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GO Transit: Construction Projects (Metrolinx, various)

unimaginative2 said:
All of GO's projects should be aiming toward the goal of a minimum two-track dedicated passenger corridor on all lines. Building more tracks and then handing them to the freight railways just makes no sense. CP doesn't need three tracks or even two on the Galt Sub. All of these Milton line projects should be going to building a dedicated GO-owned corridor. Once they have that, there's nothing stopping them from running trains every two minutes, especially since Milton isn't really long enough to require express service (unless they extend to Cambridge).
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That's what I was thinking until I took a closer look at some of the lines. Having a dedicated 2-track GO line (like the current one between Pickering and Oshawa) is obviously better in many ways: fewer delays, no track fees, smoother and faster service due to welded rail. However, having mixed service has two main advantages: possibility of many different stopping patterns, and lower cost if freight traffic is low.

For example, I don't think it's worth the money to widen the Barrie line from 1 track to 3 (2 for GO, 1 for freight), because the operational advantage would not be sufficient to justify the cost and disruption from the expropriation required. Double tracking with mixed traffic is sufficient. It's not like there's that much freight traffic anyway.

For many lines dedicated tracks would be great, but it's not the solution for all lines.

As for triple tracking the Lakeshore line, the only complaint I have is that they aren't building even more tracks where space is available. For example, between Aldershot and the Halton sub, there should be 2 Freight-only tracks on the north side.
 
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reaperexpress said:
That's what I was thinking until I took a closer look at some of the lines. Having a dedicated 2-track GO line (like the current one between Pickering and Oshawa) is obviously better in many ways: fewer delays, no track fees, smoother and faster service due to welded rail. However, having mixed service has two main advantages: possibility of many different stopping patterns, and lower cost if freight traffic is low.

For example, I don't think it's worth the money to widen the Barrie line from 1 track to 3 (2 for GO, 1 for freight), because the operational advantage would not be sufficient to justify the cost and disruption from the expropriation required. Double tracking with mixed traffic is sufficient. It's not like there's that much freight traffic anyway.

For many lines dedicated tracks would be great, but it's not the solution for all lines.

As for triple tracking the Lakeshore line, the only complaint I have is that they aren't building even more tracks where space is available. For example, between Aldershot and the Halton sub, there should be 2 Freight-only tracks on the north side.
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I have said from day one, we will be doing a lot more EA's than we need to do by not putting in the extra track or two when adding new tracks. That over 5 years ago.

GO should had built 4 tracks between Oakville and Port Credit as this would allow the existing rail base to be rebuilt for 200 km service, having that extra track for VIA and freight as well more express service.

It was nice to see that 3rd track added west of Aldershot that was not in the plan on the first go around, but still need that 4th track for all day service.

During the EA for the Georgetown line, I kept saying over and over, GO need 2 tracks not the 1 that was plan to the point of being surprise to see that extra track show up during construction. I even went as far as calling for 4 tracks for the corridor giving GO 2 tracks and CN 2 tracks that was offering better service to everyone.

Milton needs 4 tracks and that what CP want to see.

The lakeshore can handle 4 tracks at best with some spots seeing up to 7 tracks.

Rest of GO Lines need only to be 2 tracks since GO will be the only user, except for a few small section for freight.

From this point in time, there should be 2 tracks minimum for GO and 2 for freight where there is freight. This includes NF and KW.

All tracks should be able to handle 100 mph trains since the new GO power is now being gear for 93mph and been given permission to do so.

Next step is 125 mph and that will require more grade separation. Hello EMU's.
 
For example, I don't think it's worth the money to widen the Barrie line from 1 track to 3 (2 for GO, 1 for freight), because the operational advantage would not be sufficient to justify the cost and disruption from the expropriation required. Double tracking with mixed traffic is sufficient. It's not like there's that much freight traffic anyway.
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That's why I said a minimum of two GO-controlled tracks. GO already owns the Barrie corridor so two tracks in total would be sufficient there.
 
unimaginative2 said:
That's why I said a minimum of two GO-controlled tracks. GO already owns the Barrie corridor so two tracks in total would be sufficient there.
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Actually, what you said was:

unimaginative2 said:
All of GO's projects should be aiming toward the goal of a minimum two-track dedicated passenger corridor on all lines.
Click to expand...

