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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

Not sure why Metrolinx decides to run these 10/12 car trains on the Bramalea only service of the Kitchener line during mid days and are 90% empty most of the time, while the same section during peak hours, you would see only 6 cars operating.

Is it because of limited equipment or do they do it because they think that people from Union would take the express trains instead to Bramalea (and stops further), and the skipped stops that the local trains serve in between won’t have that many people on it in comparison.
 
anb said:
Not sure why Metrolinx decides to run these 10/12 car trains on the Bramalea only service of the Kitchener line during mid days and are 90% empty most of the time, while the same section during peak hours, you would see only 6 cars operating.

Is it because of limited equipment or do they do it because they think that people from Union would take the express trains instead to Bramalea (and stops further), and the skipped stops that the local trains serve in between won’t have that many people on it in comparison.
Click to expand...

A little from collumn A, a little from Collumn B.

My sense is that the cycling of trainsets forces the use of more 12 car trains than ridership really demands.... the flexibility of having so many identical trainsets that can be deployed across multiple lines and times of day is more efficient and facilitates scheduling better than tinkering with a mix of train lengths.

I have to think that those 6-car trains end up on runs that only need that many cars, but they do seem to also rotate thru runs that demand more capacity than they provide.

- Paul
 
Northern Light said:
We need to extract a couple of bits from the above for @reaperexpress

View attachment 696728
Click to expand...
MPP Cerjanec read my blog post on the Lakeshore East express service, so that might be how he found out that most of the third track is still in service despite the construction at East Harbour, contrary to Metrolinx's claims. Him calling Metrolinx out on their false claims may be what forced Metrolinx to stop blaming the existing construction at East Harbour and start blaming the future construction at the Birchmount Road bridge (nevermind the fact that Birchmount is still west of Scarborough Junction, so closing the third track there doesn't necessarily prevent express service either).
Northern Light said:
Also, there is some dispute as to how badly the absence of Express service impacts riders


View attachment 696729
View attachment 696731

Here we have Mx, who generally have little to no credibility, sadly; but they up against anecdotes, which are not evidence.
Click to expand...

I'm disappointed to hear him repeating false claims about the travel time savings without any fact checking. In the 2019/2020 timetables, the AM Peak express service was generally about 11 minutes faster than the adjacent local services:
capture-png.673911


In the PM, express services were generally 11 minutes faster than adjacent local services (e.g. the 16:00 trip), though some trips (e.g. 17:15) were as much as 17 minutes faster:
Screenshot 2025-11-19 at 22.50.46.png


It's absolutely possible that people's commutes are 20 minutes longer now than they were in 2019, but you can't attribute more than 11 of those minutes to the loss of express service.

Contrary to what Metrolinx is implying, adding 11 minutes per direction to someone's daily commute is quite substantial, there's no need to inflate that number beyond reality.

Here's my GO Timetable Archive in case anyone else wants to fact-check any claims about historical GO service.
 
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anb said:
Not sure why Metrolinx decides to run these 10/12 car trains on the Bramalea only service of the Kitchener line during mid days and are 90% empty most of the time, while the same section during peak hours, you would see only 6 cars operating.

Is it because of limited equipment or do they do it because they think that people from Union would take the express trains instead to Bramalea (and stops further), and the skipped stops that the local trains serve in between won’t have that many people on it in comparison.
Click to expand...
The size of the trains is dictated by the single busiest trip that train operates per day. So basically it depends on what trip(s) they operate at rush hour. For the trains running the Bramalea service at rush hour, clearly that's what they're doing at rush hour. That's not a particularly busy service, so I guess 6 cars is enough. The trains running to Bramalea midday may have been operating a different much busier service at rush hour (e.g. the Kitchener express) that required 12 cars.
 
reaperexpress said:
MPP Cerjanec read my blog post on the Lakeshore East express service, so that might be how he found out that most of the third track is still in service despite the construction at East Harbour, contrary to Metrolinx's claims. Him calling Metrolinx out on their false claims may be what forced Metrolinx to stop blaming the existing construction at East Harbour and start blaming the future construction at the Birchmount Road bridge (nevermind the fact that Birchmount is still west of Scarborough Junction, so closing the third track there doesn't necessarily prevent express service either).


I'm disappointed to hear him repeating false claims about the travel time savings without any fact checking. In the 2019/2020 timetables, the AM Peak express service was generally about 11 minutes faster than the adjacent local services:
capture-png.673911


In the PM, express services were generally 10 minutes faster than adjacent local services (e.g. the 16:00 trip), though some trips (e.g. 17:15) were as much as 17 minutes faster:
View attachment 696947

It's absolutely possible that people's commutes are 20 minutes longer now than they were in 2019, but you can't attribute more than 11 of those minutes to the loss of express service.

Contrary to what Metrolinx is implying, adding 11 minutes per direction to someone's daily commute is quite substantial, there's no need to inflate that number beyond reality.

