Bojaxs
Senior Member
With battery trains, MX would have to construct the infrastructure to charge the batteries. Easier said than done.
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GO Transit Electrification | Metrolinx
- Thread starter innsertnamehere
- Start date
crs1026
Superstar
Maybe so, but if ML brass actually had to answer for things, they would be far more focussed on arriving at reporting with actual results. And, the resulting challenges and commentary, and the sharp eyes watching for altered targets, would challenge bad ideas, management sloppiness and fixed mindsets, and complacency.
The whole focus on equipment is missing the point. It's things like low bridges and clearances through Union and missing tracks and missing embankments and ungrounded signalling that can't handle electrification that stand in the way.
Buying equipment is not a silver bullet that will compensate for not having the basic infrastructure in place.
Equipment orders can wait.
- Paul
urbanclient
Active Member
The wikipedia articles (some I did not link directly) are all out there in the public eye. You dismissing something out of hand does not mean the evidence does not exist to condemn the relative slowness of the GO RER/GO Expansion project or the TTC's subway expansion. Sydney will likely have more subway than Toronto by 2032. Sydney is at ~51km to Toronto's 70km; Sydney will have 66km total by 2026 EOY and 89km by 2027 EOY. Their whole network only started construction in 2014. Much of the Sydney Metro system outside the downtown core is built more like fast commuter/regional express rail/express metro like what China has been pioneering with Guangzhou Line 18. Hence, Sydney Metro stop spacings are less than half of that of the TTC Subway. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Metro, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Metro_Northwest)
China's Pearl River Delta Metropolitan Region intercity railway covers a comparable area with comparable line length as GO. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_River_Delta_Metropolitan_Region_intercity_railway). The GO Transit Rail network in its current length (not considering track ownership) has been around for 3 decades since the 1990s. The Pearl River Delta Metropolitan Region intercity railway has automated platform screen doors and only received approval to start construction in 2005. 20 years later, it is now larger than the core 5 line service area of GO Rail, at just under 500km (so not including the Milton and Richmond Hill lines and the LSW Hamilton-Niagara section), while providing subway-like peak frequencies under 5 minutes. And it's not like China doesn't have the occasional Line 5 Eglinton/6 Finch West style fiasco. Part of the Pearl River Delta Metropolitan Region intercity under construction is the Xinbaiguang section, it's been in limbo for 3-4 years. The line is basically complete, but due to purported bureaucratic issues among other issues (Metrolinx furiously taking notes), it has still not opened. When opened, the 78km section of the intercity network will directly connect Guangzhou's Airport to Shenzhen's Airport in 40 minutes for express trains. The Pearl River Delta intercity railway has not grown in completed length since 2021. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangzhou–Shenzhen_intercity_railway#Northern_extension_(Xinbaiguang_intercity_railway))
GO Transit Rail is now looking like it will take 17 years from 2023 to 2040 (or even longer when you consider the construction projects done prior to 2023) to finish electrifying just the core portions of only Lakeshore West and East. That is insanity. 17 years to electrify just over 100km of rail from Burlington to Oshawa station. Compare that to the 113km long, fully automated, 0 level crossing, platform screen door having Sydney Metro which is fully on track to be done by 2032, 18 years from 2014, a project that was built with 1+2 piece-meal projects and not fully concurrently.
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smallspy
Senior Member
So instead of everyone working together to come up with targets that you think are dumb and arbitrary, you want to come up with your own targets that are dumb and arbitrary. Got it.
Batteries don't just pull their energy out of the air - they need charging points. And in many places in the world, the charging infrastructure looks an awful lot like the overhead catenary - because it is. And its installation isn't just done willy-nilly, because you need ready access to huge amounts of power for short periods - which means that some locations are better suited for it than others.
Which is why electrification via catenary is the superior option. It includes its one distribution system as well - so as long as you have one (or more) points of the network close to those points where you can plug into the grid, you're golden.
If you look at the places in Europe that are ordering battery-equipped rolling stock, almost all of them are doing so on lines that are currently dieselized but have sections that run under or adjacent to lines with existing catenary. This allows the rolling stock to charge, and they don't have to set up much more infrastructure, if any at all. We just don't have anything like that here.
