GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[smallspy]

As for construction, there isn't much going on, that I'm aware of in the RH Corridor or the Stouffville corridor at the moment; nor Milton for that matter, except for its intersection with the Junction.

CN has been doing a lot of tie replacements on the Bala Sub all summer. In places they seem to have replaced about 90% of the ties. I'm not certain they've finished as yet.

As for Stouffville and the Uxbridge Sub, as well as tie replacement they are also replacing three of the bridges in Markham.

I don't know if CP has any major ongoing trackwork programs - they seem to try and save those for the 2-week shutdown in July - but I wouldn't hold my breath on CP allowing too many weekend trains.

GO is chock full of excuses for not getting to 30min, off-peak Lakeshore service sooner, same for adding off-peak on other routes. Lack of organizational will is the biggest obstacle, followed by provincial funding.

I'll agree with you that GO is full of excuses for a lot of things, but when it comes to the half-hourly service on the Lakeshore, it isn't due to organization will.

I'm curious about this one. What construction is GO doing in the Newmarket Sub between Union Station and the York Sub?

They have a tie-replacement program on much of the Newmarket Sub right now, but they have also been doing some much more heavy-duty work around Newmarket Station. For at least one weekend they had a lot of heavy equipment on the ROW and some of the rail removed.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[Jonny5]

The September schedules are up on the GO website now. I didn't see any surprises, but note that the number of bus trips GO is making now is huge compared to 5 years ago.

 

[nfitz]

The September schedules are up on the GO website now. I didn't see any surprises, but note that the number of bus trips GO is making now is huge compared to 5 years ago.

No surprises perhaps, but I'm relieved to see the new Lakeshore trains appear ... as they hadn't mentioned them for a few months, I was afraid they'd be held back for budget or engineer shortages.

There's a good summary at http://gotransitnlb.gotransit.com/public/en/updates/schedulechanges.aspx

 

[drum118]

Hmmm, now I'm not so sure about that........

Trains from Stouffville or Richmond Hill could easily be through-routed onto the Ex as their final stop.

Train traffic outside of rush hours is not so heavy that conflicts are not manageable.

Now for trains approaching from Georgetown, best you can do in on to Union then do a transfer.

But.....in theory (the way the track are aligned may not allow for this currently) you could route Milton trains via Canpa to Lakeshore, then eastbound to the CNE. If track layout currently doesn't permit this, it certainly is do-able to fix that.

****

As for construction, there isn't much going on, that I'm aware of in the RH Corridor or the Stouffville corridor at the moment; nor Milton for that matter, except for its intersection with the Junction.

GO is chock full of excuses for not getting to 30min, off-peak Lakeshore service sooner, same for adding off-peak on other routes. Lack of organizational will is the biggest obstacle, followed by provincial funding.

Neither the managers, nor the government should be let off the hook, time to get on with adding to and improving of services across all corridors, wherever the infrastructure allows. Where it does not allow, time to get on with the relevant construction.

If you can find 25 engineers and lease them to GO, then we can have 30 minute service on the Lakeshore line.

If managers and government cannot afford to pay the going pay rate for engineers, these engineers will work for the company that can.

 

[Northern Light]

On the subject of Lakeshore, providing you are traveling in the primary direction of travel; you now have 30min or better service from 6:30am-10:30am (roughly) @ Union Stn.; and again from 3:15 or so; to 7:15'ish.

So the hourly-service gap is roughly 5 hours, depending on your station of departure and destination. (weekday, mid-day)

Its a tiny start; but good to see. Now if they add more service in January board to close or eliminate that gap, I might just start to get my hopes up.

 

[TOareaFan]

If you can find 25 engineers and lease them to GO, then we can have 30 minute service on the Lakeshore line.

If managers and government cannot afford to pay the going pay rate for engineers, these engineers will work for the company that can.

Always appreciate your insights.

If crews are in such short supply....does it make sense to be adding destinations further afield until that issue is solved? First Barrie, then Niagara Falls soon Kitchener.....to my uneducated brain it does not makes sense to be taking those crews further out...making them yield less runs in a shift if what we really need to expand the core service is those crews making shorter runs more often.

When I was a young man I used to deliver pizzas in Brampton......at the time the Heart Lake area seemed like the other side of the world.....I got promoted (yippee!) to dispatcher (my first lesson in "not all promotions mean you earn more") and the first instruction was "a flat out fireable offense is taking a delivery order for Heart Lake"....taking a driver offline for nearly 1 hour (30 minutes there and back) meant we were short of the necessary drivers to meet our real/core demand areas.

I don't mean to offend anyone living in/travelling to the areas I mentioned....just that they all are, what, 2 hour trips....all other things (mostly political) aside, could those crews not be better used not going to those 3 destinations?

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Always appreciate your insights.

If crews are in such short supply....does it make sense to be adding destinations further afield until that issue is solved? First Barrie, then Niagara Falls soon Kitchener.....to my uneducated brain it does not makes sense to be taking those crews further out...making them yield less runs in a shift if what we really need to expand the core service is those crews making shorter runs more often.