Since the Barrie line has freight traffic, it is not a dedicated passenger corridor.

But your amended version makes a lot of sense, and I agree with you.
 
Okay that makes sense. I really don't think there is much of any freight traffic north of Toronto on that line. The few trains a week that the line sees could easily be accommodated at night.

Under its sales agreement with Metrolinx, CN will continue to serve five freight customers on the lower Newmarket Subdivision between Highway 401 and CN's main east-west freight corridor.
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That was in the original article on GO's purchase of the route. My reading of the agreement was that there isn't any freight traffic north of the city. I think these customers are mostly in the petroleum products storage area around York U. An extra track on that short section would be warranted to accommodate switching.
 
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unimaginative2 said:
That was in the original article on GO's purchase of the route. My reading of the agreement was that there isn't any freight traffic north of the city. I think these customers are mostly in the petroleum products storage area around York U. An extra track on that short section would be warranted to accommodate switching.
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Awesome. Now let's build it! The line was clearly double tracked at some point, let's just get back to that. Going from 1 track to 2 is an enormous capacity and reliability improvement for a small cost.
 
What is the projected completion for having the Newmarket Sub, two-tracked its entire distance? Doesnt the Davenport diamond (sorry if thats the wrong name) have to be completed as well?
 
unimaginative2 said:
Agreed about building it! I don't think the Newmarket Sub was ever double-tracked, though.
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All the bridges are either 2 or 3 tracks wide, and the right of way is wider than it needs to be in most places as well. If you follow the line through the Toronto area on Google earth you can see remnants of the second (and third in some places) tracks. For example, at The Carl Hall Road level crossing, you can see the remains of the second track. Also look at the bridge over Davenport road. It's way overbuilt for a 1 track line.

There are a couple places on the south end where the ROW is narrow, so I guess we would have to leave those as single track. At Wallace street (just north of Bloor) there is a parking lot on the ROW which would need to be removed. I would expect strong NIMBY opposition from that area.

Under the St. Clair section on this site, we can see that the line was two tracked there at least. It doesn't seem to be double tracked in the Wilson photo, but that part of the line was definitely double tracked at some point, judging by the track remains.

SGHA504 said:
What is the projected completion for having the Newmarket Sub, two-tracked its entire distance? Doesnt the Davenport diamond (sorry if thats the wrong name) have to be completed as well?
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I don't think they will even start thinking about completely double tracking the corridor until the Davenport grade separation is reasonably underway, and that won't happen anytime soon according to the schedule on the GO Transit website. I think they have been building passing tracks in Vaughan in the mean time. I get the impression that they plan to double track the line, but I haven't seen it officially anywhere.
 
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GO has made their Google Transit Feed Specification data publicly available.

This make "resources available for developers to build their own mobile applications by promoting the use of transit-related information". The data includes all GO trips and the coordinates of all stops in a standardized format.

You can download the data here, under "Developer Resources":
http://www.gotransit.ca/public/en/schedules/google.aspx
 
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The new Metrolinx Agenda is up for the June 29, 2010 meeting.

http://www.metrolinx.com/Docs/Agendas/Jun29_10/Metrolinx_Board_Agenda_2010-06-29.pdf

The main highlight of the 'public' portion of the agenda (the stuff w/readable reports) is the BCAs for Stouffville expansion, Dundas Corridor, Hwy 2 Corridor and Hurontario-Main.

To keep it short and simple:

Stouffville twin track, full-day to Unionville is the recommendation
Hwy 2 gets full BRT
Hurontario-Main gets full LRT
Dundas gets some variation of BRT

*************

We've been short on GO news lately, with all the regular sources being quiet!

Vegeta, Smallspy, Mapleson, Drum...........updates please!
 
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