GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[Bordercollie]

Sadly, I have come to the conclusion that GO Transit is broken, and that no one with the power to do anything about it cares enough.

GO Transit is broken – and other transit updates

GO Transit is broken. So far, I have seen no initiative from Metrolinx or any level of government to fix it. That should outrage all of us.

seanmarshall.ca

When is the Alstom operating contract up for renewal?

 

[Willybru21]

What a find! What book is that?

That is the Bi-Level Series I booklet from 1978. A very nice crew member gave me a whole bunch of old GO stuff to compliment my already expansive collection of modern stuff:

 

[LNahid2000]

So are they just not going to use their $100+ million bus terminal anymore? Everything except Barrie buses (since there are no trains) are detoured to Port Credit again today...I did a quick trip to Aurora this morning and traffic wasn't even that bad. Not sure why they keep doing this every weekend.

While waiting for my bus, I saw multiple people come in, look at the screens with all the cancelled buses and then leave disappointed.

 

[ShonTron]

So are they just not going to use their $100+ million bus terminal anymore? Everything except Barrie buses (since there are no trains) are detoured to Port Credit again today...I did a quick trip to Aurora this morning and traffic wasn't even that bad. Not sure why they keep doing this every weekend.

While waiting for my bus, I saw multiple people come in, look at the screens with all the cancelled buses and then leave disappointed.

Yet there’s nothing on the GO Transit Twitter accounts right now.

Terrible.

 

[T3G]

While waiting for my bus, I saw multiple people come in, look at the screens with all the cancelled buses and then leave disappointed.

This was the other thing I noted last weekend that left me absolutely baffled. Not the faintest hint of communications about why the buses are cancelled or what options travellers have. What the hell is going on at Metrolinx?

 

[Allandale25]

So are they just not going to use their $100+ million bus terminal anymore? Everything except Barrie buses (since there are no trains) are detoured to Port Credit again today...I did a quick trip to Aurora this morning and traffic wasn't even that bad. Not sure why they keep doing this every weekend.

While waiting for my bus, I saw multiple people come in, look at the screens with all the cancelled buses and then leave disappointed.

What's the issue this weekend? General congestion? Construction?

 

[Bordercollie]

Hundreds stranded on Toronto GO Train as delay spans hours

GO Transit notified the public of a police investigation on track level just after midnight, which suspended service between Union Station.

toronto.citynews.ca

There was an unfortunate situation yesterday near exhibition station.

Even though the investigation was over they didn't let the passengers off the train for hours.

Could they not bring another train and park it beside the train that was involved in the accident and allow customers to board the train directly beside it? It would be easier than walking the entire distance of the train.

There has to be a better solution than keeping people hostage on a train for 5 hours with no communication.

 

[Northern Light]

Hundreds stranded on Toronto GO Train as delay spans hours

GO Transit notified the public of a police investigation on track level just after midnight, which suspended service between Union Station.

toronto.citynews.ca

There was an unfortunate situation yesterday near exhibition station.

Even though the investigation was over they didn't let the passengers off the train for hours.

Could they not bring another train and park it beside the train that was involved in the accident and allow customers to board the train directly beside it? It would be easier than walking the entire distance of the train.

There has to be a better solution than keeping people hostage on a train for 5 hours with no communication.

AMA's unending array of excuses, many ill-informed or erroneous grow tedious.

At the very least, there is no excuse for failing to keep riders informed.

But the extent of that delay, and trapping people on the train was entirely unnecessary.

There certainly were choices for how to affect an evacuation of that train, safely. Some may not have been particularly desirable and none without challenges (ie. stopping all service through the affected section of tracks to allow people to exit)

At any rate........time for AMA to go......and she can take Phil w/her.

 

[Bordercollie]

AMA's unending array of excuses, many ill-informed or erroneous grow tedious.

At the very least, there is no excuse for failing to keep riders informed.

But the extent of that delay, and trapping people on the train was entirely unnecessary.

There certainly were choices for how to affect an evacuation of that train, safely. Some may not have been particularly desirable and none without challenges (ie. stopping all service through the affected section of tracks to allow people to exit)

At any rate........time for AMA to go......and she can take Phil w/her.

If you can park a train and match the door locations you could have an emergency plank to allow people to cross over. You don't need to open all of the doors. Just 6 or so would be enough.

