GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[smallspy]

Yes exactly, and that's why I've been emphasizing that we need to make noise about changing GO Transit and Transport Canada policies to make it possible to operate railways efficiently as they do in Europe and Asia. Clearly the CROR is not the only way to operate railways safely given that the EU achieves equal or better railway safety than Canada.

If left to their own devices, GO Transit and Transport Canada will demand that ETCS be mutilated to conform to the antiquated North American operating policies, eliminating many of ETCS's benefits, increasing its implementation cost, increasing the cost of operating service in general (e.g. lower capacity, potentially 2 operators per cab), and increasing the potential for new issues to be created as a result of their modifications. Deutsche Bahn was trying to push GO Transit to modernise their operating practices and we know how that turned out...

GO (and VIA, EXO and WCE) have been lobbying to the Federal Government and Transport Canada for many years for changes to many rules and regulations that they feel are really only applicable to the freight railways and so hinder their operations - the only thing that I can think about that they've managed to get changed is the regulation of radio channels, which is no longer regulated by Transport Canada. They will continue to push ahead on this, but unless the Government becomes more aware about the problem I don't see any other changes forthcoming. Look to the current issues between VIA and CN for evidence of the Government's hands-off and head-in-the-sand approach to this.

The issue with DB is that they continued to push ahead with producing and implimenting their plans in spite of not getting the regulatory changes required to make them feasible, not that their plans were too much for Metrolinx.

Dan

 

[Allandale25]

^ The important nuance of that last point is lost on some transit commentators. But videos, social media posts, etc I guess are easier to make and generate more clicks than also writing/meeting with/organizing pressure to an MP and advocating for changes.

 

[Dan416]

This regulatory nonsense reminds me of the city of Toronto / TTC's policies which result in Finch West and the whole streetcar system being underwhelmingly slow for no reason.

In the case of the rail operation environment in the GTA, I get that there are legitimate safety concerns, but I am sure there are things that could be done to improve them. If GO Transit has already been lobbying, I am highly doubtful that they have been lobbying for anything that would be unsafe.

 

[Metroscapes]

More on this topic in case it's of interest:

View attachment 705685

I think the social media representative is confusing the January schedule change with the December schedule change that’s currently in effect, because the January schedule does maintain 30 minute service between Union Station and Bramalea GO 7 days a week:

View attachment 705691

This whole situation is ridiculous, and shows how poorly Metrolinx coms can be. This is a mistake thats been present for over 2 weeks despite people sending in notices

The missing weekend trips to Kitchener were luckily just a copy/paste error in the PDF, but the Lakeshore East and West service cuts seem to be real. We're 4 days from the next schedule change and the only Lakeshore timetables are the ones effective December 20th with service slashed to 1 train per hour. A far cry from the 15-minute service we had in the summer.
View attachment 705929

If this is true, the Kitchener line will have more frequent service than the Lakeshore line for the first time ever. Partly due to impressive service increases on Kitchener, but mostly due to brutal cuts to Lakeshore.

For what it's worth, the current PDF now restores display of the weekend service to/from Guelph and Kitchener.

 

[dowlingm]

That GSM-R has been not made to be a requirement anymore is a good thing. A friend of mine works in the industry, and while he has had very little experience with ETCS and ERTMS, his understanding was that the use of GSM-R was a requirement - perhaps that was an earlier iteration of the system? It's good to hear that it's more flexible than that.

Dan

FRMCS pilot user (Finland) https://www.globalrailwayreview.com/article/140306/finland-fast-track-frmcs/

The reliability requirements and the requirements of the narrow band FRMCS applications can already be met today in Finland on the 4G networks using a multi-channel router in Packet Duplication mode.
The multi-channel router could be set to use GSM-R, private (RMR) and commercially available public networks, and possibly satellite technologies. The results of the study showed that by efficiently using the already available MNO -services, we can speed up the implementation of the FRMCS deployment and avoid investments in the areas where the existing coverage is sufficient.

One of the things I have wondered about is the ability for the railways and commercial mobile network operators to cooperate not merely for onboard wifi but for signalling, and thus expand coverage into lower density areas. The Finnish pilot setup shows some pretty interesting ways that could happen. If the railways only had to work with 5G MNOs to build cell infra in locations not currently covered, and use already in service infrastructure where already covered, they would not need to go looking for their own spectrum.

 

[crs1026]

One of the things I have wondered about is the ability for the railways and commercial mobile network operators to cooperate not merely for onboard wifi but for signalling, and thus expand coverage into lower density areas. The Finnish pilot setup shows some pretty interesting ways that could happen. If the railways only had to work with 5G MNOs to build cell infra in locations not currently covered, and use already in service infrastructure where already covered, they would not need to go looking for their own spectrum.

The only use of commercial networks for railway signalling that I am aware of in Canada is the ML portion of the Guelph Sub, which happened back when GEXR and VIA installed CTC from London to Georgetown. When CN re-assumed control of the line west of Kitchener, they went back to their standard dedicated railway assigned frequencies. Those particular frequencies (which were North America wide) have been refarmed in the US, thanks to PTC using other frequencies in a different part of the spectrum. I haven't seen any indication that the Canadian railways are being asked to vacate them. Last I heard, ML was still using the commercial setup on that one line segment although it is clearly nonstandard for their data network.
In the US, commercial satellite links are now in use in some places.
There was a lot of internal and regulatory resistance to using shared networks as the data is considered "vital" in a safety sense and traditionally had a more demanding reliability standard, But that was in a different era and long before current 5G et al commercial applications.
None of this is to say that the cell network can't be used in Canada - just that it's an aspect where we will have to come out of the dark ages to implement new signalling protocols as we build.

- Paul

PS - the roof of the average Canadian rail locomotive is a pincushion of various antennae for other applications, such as monitoring of the locomotive, crew, location identification, end of train devices, etc. Some of these already rely on satellite and cell networks.... but they are separate from the signalling system that gives the authority to enter and occupy track, obey speed limit, etc. That control function is discrete and is treated with a lot more criticality and security. it's not all one integrated datastream.

 

[reaperexpress]

For what it's worth, the current PDF now restores display of the weekend service to/from Guelph and Kitchener.

They've also replaced the December 2025 Lakeshore timetables with the November 2025 timetables so I guess they just reverted to the previous one. That answers the question of what the January service is, so I can finally do my annual service summary.