GO Transit: Construction Projects (Metrolinx, various)

[treplow]

Would be pretty awesome if Metrolinx could acquire the tracks from CN all the way up to West Harbour. Maybe we could have that portion electrified too. Even if it comes to building a channel for the freight trains.

It would be awesome, but CN uses that stretch pretty heavily and there's no alternate/branching line (like in Burlington which allowed Metrolinx to buy the tracks east of Aldershot). Unless freight trains are rerouted through the downtown Hamilton tunnel, which doesn't really have the capacity.

 

[crs1026]

Is the ridership there to justify a12 car train since it has to deal with ridership east of Aldershot??? What the cost ratio if trains ran hourly for that section??

The problem is not ridership - a route that parallels a 6-lane expressway (QEW) that is almost always at capacity should be able to supply enough ridership to fill at least 6-car trains

The problem is just how much track capacity would have to be added to operate hourly service beyond West Harbour, assuming some volume of express or limited stop trains from there to Toronto. Simply extending the existing stopping trains beyond West Harbour is likely not marketable enough - just too long a ride to compete with the car (although the QEW gets uglier every day!). There needs to be an inner-outer division similar to Kitchener, where some trains turn back at Mount Pleasant or Bramalea.

That would likely demand four tracks in places from Aldershot to Toronto, a third track from West Harbour to Confederation, and restoration of double track from Jordan to Nelles Road. And the above noted speed improvements beyond Hamilton.

Reduce the stopping trains to 8-10 cars, on the assumption that a couple cars worth of load moves to the express, and implement 6-8 car express trains from Toronto to Niagara. Even filling 4 cars beyond West Harbour is a justifiable load.

The problem is, that's a huge whack of new construction before that service can be implemented.

- Paul

 

[urbanclient]

I don’t ride the Barrie line, but seven weekend closures suggests some projects should be wrapped up this year to enable more double tracking.

I hate to be a pessimist and maybe I am missing context here, but Caledonia GO is not planned to be built with two tracks. They'll leave room for a second track, but as it stands when it opens in 4-5 years, Caledonia GO will have one track.

Notice the wording here: "We’re creating space for a second set of tracks along the Barrie Line in Toronto, between King Street West and Steeles Avenue West."

Major changes continue on the Barrie Line

New stations, corridor work and upgrades are moving the Barrie Line forward.

www.metrolinx.com

 

[lastcommodore]

Is the ridership there to justify a12 car train since it has to deal with ridership east of Aldershot??? What the cost ratio if trains ran hourly for that section?

I personally believe there's a very strong ridership argument for Hamilton and Niagara, however anything inbetween like Grimsby or St. Catharines would probably be some form of loss.
Obviously it's hard to extrapolate data and determine ridership, but as of 2023 it looks like this

Hamilton ridership is strong and so is Niagara, especially given the frequency, however St. Catharines very clearly lags behind. Given the horrible frequencies, I'm not too surprised.

As for the size of the consist, it naturally depends on frequency/period, but assuming little change from now, Off-peak 6 car trains would be more than enough already, but 12 car is probably needed in rush hour to handle passengers from Aldershot to Union.

The closest analogue I can see is the Kitchener Line which saw massive frequency boosts from the 2017 data I have to 2023, and I'd estimate hourly frequency would net ~50% boost in ridership. But this is some pretty flimsy extrapolation.

 

[lastcommodore]

I hate to be a pessimist and maybe I am missing context here, but Caledonia GO is not planned to be built with two tracks. They'll leave room for a second track, but as it stands when it opens in 4-5 years, Caledonia GO will have one track.

Notice the wording here: "We’re creating space for a second set of tracks along the Barrie Line in Toronto, between King Street West and Steeles Avenue West."

Major changes continue on the Barrie Line

New stations, corridor work and upgrades are moving the Barrie Line forward.

www.metrolinx.com

There is absolutely work on adding more track to the Barrie Line last I rode it last summer, both south of Caledonia GO and north of Caledonia GO, and even recently there have been posts on movement occurring under Dundas when the Barrie line splits from KI/MI/UPX. Confusingly, however, every single render I have seen of Caledonia GO explicitly shows a singular track.

New Caledonia GO Station moves ahead

Metrolinx and the province bringing more transit to Toronto.

www.metrolinx.com

I am really not sure what they are thinking here. My best guess is that they expect Caledonia GO to be complete before double tracking, and it's easier to build the platforms after rail is put in place, but that doesn't really explain why they don't just build the station with double tracking? Perhaps they think they can get away with this bottle neck with 15m service.

 

[TossYourJacket]

I don't think we should use renders as proof of timeline for double tracking/not double tracking. To my understanding, MX treats station projects as separate work packages from trackwork projects (which is why adding a second track isn't part of the station build). So for the new station, they likely told the render shop to just have one track as that's the minimum that will be there. Maybe the second one gets built before the station, but it's technically separate from the station project.