 

[crs1026]

^There are a hundred and one reasons why first responders do what they do in the way they do it. Don’t assume that the solution is as simple as bringing another train to the scene.

Having said that, I do agree that at some length of time, the sheltering in place on the affected train ceases to be a sound strategy and the situation becomes a “rescue” proposition. There should be a protocol that automatically sends first responders to the disabled train after x hours of delay.

- Paul

 

[Bordercollie]

^There are a hundred and one reasons why first responders do what they do in the way they do it. Don’t assume that the solution is as simple as bringing another train to the scene.

Having said that, I do agree that at some length of time, the sheltering in place on the affected train ceases to be a sound strategy and the situation becomes a “rescue” proposition. There should be a protocol that automatically sends first responders to the disabled train after x hours of delay.

- Paul

I'm sure that the police were onsite including GO transit officials. Why couldn't they have paramedics on site incase someone on the train had a medical emergency?

Why did it only take an hour for the investigation to be completed but another 4 hours to move the train? Seems to me like maybe there was a shift change at midnight and they didn't pass on the information to the next shift (at the dispatch center).

Either that or it's pure incompetence.

 

[allengeorge]

I post this without verification, but, from Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/xar4bp/_/invev8m

“I was on this train and it was almost worse than they describe in the article. I realize someone lost their life and that is sad, but this was an absolutely awful experience.

The train left Exhibition completely full (a music festival of 50K people had just let out, so it was standing room only) at 11:02pm and I got to my stop at West Harbour at 4:23am. It took 3 separate trains to make the trip as we had to switch at Mimico because people were trying to rip open the doors while we were stopped, and then we had to switch again at Oakville, where they made us wait at the platform at 3:25 am with no information.

During the initial stop there was almost no info given over the speaker over the 3+ hours. The driver made maybe 3 announcements (very quietly I may add) including one that said "alright, we'll be moving in 3 minutes" and then we didn't move for 45+ minutes. The only way any of us knew what was happening was through twitter.

People were laying all over the ground, everyone was vaping and some were starting to fight with each other. The emergency alarm was going off for at least 2 hours straight.

…

And to top it off, when we got to West Harbour all of the platform doors were locked so we were stuck on the platform. We all had to figure out we could walk up the parking ramp at the far end to get out to street level.

And according to the GO Transit site I can't get a refund for the trip because I tapped on 17 minutes before my train ride and the cutoff is 15 minutes prior. (they changed the time of this train from the usual 10:52 to 11:02) Awesome.”

 

[Bordercollie]

I post this without verification, but, from Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/xar4bp/_/invev8m

“I was on this train and it was almost worse than they describe in the article. I realize someone lost their life and that is sad, but this was an absolutely awful experience.

The train left Exhibition completely full (a music festival of 50K people had just let out, so it was standing room only) at 11:02pm and I got to my stop at West Harbour at 4:23am. It took 3 separate trains to make the trip as we had to switch at Mimico because people were trying to rip open the doors while we were stopped, and then we had to switch again at Oakville, where they made us wait at the platform at 3:25 am with no information.

During the initial stop there was almost no info given over the speaker over the 3+ hours. The driver made maybe 3 announcements (very quietly I may add) including one that said "alright, we'll be moving in 3 minutes" and then we didn't move for 45+ minutes. The only way any of us knew what was happening was through twitter.

People were laying all over the ground, everyone was vaping and some were starting to fight with each other. The emergency alarm was going off for at least 2 hours straight.

…

And to top it off, when we got to West Harbour all of the platform doors were locked so we were stuck on the platform. We all had to figure out we could walk up the parking ramp at the far end to get out to street level.

And according to the GO Transit site I can't get a refund for the trip because I tapped on 17 minutes before my train ride and the cutoff is 15 minutes prior. (they changed the time of this train from the usual 10:52 to 11:02) Awesome.”

But if the train was delayed more than 15 minutes you can get a refund can't you?

Why didn't the original train continue all the way to West Harbor? If it was a crew issue they could have swapped crews not passengers.

Seems like total disorganization and lack of urgency to resolve the situation.

 

[allengeorge]

I’m usually not one for calling for firings, but the screwups at the bus terminal, the lack of communications, the unwillingness to hold Alstom (or whomever) to account for service, and now this? Multiple people should be fired. This just gives transit a bad rap.

 

[T3G]

Clearly Metrolinx was jealous of all the scorn the TTC has been getting over the years and wanted to one up them!