Undead
Senior Member
I was going to say this is becoming as bad as line 1 rush pre covid.
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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)
- Thread starter drum118
- Start date
Bordercollie
Senior Member
It could have been handled better. But when there is no accountability...what can you do.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
I’m impressed the passengers were as well behaved as they were lol.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
nevermind, the passengers broke open the door
Garuda
Active Member
Incidents like this and the VIA train delay earlier in the week demonstrate that train passengers deserve a “bill of rights” similar to airline passengers.
Ordering people on a crowded train to stay on when the power fails and toilets start to smell becomes a human rights issue and there needs to be a policy of allowing people fresh air. Therefore exciting the train even if it’s not by a station.
I hope there’s a lawsuit after this that forces the railway companies to do something after X amount of time. Payments, a bus or train standby rescue, something to resolve this quickly.
Ordering people on a crowded train to stay on when the power fails and toilets start to smell becomes a human rights issue and there needs to be a policy of allowing people fresh air. Therefore exciting the train even if it’s not by a station.
I hope there’s a lawsuit after this that forces the railway companies to do something after X amount of time. Payments, a bus or train standby rescue, something to resolve this quickly.
APTA-2048
Senior Member
I was on a train that hit someone just before Guildwood a few years ago. Luckily it wasn’t crowded and the CSA was quite good at keeping us informed. It did, however, take about 2 to 3 hours before we could get off at Guildwood and wait for another train.
lenaitch
Senior Member
I'm reading between the lines of the story that the track-level fatality involved that train. Clearly, it sounds like MX customer service and communications response was horrible, but I doubt any train movement on any of the tracks in that area would be considered safe while first responders are working at and around the scene, particularly at night. Unlike railway employees, first responders aren't specifically trained how to function around trains.
Northern Light
Superstar
Yes, but one could still evacuate the train, from the opposite side as the fatality, to give people fresh air, and get them down to street level or the nearest station platform, depending on distance. (particularly if all rail traffic is frozen)
APTA-2048
Senior Member
I wonder if clean up of the scene complicated things. A train hitting a person is quite messy to say the least. I recall one incident that apparently sent body parts down most of the platform.
lenaitch
Senior Member
True, but I was responding to the suggestion that they could sidle another train up on an adjacent track to off-load.
Depending on the distances involved, having hundreds of people stumbling along the ballast in the dark or trying to get to a fenceline safely (railways aren't particularly noted for the cleanliness of their properties), in street shoes, would probably take a lot of staff that might not be available in the wee hours. Unlike the floor of a subway tunnel which is relatively smooth and flat, and might have at least emergency lighting operating, a RR ROW is stone, grass, ditches, etc. I'm not saying that such contingency planning shouldn't be done, but not ad hoc in the middle of an incident. Depending on who actually owns the particular piece of ROW might complicate who can authorize people to wander around on it.
Edit to add: MX would have a liability to ensure that everyone who exited the train actually got to some kind of muster point, to ensure that someone wasn't left behind, passed out in a ditch or still wandering the ROW. In 1989, a United Airways flight cartwheeled off the runway in Sioux City Iowa and into a corn field. In the incident response study, one of the complicating factors in the casualty determination was that a couple of the survivors walked out of the scene and into the terminal and tried to book another flight (I don't remember if they were successful, seeing as they would likely be a tad disheveled and perhaps still smouldering). I suppose that speaks to the tenacity of the professional traveller just wanting to get the heck home.
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Jonny5
Senior Member
A mysterious "fire investigation" shuttered service on the west end of Lakeshore again tonight. There does not appear to have been an actual fire, only an investigation of one? Either way, many late evening trips were cancelled and some pour souls had to switch to shuttle busses to go west of Appleby at 10:30 p.m.
christine
New Member
The section of track the train was stranded at was around South Kingsway. The closest station platform would be Mimico, and the closest at-grade crossing would be in Mississauga. The tracks are on an embankment with the Gardiner right beside them making it a dangerous evacuation, especially at night with hundreds of people (some of which were intoxicated) eagerly wanting to leave.
Northern Light
Superstar
I'm not unsympathetic to the notion of danger, though a 4-track wide cross section is not a rail trestle over a canyon.......
Clearly some people on board were having symptoms of medical distress, which makes it a bit of a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario.
Intoxicated people are risk to themselves in any public setting; that said trains have to be capable of being evacuated (what if there was a fire on the train?) you simply have to be able to do that, then have a risk-management scenario for what follows.
This is the rail corridor close to S. Kingsway, just west of Windermere:
The photo was in 2020, so one might assume that a fence has since been installed, though I don't know.
But certainly, that doesn't seem like overly challenging grade to get down to this turning circle / parking lot for an adjacent condo.
****
Relatedly, in looking at the corridor in this area, I see a lack of staircases up to it.
When the rail corridor was grade-separated in the east east end, most sections got stairs up to track level, even when there is no station nearby, presumably to facilitate an emergency exit and/or CN rail access
(and/or, they have gentle grades down or potential at-grade access to nearby properties)
Those stairs today are often poorly maintained, and if there, are either fenced off at the bottom or top, but it did strike me as curious I didn't see any at the nearby roads here.
Stairs at Logan Avenue:
Gentle grade at Jones:
Exit Door in fence just off Greenwood:
Staircase to tracks at Coxwell:
Perhaps @smallspy or @crs1026 could lend some historical context as to why this was done this way at one point.
The Coxwell one is particularly interesting, because you can see the stairs were rebuilt quite recently, when the underpass was re-done, you can also see the fence that blocks you from getting all the way up.
innsertnamehere
Superstar
If you tap on too early It doesn’t work and Metrolinx doesn’t have an appeal process.
A few months ago I just missed a train (tapped at 7:00, train left at 7:01), and had to wait 15 minutes for the next train. That train was delayed over 45 minutes.. and I didn’t get a refund because I tapped 16 minutes before the train arrived and the cutoff is apparently 15 minutes.
anb
Active Member
Just realized that they have been heading to the 407 station if the Barrie and Stouffville buses were to detour, meaning that they can go to the subway if they wanted to, despite them not having that many choices coming from more north. It’s probably easier to detour where ML owns the terminals, but they literally own the new Kipling terminal and haven’t been going there for the west end buses.
Pushing Port Credit down our throats is only going to make the weekend bus service completely and utterly insufferable. I’m pretty sure that people would rather pay extra for the subway than to deal with the detoured mess if that meant for them to at least get somewhere during the painful time it takes on the QEW/Hurontario.