Alternately, it might be easier to build the new station with just one track running through the site and maybe that's why. More room for construction. Who knows, it's MX after all so they'll never actually tell us anything.

 

[Sauga89]

The Barrie line now has seven weekend track closures planned between April and August, of which five are occurring in May.

The Lakeshore West line also has three weekend closures scheduled in May and June. It seems like they are avoiding any closures on weekends during the FIFA world cup. The closures on all lines seem to stop on June 7, and don't resume until late July.

 

[Sauga89]

I personally believe there's a very strong ridership argument for Hamilton and Niagara, however anything inbetween like Grimsby or St. Catharines would probably be some form of loss.
Obviously it's hard to extrapolate data and determine ridership, but as of 2023 it looks like this

View attachment 720165

Hamilton ridership is strong and so is Niagara, especially given the frequency, however St. Catharines very clearly lags behind. Given the horrible frequencies, I'm not too surprised.

As for the size of the consist, it naturally depends on frequency/period, but assuming little change from now, Off-peak 6 car trains would be more than enough already, but 12 car is probably needed in rush hour to handle passengers from Aldershot to Union.

The closest analogue I can see is the Kitchener Line which saw massive frequency boosts from the 2017 data I have to 2023, and I'd estimate hourly frequency would net ~50% boost in ridership. But this is some pretty flimsy extrapolation.

For those curious, we do have a UT thread dedicated to potential Hamilton-Niagara GO improvements.

 

[crs1026]

I don't think we should use renders as proof of timeline for double tracking/not double tracking. To my understanding, MX treats station projects as separate work packages from trackwork projects (which is why adding a second track isn't part of the station build). So for the new station, they likely told the render shop to just have one track as that's the minimum that will be there. Maybe the second one gets built before the station, but it's technically separate from the station project.

Alternately, it might be easier to build the new station with just one track running through the site and maybe that's why. More room for construction. Who knows, it's MX after all so they'll never actually tell us anything.

All fair enough, but in this case I will speculate that there will not be double track installed at Caledonia for its opening. I haven't gone looking but some of the the prose PR releases about the station stated as much.

The point being, ML will likely only install as much double tracking as is needed for whatever service upgrade they plan for the near future.

It's fairly obvious that there are other work tasks in that particular segment that may be prerequisites to implementing the second track. This includes removing the Hydro pylons along that segment of line, and completing the work south of Dundas to widen the row. And also the new Lansdowne-Bloor station. And the second platform and bridge at Downsview Park/Sheppard. I don't foresee any of these being finished this year. So, whatever those planned outages accomplish, I'm speculating that not much track will get laid... and if it does get laid, then similar to the Stouffville line, it will sit unfinished until it can be cut into service, perhaps years from now..

The bigger point of that being, ML may not need that much double track south of the existing double track from Concord to Steeles to upgrade service. Only one passing section in the right place may facilitate more service.

There is lots of work going on to the north between Concord, Rutherford, Maple, and King. Again, some small amount of double track further north from Concord will allow trains to pass on a more frequent basis than at present.

It's nice to look forward to the day when the Barrie line is all double track from end to end.... but I would bet there will be an iteration short of that before that happens. This year's work program may not even get us to that interim iteration.

- Paul

 

[EnviroTO]

Downtown Grimsby isn’t a growth area, the planned station location is, and there is already significant density north of the QEW, with more to come.

Yes, Grimsby has figured out that old downtowns are best served by cars, street parking, and parking lots. No need to put a station and housing nearby.

 

[urbanclient]

I don't think we should use renders as proof of timeline for double tracking/not double tracking. To my understanding, MX treats station projects as separate work packages from trackwork projects (which is why adding a second track isn't part of the station build). So for the new station, they likely told the render shop to just have one track as that's the minimum that will be there. Maybe the second one gets built before the station, but it's technically separate from the station project.

Alternately, it might be easier to build the new station with just one track running through the site and maybe that's why. More room for construction. Who knows, it's MX after all so they'll never actually tell us anything.

