Toronto Union Pearson Express | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | MMM Group Limited

nfitz said:
And a direct bus from Kingston to Toronto? How long's that been around ... used to have to take the bus, and change to the Airport Bus at Royal York.
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That option has been around since at least the late 90s. I used to use it all the time. Originates at Queen's University, stops off at the Kingston Bus Terminal, then direct to Pearson.
 
June 3
I see they have install a clock at the west end of the Union Station and hard to see.

They have installed a snow melting system on the roof of the overhang for the station.

I also noticed some kind of door guild to line the DMU with the station doors and wasn't they the last time I saw the station.

The inbound train arrives about 5 minutes after the outbound departs.

1.5 days till service starts.
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I jumped on the GO train at Weston yesterday, and there were a LOT of workers on site. Scrambling to finish obviously, but it looked like there was enough progress and manpower to finish up. Bloor looked farther behind, IMO.
 
DonValleyRainbow said:
I jumped on the GO train at Weston yesterday, and there were a LOT of workers on site. Scrambling to finish obviously, but it looked like there was enough progress and manpower to finish up. Bloor looked farther behind, IMO.
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I expect Bloor not to be ready on the 6th and it will be my first stop on my way to Union for my ride on the UPX.

Weston centre platform should be near complete now, but the rest will not be.

Any project I have every been on, there that large force on hand the week before it gets turn over to the owners that crews are falling over each other to complete their work. Then you got one trade chasing another to get it work done and out of the way so they can complete their work on time.
 
The station at Union has been almost completely uncovered and they were doing some minor touch-ups on the exterior finishing today (I had never noticed this before, but it was more visible now--there is one presto fare payment device on each side of the entrance doorway in the centre of the picture, in addition to those inside the station proper):

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I really like this ramp, with the lighting strip on the left--looks really nice:

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Also, I'm not sure if it's widely known or if it's already been mentioned, but when I was there one of these days and a test train departed, the doors did indeed use the usual TTC/GO door close chimes.
 

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And just in time for the first runs, I've finally been able to re-upload a 5 minute version of the ride video (which we won't get dumped on for: no more cab talk)

[video=youtube;5tl9tZmjekw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tl9tZmjekw[/video]

Have fun! Will try to get the 20 minute version up soon.

42
 
ahmedyusali said:
are they going to start two cars for service ? or they will add third one later when passengers grow..
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They are going to run 2-car trains until such a time as the equipment becomes reliable enough to run 3-car trains all the time.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
smallspy said:
They are going to run 2-car trains until such a time as the equipment becomes reliable enough to run 3-car trains all the time.
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I think they are really going to scramble to get 3-car trains started, as 2-car trains won't cover surge moments well (747 and A380 arrivals). 2-car is enough if Pearson traffic is steady. But it is not.

But this will be sort of good for Metrolinx because it confounds the naysayers that UPX would be an empty failure...
 
mdrejhon said:
I think they are really going to scramble to get 3-car trains started, as 2-car trains won't cover surge moments well (747 and A380 arrivals). 2-car is enough if Pearson traffic is steady. But it is not.

But this will be sort of good for Metrolinx because it confounds the naysayers that UPX would be an empty failure...
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Keep in mind that even with a huge arrival there is a bottleneck when deplaning, and a very significant bottleneck at immigration where they can only process so many passengers per minute total, so they will end up trickling out at a fairly uniform, regulated maximum rate. Also, the station is at one end of T1, so everybody arriving from the other end has to walk farther, some people may walk quite slowly especially if they have lots of luggage and need to wait for elevators or whatnot, and not to mention people arriving from T3 for whom all of those considerations and the terminal link train affect their time to get to the UP Express station.

On that note, just taking a moment to really think through the realities of airport arrivals, let's consider all of the people: spending a few minutes greeting friends or family upon arrival, staying to grab a bite to eat or to use the restroom, getting lost a bit in the airport before leaving, taking a cab, taking a bus route, returning to a parked car, renting a car, catching a connecting flight, taking the link train, stopping to ask for directions, visiting the staffed UP Express counter for a Presto card or tickets or general info, etc.

So let's take all of that, from the plane to the station with all the possibilities in between, and then consider the fact that a 2- or 3-car train will come every 15 minutes...add all of that up and I have a great deal of difficulty believing that there will be massive lineups even with multiple A380/747 arrivals. Honestly, even standing room only seems unlikely to me for the foreseeable future...but maybe I'm way off here. Oh well, honestly all we can do is wait and see--there's no way to say whether this thing will be empty or packed, although my money rests on somewhere very comfortably in the middle.
 
I'm surprised that guy from Brazil who was first to use UPX ex Pearson didn't have reporters asking questions like "so, you're picking the massively expensive UPX to get downtown. Are you, like, heir to a fortune or something? Because who else could possibly afford that!"
 
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