It's really easy to speed up the construction of something like a railway network when you're able to shut it down for a long enough length of time that you can do all of the work.
That's not an option for the electrification of GO.
Dan
ssiguy2
Senior Member
If one doesn't want battery trains then fine, although any EMU ordered should have enough battery power to go 5km so if there is a power outage it at least has enough power to make it to the next station. To me that is common sense and I don't know how anyone could be against that.
This inability to put up a bunch of wires in less than a decade is just plain laughable. Poles are put up all the time all over the damn place every day and there is NO reason why the entire RER portion of the network couldn't be completely electrified in 18 months at the very most. This is not rocket science and they have been doing it for 150 years. Montreal will have managed to put up it's entire REM project from scratch in less time than Toronto thinks it can put up a bunch of poles.
This inability to put up a bunch of wires in less than a decade is just plain laughable. Poles are put up all the time all over the damn place every day and there is NO reason why the entire RER portion of the network couldn't be completely electrified in 18 months at the very most. This is not rocket science and they have been doing it for 150 years. Montreal will have managed to put up it's entire REM project from scratch in less time than Toronto thinks it can put up a bunch of poles.
Urban Sky
Senior Member
Now clap your hands while speaking after me like you learnt in Kindergarten:
THERE * IS * NO * POINT * IN * ELECTRIFYING * TRACKS * IF * THE * TRACK * LAYOUT * IS * GOING * TO * SEE * SUBSTANTIAL * MODIFICATIONS * OVER * THE * NEXT * DECADE
Electrification is the final step in any major rail infrastructure upgrade project. Can’t you at least pretend that you are making any effort to understand what we are repeatedly explaining to you?
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crs1026
Superstar
How do you put up poles on what is going to be a double tracked embankment when you haven’t widened the single track embankment to double track yet? Shall we just hang the poles in mid-air until the double tracking is done?
It all sounds simple, yes, because you are blissfully unaware of what has to be done and in what order.
- Paul
just east of the creek
Senior Member
The Pearl River Delta area is ai least a population of 50 Million people to well over 100 million - depending on the boundaries you use. Whatever scale, it’s one of the most populated areas in the world. Comparing the two systems without including that fact skews the comparison considerably.
smallspy
Senior Member
And how much of Montreal's network did they shut down in order to do the work? (And how much of that network still isn't open?)
Dan
reaperexpress
Senior Member
It shocks me how many of you are still able to see posts from people who have consistently demonstrated that they are incapable of internalizing any information or having an intelligent discussion. The ignore function is very useful for those kinds of posters.
Urban Sky
Senior Member
Thanks for the public service announcement. If anyone still feels the urge to encourage known trolls like @ssiguy2 and @micheal_can by interacting with them, please consider doing so by direct message instead…
generalcanada
Senior Member
I mean its up to you to engage. this is the internet.
cplchanb
Senior Member
yea but they actually DID something and they are working to finish constructing the subsequent phases... meanwhile we sat on it for a decade and have done NOTHING and DESCOPED..... big difference here regardless of where they are.
by the time 2036 rolls around the price tag would be 3X what it is now and then they will defer to 2040 and then 50. Youll most likely be dead before they finish the full originally planned scope.
Urban Sky
Senior Member
Correct, but it‘s still exhausting and frustrating to scroll through the dozens of responses to the ever-same low-effort posts which have already been vomited on us with little variation countless times…
Urban Sky
Senior Member
By 2050, Toronto will have completed 2 Subway extensions, 3 new LRT lines, its first Light Metro line and a completely revamped Regional Rail network which will be unrecognizable from the old „Commuter Rail“ model we had until rather recently.
In contrast, Montreal will have built a single Subway extension by then and traded this country‘s only electrified Commuter Rail line for a single Light Metro corridor, while its transit planning will be paralyzed by the need to build an unaffordable tunnel underneath its city to compensate for the entirely unforced and avoidable loss of its previous downtown mainline rail tunnel…
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