When I was a young man I used to deliver pizzas in Brampton......at the time the Heart Lake area seemed like the other side of the world.....I got promoted (yippee!) to dispatcher (my first lesson in "not all promotions mean you earn more") and the first instruction was "a flat out fireable offense is taking a delivery order for Heart Lake"....taking a driver offline for nearly 1 hour (30 minutes there and back) meant we were short of the necessary drivers to meet our real/core demand areas.

I don't mean to offend anyone living in/travelling to the areas I mentioned....just that they all are, what, 2 hour trips....all other things (mostly political) aside, could those crews not be better used not going to those 3 destinations?

Like I said before:

Grab five crews from CN and Announce 30 min service for March 2012; it is not that hard.

 

[nfitz]

Grab five crews from CN and Announce 30 min service for March 2012; it is not that hard.

That would require them to suddenly pay a lot more to all their crews.

Though they could try something novel and start training new crews now, in large numbers, so that they've got them in 2012/2013. CN/VIA can only poach so many ... sooner or later you have to bite the bullet and realise you are training everyone's crews ... and simply do it.

 

[vegeta_skyline]

Like I said before:

Grab five crews from CN and Announce 30 min service for March 2012; it is not that hard.

There are major issue with that assumption. Firstly, its highly unlikely that CN would be interested in doing any work for GO. As they were more than happy to get rid of providing the crews previously. Also the railways always try to operate as efficiently as possible, they wouldn't keep people around that they don't need. Meaning its doubtful they would even have any spare crews available to begin with.
Secondly GO obviously doesn't want to go down that route. Those crews would be working under CN rules, meaning they can book rest at any time after a shift. Which was one of the major complaints GO had in the first place - crews booking rest on a Friday and trains getting cancel. There is no way they would go to a source that wouldn't be able to even guarantee that those 5 crews (x3 per train = 15 people) would be available 100% of the time. Nor is there any way around that, as its within the contract for CN's unionized employees. The only way for them to become 'un-unionized' is to not work for CN, which is obviously not going to suddenly just happen. Lastly the costs are significantly more, largely due to the premium that CN charges. Which I'm sure in such a case would of been ridiculously high (probably twice s much as they pay for a crew now)

 

[drum118]

Like I said before:

Grab five crews from CN and Announce 30 min service for March 2012; it is not that hard.

Lets see, 18 hrs a day, 7 day week = 7X18 = 126 hrs per week per engineer per train to work. This does not allow time to get trains to/from the yards. The labour Board and FRA would be all over GO and Metrolinx in a blink of a eye if this happens.

Where is your spare engineer encase someone has to book off for any type of reason?

Do the math to figure out the amount of engineers you are going to need for each train you put on the line for all day service at 35hrs a week. You need 10%-20% spare ratio, as they have to cover for someone on holiday, sick or off for some reason.

It is easy right now to add a train for peak service, as you will only need 1 engineer, depending on the run for weekday only doing a split shift.

Again, why would someone with years of experience take a pay cut to work for GO unless they are lay off or some other reason??

Not a easy as you think. Even if you did, you still need to train them to GO standards and that takes time.

Not everyone can be a engineer, just being a bus driver.

 

[Northern Light]

Lets see, 18 hrs a day, 7 day week = 7X18 = 126 hrs per week per engineer per train to work. This does not allow time to get trains to/from the yards. The labour Board and FRA would be all over GO and Metrolinx in a blink of a eye if this happens.

Where is your spare engineer encase someone has to book off for any type of reason?

Do the math to figure out the amount of engineers you are going to need for each train you put on the line for all day service at 35hrs a week. You need 10%-20% spare ratio, as they have to cover for someone on holiday, sick or off for some reason.

It is easy right now to add a train for peak service, as you will only need 1 engineer, depending on the run for weekday only doing a split shift.

Again, why would someone with years of experience take a pay cut to work for GO unless they are lay off or some other reason??

Not a easy as you think. Even if you did, you still need to train them to GO standards and that takes time.

Not everyone can be a engineer, just being a bus driver.

While I agree w/everything Drum and Vegeta are pointing out in terms of Engineer/crew qualifications and issues vis a vis other railways...

I would suggest that IF (big if) we could put money to one side. Engineer pay is not bad, and there are no shortage of people would aspire to either the pay or the little-boy getting to play with trains fantasy, OR both.

I don't think any serious effort has been made to attract the applicants for training purposes.

AS to said applicants taking their training elsewhere, this is easily resolved through contractual language.

You training is paid for as a 'forgivable loan' by GO/Bombardier. For each 1 year you work 25% of your loan is forgiven. If you leave early, you must repay the cost of your training outstanding, + interest (prime + 2) for any outstanding balance.

Very few people would leave until their training is paid off.

Just a matter of money and Will and maybe some imagination on how to problem solve.

 

[vegeta_skyline]

As Drum pointed out, you'd need more than 5 crews anyways. Unless we're just talking about mid day 9 to 3, 30 min service.

I don't think any serious effort has been made to attract the applicants for training purposes.

