Hamilton: General Service Discussion

[mdrejhon]

I visited the Confederation GO station area in Stoney Creek and indeed, the new overpass is up.



The new rail overpass is built:

The railroad is now diverted:

The old bridge is still up, adjacent to the new one:

Hope you like the photos!

 

[Jody Thornton]

Thanks a million! I am curious now if anyone knows the demolition date of the old one. Sounds silly I know, but I am an avid vintage highways fan, and that bridge has an especially sentimental place in my mind stemming back to my childhood. So it's very hard to see it come down.

Thanks for the update - A LOT!!!

 

[mdrejhon]

If it helps.... the new bridge copies a rectangle line imprint & date imprint --

...so a little bit of the old bridge spirit is still there -- 1929 and 2015!

 

[Jody Thornton]

I was aware of the 1929 date stamp. Thanks again. I really appreciate this.

 

[drum118]

July 22 100+ photos are now on line in their own album Call James North

 

[mdrejhon]

Hey,

Thanks for posting these updated West Harbour photos!

 

[Adjei]

Good to see they've moved away from those ugly ashphalt platforms.

 

[mdrejhon]

On the subject of asphalt - the non-plarform asphalt at James.

Apparently, it's temporary. They are going to remove the James asphalt and do it more properly. That was put in during the PanAm rush.

 

[mdrejhon]

They have removed the barrier from the stub, in preparation for ongoing spur extension to reattach to CN -- making West Harbour a through station next year (I think). Would coincide nicely with Lewis trainyard 2016 opening date.

(and hopefully, this means, of course, 2016-2017 Niagara Seasonal stops in Hamilton).

 

[mdrejhon]

More green paint arriving in Hamilton this year -- Dedicated bike lane infrastructure expansion is arriving: http://raisethehammer.org/article/2670

"Next month, the City of Hamilton plans to install parking-protected bike lanes on Charlton Avenue West and Herkimer Street between Dundurn Street South and James Street South."

Reportedly, this will also include green paint and bike boxes, and be parking-protected (outside dooring zone), with bikes riding on the opposite side (passenger side) of a lane of parked cars.

Cannon bike lanes will also be extended eastwards past Gage, on the rest of Cannon, all the way to Pipeline trail. No word yet if this is bump-separated like the existing Cannon lane, or just a white painted line like the portion near the stadium.

 

[mdrejhon]

Finally, at long last!

I've submitted Part 1 of a special feature series on major Hamilton GO train expansions are now on RaiseTheHammer.org:
Major GO Train Construction For Hamilton

Observe Site #3. What is it? Most of Joe Q. Public doesn't know what the hell Site #3 is.

Most GO train fans monitoring these forums, this is 100% nothing new except for the exclusive Lewis Yard construction photos. However, it's brand new to 99% of the Hamilton public population. -- The target audience of the article. Not everyone in Hamilton realizes how big the GO construction in Hamilton has become -- except for the still-quiet opened-too-early West Harbour GO station (before Lewis Yard was ready to give it enough trains).

What's so special about this article for the UrbanToronto reader, is the exclusive first-publicly-posted photographs of rail sidings now installed at Lewis Layover Yard:

Photo Credit: Mark Rejhon (me)
please ask for permission if you're a news reporter for your newspaper. Send me a PM, follow @mdrejhon on twitter, or google my name.

This rail yard, roughly next to Grimsby subdivision mile 32, is where GO will park several trains overnight for Hamilton morning GO service. Metrolinx claims this yard will be operational by the end of this year, and construction wraps up in 2016. Without this yard, Metrolinx was only able to bring 2 morning trains to West Harbour initially.

More reading of my article: Major GO Train Construction For Hamilton

 

[Jody Thornton]

I also see that they demolished the old Centennial Overpass. I was there Thursday, and as a highways enthusiast, I wished I had been there to see it. I'm a little sore about that bridge disappearing since it was such a longtime "gateway" to east Hamilton.

Interesting seeing high-mast lighting on railways now.

 

[mdrejhon]

Interesting seeing high-mast lighting on railways now.

The Lewis facility is not really a railway per se, but a rail yard for parking trains.

They need lighting to help maintain the trains (e.g. simpler things like grafitti removal, coach undercarriage inspections, window washing, janitoring the trains, etc). Although an overnight layover yard, it is also a maintenance facility too. There will be a modicum of maintenance capability that can expand in the future.

 

[mdrejhon]

From Hamilton LRT Thread:

I'm now starting up the Hamilton LRT advocacy effort -- www.hamlrt.ca -- Twitter @Ham_LRT -- and recruiting a team of local citizens. We're aiming to at least match (roughly) organization level of ONE Brampton, who made the kickass YouTube video.

The Brampton citizen-made video is very well done:

 

[ShonTron]

From Hamilton LRT Thread:

The Brampton citizen-made video is very well done:

Please, don't double-post. It only needs to be in one thread.