Your second scenario is closer to the truth unfortunately:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NFOlkPSp4g

If I recall correctly, recent Metrolinx documents show GO Expansion on and off corridor works projected to total $27 billion... 𝖨̶ ̶𝗄̶𝗇̶𝗈̶𝗐̶ ̶𝗌̶𝗈̶𝗆̶𝖾̶ ̶𝗈̶𝖿̶ ̶𝗍̶𝗁̶𝖺̶𝗍̶ ̶𝖼̶𝗈̶𝗌̶𝗍̶ ̶𝗂̶𝗌̶ ̶𝗈̶𝗎̶𝗍̶𝗌̶𝗂̶𝖽̶𝖾̶ ̶𝗍̶𝗁̶𝖾̶ ̶𝟧̶ ̶𝖼̶𝗈̶𝗋̶𝖾̶ ̶𝗅̶𝗂̶𝗇̶𝖾̶𝗌̶,̶ ̶but that's $100 million per km to electrify 260 km... That's Alto HSR level costs. I get that working on an active rail corridor is supposed to be more expensive than building from scratch (minus the expropriation costs), but $100 million per km for this slow as molasses timeline is ridiculous. Again, the Lakeshore lines are supposed to be electrified by 2038 at the latest in Metrolinx time, which is more like 2040 in real-world time. Edit, found the source:

https://assets.metrolinx.com/image/...em_10.1_-_CPG_GO_UP_Update_-_FINAL_ENG_Mx.pdf

If you open that document, you'll see that that $27.5 billion doesn't even include SmartTrack (East Harbour, StClair Old Weston, and Bloor-Landsdowne). Also a disclaimer: "a Value does not reflect the full project cost." as if $27.5 billion is still not enough to electrify 5 GO lines... I can't believe I am saying this, but it might've been cheaper to build 5 new lines from scratch at this point, even if expropriation of land & buildings would be expensive.

 

[PShells]

It's fairly obvious that there are other work tasks in that particular segment that may be prerequisites to implementing the second track. This includes removing the Hydro pylons along that segment of line, and completing the work south of Dundas to widen the row. And also the new Lansdowne-Bloor station. And the second platform and bridge at Downsview Park/Sheppard. I don't foresee any of these being finished this year. So, whatever those planned outages accomplish, I'm speculating that not much track will get laid... and if it does get laid, then similar to the Stouffville line, it will sit unfinished until it can be cut into service, perhaps years from now..

The bigger point of that being, ML may not need that much double track south of the existing double track from Concord to Steeles to upgrade service. Only one passing section in the right place may facilitate more service.

- Paul

It's a soul crushing pace of construction if riders won't see tangible outcomes after seven major weekend closures, including one being a 3-day long weekend. For many corridors that's almost a year's worth of work.

 

[crs1026]

It's a soul crushing pace of construction if riders won't see tangible outcomes after seven major weekend closures, including one being a 3-day long weekend. For many corridors that's almost a year's worth of work.

ML seems to be incapable of achieving work in parallel streams without leaving huge pauses between different trades or contractors.

Having said that, I suspect their funding is being doled out more sparingly than their public statements, such that it has to be spread across many projects, and next phases can't happen sooner as money has not been provided.

I give ML some credit for the challenge of performing new construction while also running trains on their lines - and actually increasing the number of trains while construction is proceeding. The operational impacts clearly affect productivity. That doesn't explain however the labyrinth procurement processes and the huge periods of dead time during construction.

The heart of the problem is simply their continuing secrecy about the phasing and timeframes of work - while all the while issuing glowing press releases that declare victory as if substantial completion of 2WAD is right around the corner. I might cut them more slack if they just laid out their plan and admitted that some of the prerequisite steps can't move faster.

- Paul

 

[ctf5650]

I don't think we should use renders as proof of timeline for double tracking/not double tracking. To my understanding, MX treats station projects as separate work packages from trackwork projects (which is why adding a second track isn't part of the station build). So for the new station, they likely told the render shop to just have one track as that's the minimum that will be there. Maybe the second one gets built before the station, but it's technically separate from the station project.

Alternately, it might be easier to build the new station with just one track running through the site and maybe that's why. More room for construction. Who knows, it's MX after all so they'll never actually tell us anything.

The optimist in me is inclined to believe this. I also noticed a large amount of wooden ties and tie plates delivered along the expanded ROW both north and south of Eglinton after riding today.

 

[Northern Light]

The heart of the problem is simply their continuing secrecy about the phasing and timeframes of work - while all the while issuing glowing press releases that declare victory as if substantial completion of 2WAD is right around the corner. I might cut them more slack if they just laid out their plan and admitted that some of the prerequisite steps can't move faster.

- Paul

I broadly agree with your take and agree that secrecy is a serious problem which adversely affects credibility and sympathy.

That said, I would call secrecy a process failure, not an outcomes failure.

I would therefore argue its not the critical issue, merely an important one.'

The critical issue in my mind, is that every thing is not outcome driven.

The start of every question, about every project is 'What is this in service of" ie. what are we attempting to deliver or why is this work needed.

Once you answer that question, any project should be structured to deliver maximum benefit, for minimum pain, ASAP.

There will always be trade offs, but you need to look at things holistically with a customer-centred focus.

Mx does not. They have a box-checking focus. The customer is an after-thought, and they have no real idea what they are trying to achieve, except promoting consultant grift, and excessive internal bureaucracy that accomplishes far too little for its size.