drum118
Superstar
Wasn't aware there was no EA for this line. I assume an EA was done on the line since I came in late on the line to the point the 3rd track was being laid as well bridges were being built for 4 tracks.
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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)
- Thread starter drum118
- Start date
anb
Active Member
Kitchener, Niagara and Barrie should get special train service during summer weekends on their corresponding lines. Metrolinx could just find a peak time where ridership gets to an overcrowd and deploy at least 30 min trains (or a variety of express/local buses if its not possible as of yet). I've been on the 25 bus from square one as it is the ONLY Kitchener bound transit service during weekends (which is honestly dumb as it forces people to head to square one), and its getting really packed as a result
anb
Active Member
The 12B was a perfect bus for the gta-niagara riders man
smallspy
Senior Member
The last corridor EA for the Milton Line was started around 2007, and then stopped after several months. I've never gotten a good answer as to why, either.
The 3rd track portions - as well as the additional bridges along the corridor - were built in the late 1980s and early 1990s as part of then-projected suite of improvements that was going to see mid-day service (which did run in a limited form until 1993 or so). Then the financial situation of the Government changed, and, well, we all know what happened there.
Dan
Krypto98
Active Member
Absolutely, look at the 2 newest trains added , the 7:55 and 8:27 both from bramalea.
before the pandemic the 7:55 AM from Bramalea which was the newest train added, was at 90% seating capacity after Etobicoke North (this was just a 6 car train). The 8:27 was at about 60% full after Etobicoke North. However this was a 10 car.
If they added 1 or 2 more rush hour trains I could see kitchener overtaking milton for sure.
The 7:47 am- 9:51 am kitchener to union was also full after they extended to kitchener.
anb
Active Member
The kitchener line has an opportunity to be a rapid transit that people use within brampton itself. I mean there are 4 stations (3 within, also including malton go cuz the 14 and 505 zum service the station/area as well) so it’s not at all impossible and i’ve used the line like that before as well
Woodbridge_Heights
Senior Member
Allandale25
Senior Member
APTA-2048
Senior Member
The crowds to Niagara Falls just keep getting bigger. It’s no wonder the train service is starting back up.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
Well yeah that makes sense, and indeed the ability to extend the frequent electric GO service to Brampton and Mount Pleasant stations was one of the major benefits of the formerly-planned "missing link" freight bypass. Other benefits would have included the ability to shift the primary intercity route between London and Toronto onto a line entirely owned by passenger rail operators, thereby allowing VIA to vastly improve service fequency and reliability.
But as you probably know, the freight bypass project was cancelled by the Ford government shortly after being elected, presumably because it is a project which would not have produced tangible results within his term and therefore needed to be axed to make the short-term budgets look better. The smaller upgrade projects that were already planned along the Guelph Sub and Weston sub were allowed to continue because they are expected to produce increased service within the next four years and therefore keep up the illusion that the present provincial government is investing in public transport infrastructure.
drum118
Superstar
If CN puts in the 3rd track for Georgetown, it will improve service for everyone. The piers for the Credit River will support a 3rd track bridge now and you can can add on to the existing pier for a 4th track. The rail corridor west of Brampton station to Georgetown can support 4 tracks. There is already a 3 track signal bridge on the west side of the Georgetown bridge, with one not in service.
The question becomes when is the Georgetown VIA station going to be move to the north side and fix the GO Station to allow both GO and VIA to run service on the north side only and allowing CN to be on the south. This will allow both GO and VIA to use the north side only from Georgetown to Brampton and not interfere with CN. You go as far as building a Fly Under for GO and VIA to get from the north side to the south that everyone not interfering with each other.
I will give Ford credit in canceling the Bypass, as the Province doesn't have the funds to pay for this bypass in the first place. It also a waste of money when you can get service by spend a few more $$ in 4 tracking the KW like I said it should be back in the early 2000's when the EA was out for adding 1 track.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
Whether or not the Bypass is warranted depends heavily on your train service frequencies. If your goal for all-day service is only for 3 trains per hour west of Bramalea (as per the current long-term plan), then clearly the Bypass would be grossly wasteful. But if you intend to have 15-minute local service to Mount Pleasant, hourly express service to Georgetown, hourly regional service to Kitchener and hourly intercity service to London and beyond, then constraining the passenger operations to a single track and platform at Brampton station is physically impossible. It therefore becomes necessary to build at least one additional track through downtown Brampton, which is quite an expensive prospect. CN also wouldn't take kindly to being fully limited to a single track, so basically the entire remaining corridor would also need to be quad-tracked like you mention. Also not cheap. And that's after the expensive project of building a flyover to bring passenger trains across freight trains, which is required even for the existing 3 tph plan. And then after all those expenses, the line still only provides a single track in each direction for passenger services, which means that all services will be restricted to roughly the same average speed, since it would not be possible for faster services to overtake the local services which themselves are only 10 or 15 minutes apart. That basically eliminates any possibility of fast intercity services.
