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There needs to be some measure of service increase still to happen in order to have ONExpress be able to meet its contractual obligations. The contract calls for a certain level of service to be running on "Day 0", the day before the handover. The levels operated today are not there yet.
I'm happy to see the additional service to West Harbour. For myself, it still makes more sense to drive to Aldershot where I enjoy the benefit of all Lakeshore West trains from Hamilton GO, West Harbour, and Aldershot intersecting. The additional service frequency this offers is worth the drive.
There were service increases earlier this year, so this shouldn't be a constraint, contractually.
That's good news! Do you know roughly what these might be?
There are no CSA trainees right now, which means there are no new employees are being actively trained at the moment.
There are 40+ trains per day between Aldershot and Toronto, but only 3 trains per day to St. Catharines and Niagara. It is wild that they decided to keep stopping the 3 Niagara trains at Aldershot to benefit Aldershot-Toronto passengers at the expense of the Niagara passengers who have no other train options. (And West Harbour passengers who have half as many train options). Aldershot station provides very little value to people heading to/from Niagara now that Niagara trains can efficiently stop at Hamilton West Harbour.
As noted by @urbancog the sidings are 30 minutes apart, which only permits 60-minute bidirectional service. The current peak service is every 30 minutes so counter-peak service is impossible. For 30-minute bidirectional service, double track segments would need to be 15 minutes apart so an additional double-track segment is required between Agincourt and Kennedy.
This is indeed the question. @smallspy indicated that it was impossible to activate only half of the Highland interlocking, but I've also heard conflicting info from others who say that it is possible to activate its south crossover without needing to wait for the Highland Creek bridge to be completed.
There are more CSAs than there are CTOs and QCTOs by a margin, to the point that they were running a number of trains with 2 CSAs as a means of keeping people working. Upgrading more of the CSAs is simply re-balancing the forces.
Aldershot has a substantial parking lot - West Harbour does not. And due to the way that Hamilton is laid out, most people living on the escarpment or to the south find their commutes faster to go to either Aldershot or Burlington.
I had been told by someone involved in the signal design of the plant at Highland some time ago that the rails were not long enough north of the crossovers to allow for enough signal connections to allow it to be activated, but that's since been corrected by others. And in fact, the Highland interlocking has been activated in its current state.
It does not matter how convenient Hamiltonians find Aldershot for commutes to Toronto, because there are already 42 other trains available for that purpose. These 3 trains are the only trains going to Niagara so they should be optimized for travel to and from Niagara.
Ah okay. Thanks for the clarification. Then it truly is a mystery why the second track between Agincourt and Kennedy hasn't been put into service yet.
Oh I know, I was just clarifying that hiring isn’t happening right now, or if it has resumed it hasn’t been long enough for classes to be out training yet.