Here's my GO Timetable Archive in case anyone else wants to fact-check any claims about historical GO service.
Click to expand...
the fact that go transit is not trying to bring back express lakeshore east train service is just plain lazy.
 
reaperexpress said:
MPP Cerjanec read my blog post on the Lakeshore East express service, so that might be how he found out that most of the third track is still in service despite the construction at East Harbour, contrary to Metrolinx's claims. Him calling Metrolinx out on their false claims may be what forced Metrolinx to stop blaming the existing construction at East Harbour and start blaming the future construction at the Birchmount Road bridge (nevermind the fact that Birchmount is still west of Scarborough Junction, so closing the third track there doesn't necessarily prevent express service either).


I'm disappointed to hear him repeating false claims about the travel time savings without any fact checking. In the 2019/2020 timetables, the AM Peak express service was generally about 11 minutes faster than the adjacent local services:
capture-png.673911


In the PM, express services were generally 10 minutes faster than adjacent local services (e.g. the 16:00 trip), though some trips (e.g. 17:15) were as much as 17 minutes faster:
View attachment 696947

It's absolutely possible that people's commutes are 20 minutes longer now than they were in 2019, but you can't attribute more than 11 of those minutes to the loss of express service.

Contrary to what Metrolinx is implying, adding 11 minutes per direction to someone's daily commute is quite substantial, there's no need to inflate that number beyond reality.

Here's my GO Timetable Archive in case anyone else wants to fact-check any claims about historical GO service.
Click to expand...

Thank you @reaperexpress ; your usual excellent contribution is always appreciated!
 
anb said:
Not sure why Metrolinx decides to run these 10/12 car trains on the Bramalea only service of the Kitchener line during mid days and are 90% empty most of the time, while the same section during peak hours, you would see only 6 cars operating.

Is it because of limited equipment or do they do it because they think that people from Union would take the express trains instead to Bramalea (and stops further), and the skipped stops that the local trains serve in between won’t have that many people on it in comparison.
Click to expand...
There are a limited number of 6-car trainsets, and they are all already in service in the middle of the day. Thus any additional trains being run will have to be longer trains.

On top of that, the Bramalea short turns operate independently of the Mount Pleasant/Kitchener service, which interline with the Barrie and Stouffville off-peak services.Each train runs from Mount Pleasant to Union to Aurora to Union to Mount Joy to Union and then back to Mount Pleasant.

At this point GO is about at its limit of locomotives that it can run on a given day, and needs to increase their fleet badly. So more 6-car trainsets to use in the off-peak times are not in the offing for the foreseeable future.

Dan
 
smallspy said:
There are a limited number of 6-car trainsets, and they are all already in service in the middle of the day. Thus any additional trains being run will have to be longer trains.

On top of that, the Bramalea short turns operate independently of the Mount Pleasant/Kitchener service, which interline with the Barrie and Stouffville off-peak services.Each train runs from Mount Pleasant to Union to Aurora to Union to Mount Joy to Union and then back to Mount Pleasant.

At this point GO is about at its limit of locomotives that it can run on a given day, and needs to increase their fleet badly. So more 6-car trainsets to use in the off-peak times are not in the offing for the foreseeable future.

Dan
Click to expand...
How badly does GO need more locomotives? Would they seriously consider ordering new diesel locomotives, regardless of all the talk about eventually electrifying the network?

I know MotivePower no longer exisists but couldn't Wabtec manufactuer any new MPI's for GO?
 
Bojaxs said:
How badly does GO need more locomotives? Would they seriously consider ordering new diesel locomotives, regardless of all the talk about eventually electrifying the network?
Click to expand...

If you look at the repeated RFI's and inquiries that ML has issued over the past few years, it's pretty clear that they are serious about needing more locomotives asap. The challenges are availability, compatibility, and lead times.

The backbone of the fleet is far from new and even if electrification were to happen swiftly (and we know it won't) there would be little stranded investment in locomotives. More likely, it will be a case of stretching the life cycle to make things last until wires or something else arrives. The second hand market is pretty good, also, and not all diesels will ever be replaced.

At the end of the day, the size of the locomotive fleet constrains how many trains can be operated..... but the price is not really material as it's a fraction of the investment needed for GO Expansion. Acquiring more loco's is a priority notwithstanding electrification.

- Paul
 
Bojaxs said:
How badly does GO need more locomotives? Would they seriously consider ordering new diesel locomotives, regardless of all the talk about eventually electrifying the network?

I know MotivePower no longer exisists but couldn't Wabtec manufactuer any new MPI's for GO?
Click to expand...
Further to Paul's points....

The oldest MP40s are approaching 20 years of age, and are going through their second rebuild. Even if electrification were to happen tomorrow, they have already lived a pretty hard life and it could be argued that they don't owe GO anything.

And with so much of the network that will remain as diesel for the foreseeable future, there is going to be a need for a sizeable diesel fleet.

MotivePower as a brand may not exist, but that doesn't mean that Wabtec couldn't pull up the older designs to use them or update them as they so need. But by the same token, that doesn't necessarily mean that the old designs are what GO would want today in any case.

Dan
 
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