As for when the mainline platform is being built on the north side of Georgetown station? According to Phil Verster last year, tendering should have occurred at the end of 2019, and construction should have begun this year. But I haven't heard anything more concrete or recent than that. The Metrolinx website lists Georgetown Station as one of their upgrade projects but provides absolutely no information on it. Not even a one-sentence description.
Allandale25
Senior Member
^ On that last point, maybe if an email was sent to torontowest@metrolinx.com and HaltonRegion@metrolinx.com they would let you know.
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ShonTron
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The good news is that things are moving into place for the third track through Downtown Brampton. The current bus terminal (and the six-storey office building above it) will be demolished and replaced by a larger facility that will allow for the third track to come in on the south side, serving the newer southern platform, which will only require modifications, along with the access tunnels. (This also has the benefit of not disrupting the heritage station building on the north side.) With many of the houses on Railroad Street gone for Metrolinx, it should make construction easier as well.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
Some interesting changes in the new Niagara weekend schedules:
Departures are now following a clockface 4-hour headway. This allows the westbound service to be increased from 3 trains to 4 at minimal cost. The downside is that since both trainsets are based in Toronto, the first departure from Niagara Falls is now much later.
Trains now have an additional stop at Aldershot. Maybe this is a way to theoretically provide service from Hamilton to Niagara? It doesn't really help travel from Hamilton to Toronto, since there's plenty of parking available at Burlington on weekends and the Niagara Falls trains don't have associated GO bus connections to Hamilton. I would hope that once the new thru platform is built at West Harbour it would simply replace this stop rather than adding to it.
The train consists will apparently have 3 standard coaches and 3 bicycle coaches, compared to the usual consist of 5 standard coaches and 3 bicycle coaches. Personally I'm surprised there are still 3 bicycle coaches since the total number of bikes should be a fair bit lower than usual, and the bikes themselves don't need to practice social distancing.
Travel times remained the same, or even improved. I would have expected the travel time to increase west of Burlington due to the additional stop in Aldershot, and decrease east of Burlington due to the reduced conflict traffic on the line at the moment, and faster acceleration of the 6-car sets compared to the usual 8-car sets. But in fact it's the opposite:
I have no idea why the travel times are decreasing on the Niagara end of the line - even between Burlington and St. Catharines where a new stop was added - while they are increasing on the Toronto end of the line.
The easiest way to provide an earlier departure from Niagara Falls would be to use one of the trains based in Lewis Yard near Grimsby. The downside is that these are (normally) 10+ cars and lack bicycle coaches. This means that they would be a bit slower than the usual 8-car Niagara trains, and the schedule would probably need to note the limited bike-carrying capacity of those trips.
Departures are now following a clockface 4-hour headway. This allows the westbound service to be increased from 3 trains to 4 at minimal cost. The downside is that since both trainsets are based in Toronto, the first departure from Niagara Falls is now much later.
Trains now have an additional stop at Aldershot. Maybe this is a way to theoretically provide service from Hamilton to Niagara? It doesn't really help travel from Hamilton to Toronto, since there's plenty of parking available at Burlington on weekends and the Niagara Falls trains don't have associated GO bus connections to Hamilton. I would hope that once the new thru platform is built at West Harbour it would simply replace this stop rather than adding to it.
The train consists will apparently have 3 standard coaches and 3 bicycle coaches, compared to the usual consist of 5 standard coaches and 3 bicycle coaches. Personally I'm surprised there are still 3 bicycle coaches since the total number of bikes should be a fair bit lower than usual, and the bikes themselves don't need to practice social distancing.
Travel times remained the same, or even improved. I would have expected the travel time to increase west of Burlington due to the additional stop in Aldershot, and decrease east of Burlington due to the reduced conflict traffic on the line at the moment, and faster acceleration of the 6-car sets compared to the usual 8-car sets. But in fact it's the opposite:
I have no idea why the travel times are decreasing on the Niagara end of the line - even between Burlington and St. Catharines where a new stop was added - while they are increasing on the Toronto end of the line.
The easiest way to provide an earlier departure from Niagara Falls would be to use one of the trains based in Lewis Yard near Grimsby. The downside is that these are (normally) 10+ cars and lack bicycle coaches. This means that they would be a bit slower than the usual 8-car Niagara trains, and the schedule would probably need to note the limited bike-carrying capacity of those trips.