that something more is meant, but Lilley certainly didn't bring that to the fore.

 

[generalcanada]

And what does the new IT mean?

my guess about this article? "brownfield" vs "greenfield" infrastructure. Or put simply, building infrastructure out from scratch vs when things already exist.
Saying you have a more modernized infrastructure on Azure, GitHub and terraform with ci/cd doesn't tell me much, I mean it's much easier to build from scratch than to migrate existing systems, but its not something unique to the private sector.

I think back to that multi-million azure contract TTC bought. I wonder how much of that was just inefficient development and a lack of desire to make major changes
Note that "lack of desire to make changes" OOOH boy the public sector is not unique to that either LMAO

 

[kalis0490]

Perhaps we can have a thread dedicated to transit plans, drawing, and schematics for projects past and present? Like a repository where those things will always be available.

I started a thread of discussion about various old GO/Metrolinx plans here: https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/go-transit-corridor-studies.37239/

I have also made a Google drive of some of the old transit plans in Ontario: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1QjNwlKpqjNEAhRYRVSGhABhL2cBTF-0h?usp=drive_link (edit: added access)

Feel free to DM me to contribute to the drive!

 

[Allandale25]

^ I bet some folks like @crs1026 have suggestions for the drive

 

[WB62]

Not sure if this is truly the right thread for this, but I went down to the Reference Library to get some materials on GO ALRT and thought you guys might like to see some of it (I took the photos with my phone so the quality may not be super good on some images). I'll start with photos from outside of Hamilton (there's a lot of Hamilton related things). Part 1:

Adding onto the discussion from the other day:

GO Urban (The major project that came before GO ALRT when the government tried to pioneer maglev technology) also had a significant network proposed in Hamilton in the early 1970’s. I think the most interesting part about this proposal was the line that went straight up the mountain, I can’t imagine a maglev train would be able to take that very well:

 

[smallspy]

I can’t imagine a maglev train would be able to take that very well:

Why wouldn't it?

A maglev is unrestricted by the friction limitations of the steel wheel-to-steel rail interface. In theory, they can climb far higher grades than traditional wheeled trains can.

In fact, the ICTS proposed for Hamilton after the GO Urban plan fell apart called for sustained 8% grades up the mountain. And this was possible because of the contactless LIM that it used for propulsion.

Dan

 

[Bureaucromancer]

A maglev is unrestricted by the friction limitations of the steel wheel-to-steel rail interface. In theory, they can climb far higher grades than traditional wheeled trains can.

In fact, the ICTS proposed for Hamilton after the GO Urban plan fell apart called for sustained 8% grades up the mountain. And this was possible because of the contactless LIM that it used for propulsion.

I do always feel like that alignment was somewhat contrived to create the grades for demonstration purposes…. coming down the escarpment at an angle could have reduced the grade and actually served Mohawk College.

 

[WB62]

Why wouldn't it?

A maglev is unrestricted by the friction limitations of the steel wheel-to-steel rail interface. In theory, they can climb far higher grades than traditional wheeled trains can.

In fact, the ICTS proposed for Hamilton after the GO Urban plan fell apart called for sustained 8% grades up the mountain. And this was possible because of the contactless LIM that it used for propulsion.

Dan

I don’t know I was just assuming they couldn’t take steep grades. The GO Urban prototype couldn’t go around curves so I felt like I wasn’t too far off with that assumption

 

[Garuda]

Word on the street is that GO will be operating a special one day Oktoberfest train called the LederGOsen Line from Toronto Union to Berlin on October 12, 2024.

Take GO Transit’s Special LederGOsen Line to K-W Oktoberfest

Can we please, please finally get regular weekend service to Guelph and Waterloo?

 

[dowlingm]

Word on the street is that GO will be operating a special one day Oktoberfest train called the LederGOsen Line from Toronto Union to Berlin on October 12, 2024.

Take GO Transit’s Special LederGOsen Line to K-W Oktoberfest

Can we please, please finally get regular weekend service to Guelph and Waterloo?

CTV coverage https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/go-transit-introduces-ledergosen-oktoberfest-train-1.7027985