Ontario Northland/Northern Ontario Transportation

[Bordercollie]

I agree. If speaking in terms of "community", as in municipal government, I highly doubt the tax base would justify it. The District barely has a Hwy 11 corridor service, during the day. If 'community' means entrepreneurial, I suppose people will be willing to do what they think they can make money at.

A problem with any form of municipal transit; minibus or whatever, to serve cottagers, is they won't be going down backroads and certainly not private cottage roads. They would service the villages at best, which is only useful if you live in said village.

One area that may take advantage might be the resorts (Taboo, Deerhurst and the various 'houses' scattered throughout Muskoka). They might see some advantage of a package deal or at least offer a shuttle service.


I don't know the economics of Uber, but one problem with services like Instacart is the majority of restaurants (certainly all of the fast food chains) are in the three main Muskoka towns. Nobody is going to order Harvey's from Bracebridge and have it delivered to Footes Bay. If nothing else, it would be stone cold.

So you can have a bus meet the train and take you to the closest intermediate town. Then you transfer to a van or mini bus that takes you to your final destination. You can have zones with fixed rates.

I'm sure Hammond or some other carrier can pull it off.

Hopefully North Bay transit will have buses to meet the first train in the morning.

 

[reaperexpress]

Today we learned that the train will be departing from Toronto (French) station:

 

[Bojaxs]

Today we learned that the train will be departing from Toronto (French) station:
View attachment 707590

If the Northlander proves successful, do you think it will encourage CN & Metrolinx to work together on adding a third track from Langstaff to Bloomington GO? Or grade separating the Doncaster Diamond?

 

[turbanplanner]

If the Northlander proves successful, do you think it will encourage CN & Metrolinx to work together on widening the Richmond Hill Line (Up to Bloomington GO)? Or grade separating the Doncaster Diamond?

My understanding is that they think line 1 is just as good as the RH line (despite being 3x slower) so I doubt any improvements will happen.

 

[Bojaxs]

My understanding is that they think line 1 is just as good as the RH line (despite being 3x slower) so I doubt any improvements will happen.

I edited my previous comment to better explain what I meant.

Nothing wrong with duplicate lines. It's common to see this in other cities with expansive transit networks. Duplicate lines running parallel with each other for some distance before eventually veering off in different directions. London's Underground and Overground lines often run side by side for long stretches.

Triple tracking the RH Line from Langstaff - Bloomington would increase capacity on this portion of the line for both freight and passenger trains.

 

[McGillicuddy]

If the Northlander proves successful, do you think it will encourage CN & Metrolinx to work together on adding a third track from Langstaff to Bloomington GO? Or grade separating the Doncaster Diamond?

If the Northlander is a runaway success, they might someday run two trains per direction per day. It's not the type of project that's going to move the needle on urban infrastructure.

 

[lenaitch]

So you can have a bus meet the train and take you to the closest intermediate town. Then you transfer to a van or mini bus that takes you to your final destination. You can have zones with fixed rates.

I'm sure Hammond or some other carrier can pull it off.

Hopefully North Bay transit will have buses to meet the first train in the morning.

Yes, if Hammond or anybody else sees a viable business model it in, they most certainly could.

The proposed station times are outside of North Bay Transit's service hours. Expanding service would up to the taxpayers of North Bay.

 

[crs1026]

If the Northlander proves successful, do you think it will encourage CN & Metrolinx to work together on adding a third track from Langstaff to Bloomington GO? Or grade separating the Doncaster Diamond?

The ridership would have to be so much greater to justify this expense that I would say it's a fantasy to expect this. Unless Richmond Hill GO were upgraded to a 2WAD service plan, which ML shows no sign of wanting, GO and ONR and VIA can only expect whatever slots CN agrees to.

Back when the Northlander was at the discussion stage, there were hints that CN wanted more siding capacity added further up the line. This would be more plausible, as there are more benefits to CN and the do-nothing alternative will favour CN ie Northlander will face delays as freight will take priority on track occupancy. We don't know if Ontario agreed to fund this or if it's even in the cards.

Line 1 is unlikely to undo GO ridership, as peak travel all the way to Union by subway is not going to be as attractive even with subway coming further north. But there's not that much growth potential either unless 2WAD were planned.

.- Paul

 

[smallspy]

If the Northlander proves successful, do you think it will encourage CN & Metrolinx to work together on adding a third track from Langstaff to Bloomington GO? Or grade separating the Doncaster Diamond?

No need to wait. CN has already started it's plans for building a third track north, with the first phase running from about Langstaff to south of Richmond Hill.

Doncaster is not their problem, so they won't be paying for that.

Dan

 

[crs1026]

No need to wait. CN has already started it's plans for building a third track north, with the first phase running from about Langstaff to south of Richmond Hill.

I wasn't aware of this. Very cool.

The junction at Doncaster is remarkably congested with freight, even with no passenger trains in the mix. The slow running around the diamonds is one reason, plus some east-north trains pause to change crews there. In the passenger-free hours, CN has use of both existing tracks up to the end of double track... but staging meets takes a lot of planning in this segment and is heavily influenced by whatever is coming south off the Bala. Precision Scheduling, don't you know.

As noted, a grade separation would do nothing to solve this, so CN would have no reason to build one.

- Paul

 

[Bordercollie]

No need to wait. CN has already started it's plans for building a third track north, with the first phase running from about Langstaff to south of Richmond Hill.

Doncaster is not their problem, so they won't be paying for that.

Dan

Do they have to move the Langataff platform? Or make it an island?

 

[lenaitch]

Back when the Northlander was at the discussion stage, there were hints that CN wanted more siding capacity added further up the line. This would be more plausible, as there are more benefits to CN and the do-nothing alternative will favour CN ie Northlander will face delays as freight will take priority on track occupancy. We don't know if Ontario agreed to fund this or if it's even in the cards.

.- Paul

From Page 75 of the Northlander Business Case:

A capacity study determined that rail corridor upgrades would enhance travel time and reliability of the Northeast Passenger Rail service. The study proposed a new siding north of Zephyr to facilitate train meets between Ontario Northland and CN trains. Preliminary cost estimates for this siding are included in the capital requirements of this business case, though future delivery will be determined though negotiations with CN.

No clue what the status of this is, if there even is one.