AS to said applicants taking their training elsewhere, this is easily resolved through contractual language.

You training is paid for as a 'forgivable loan' by GO/Bombardier. For each 1 year you work 25% of your loan is forgiven. If you leave early, you must repay the cost of your training outstanding, + interest (prime + 2) for any outstanding balance.

Very few people would leave until their training is paid off.

Just a matter of money and Will and maybe some imagination on how to problem solve.

They actually did something like that. To lure away some CN conductors and engineers they gave them a bonus( pretty much just for those who were reluctant to leave). 15G over 5 years, dunno if it was GO or Bombardier, doesn't matter. I'm sure it's had an effect, but there was still a couple of those that left, which make sense because the difference in pay between VIA and GO was on average easily over 30G's per year(or about 50% more). 3 grand per year for 5 years vs 30 for the rest over your career... hmm, hard choice no?
Thankfully as I posted a while back they've mostly addressed this discrepancy in the new contract.

But I'm sure offering that kind of a training bonus/contract again would help prevent future loses.

While I agree w/everything Drum and Vegeta are pointing out in terms of Engineer/crew qualifications and issues vis a vis other railways...

I would suggest that IF (big if) we could put money to one side. Engineer pay is not bad, and there are no shortage of people would aspire to either the pay or the little-boy getting to play with trains fantasy, OR both.

Yes it wouldn't be hard to get applicants, over 3000 people applied the first go-round. Unfortunately whenever you have a private company involved, profit margins are of course very important (I'm not criticizing them for this, its just the way capitalism works of course).

Hire more people than you need and you end up paying people to sit around(spare board). Don't hire enough and you maintain the budget but operationally things are tight. And GO is not a cash fountain that you can go to either, they have to abide by what ever fiscal restraints are imposed on them.

Problem is/was imo, they just didn't train people fast enough to meet our expectations for service increases and they didn't foresee some of the losses. Which still wasn't nearly as bad as it could of been. They and we all REALLY dodged a bullet on that one.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

Always appreciate your insights.

If crews are in such short supply....does it make sense to be adding destinations further afield until that issue is solved? First Barrie, then Niagara Falls soon Kitchener.....to my uneducated brain it does not makes sense to be taking those crews further out...making them yield less runs in a shift if what we really need to expand the core service is those crews making shorter runs more often.

When I was a young man I used to deliver pizzas in Brampton......at the time the Heart Lake area seemed like the other side of the world.....I got promoted (yippee!) to dispatcher (my first lesson in "not all promotions mean you earn more") and the first instruction was "a flat out fireable offense is taking a delivery order for Heart Lake"....taking a driver offline for nearly 1 hour (30 minutes there and back) meant we were short of the necessary drivers to meet our real/core demand areas.

I don't mean to offend anyone living in/travelling to the areas I mentioned....just that they all are, what, 2 hour trips....all other things (mostly political) aside, could those crews not be better used not going to those 3 destinations?

Barrie, NF, Kitchener, even the proposed Peterborough route. Wouldn't these 2 hr + GO runs be better served by a VIA lite commuter service, or (bringing the crew shortage issue back to the front) GO Express? Thus allowing GO to focus on it's core service region. I can't imagine why anyone would want to ride a GO train 2 hrs each way daily to work.

But then how do we (GO) better utilize the current crew and balance the executive will to push further out with the operational reality that service frequencies need to increase in the core service area. IMO you can't until you hire more crews.

 

[EnviroTO]

Barrie, NF, Kitchener, even the proposed Peterborough route. Wouldn't these 2 hr + GO runs be better served by a VIA lite commuter service, or (bringing the crew shortage issue back to the front) GO Express? Thus allowing GO to focus on it's core service region. I can't imagine why anyone would want to ride a GO train 2 hrs each way daily to work.

A GO Express train without the bi-levels maybe. Considering how VIA is currently having a bit of a feud with people who use it to commute I don't think anyone can say they are better served by a VIA service. VIA has basically been telling commuters they don't travel a significant enough distance and aren't predictable enough. I don't get VIA's argument. They say that it is unreasonable to keep seats available for commuters when there are committed purchasers ready to buy, however they can and do add more cars to the train based on bookings so getting rid of space reserved for commuters would not free space for late ticket buyers... the trains would simply have less cars on them. Maybe their issue is that the stainless steel train cars they haul around are too heavy and a big burden when near empty? Time to get lighter cars perhaps so they can be like most other rail systems which have reserved and unreserved cars.

 

[Markster]

Ontario Liberals promise all-day GO trains

That's the headline, but that's not what the article is about. Here is the only relevant quote in an article that is actually about a leak of Liberal campaign promises:

All-day trains along existing corridors of the provincially run GO Transit service, an expansion from rush-hour only service, is expected to be a big hit in the vote-rich suburbs surrounding Toronto.

This will probably be well accepted and good politics in the 905 area," Steeve is heard to say on the phone call, which included such notable Liberal insiders as former health minister George Smitherman and strategists Bob Richardson and Andrew Steele.

So, no details at all, yet.