GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Because $$$. Seriously, no one wants to pay for it whether through increased taxes, fees (both tolls and fares) or loans.

Commuter rail problems seem to be a Canadian thing rather than something Ontario or Toronto specific.

AMT and WestCoast rail aren't very agressive either and both of those agencies receive significantly more operating funding per passenger than GO. AMT's 2-hour off-peak frequencies isn't much better than no service at all.


Metra (Chicago) blows the pants off all of 'em for service but only makes about 60% higher ridership than GO; Metra serves 300k passengers per day on trains versus GO's 175k. GO has a much higher growth rate (6% versus 1% for Metra).

I hear you guys. Metra and the South Shore line goes to Indiana and Kenosha, WI along with far out places like Woodstock and Joliet, IL. We have to fight for trains to Hamilton, Bowmanville and Vaughan for more then 0 or 4 times a day. Don't get me started on the SEPTA or MTA/NJT.

Only two suggestions get me mad/frustrated.

1). That we can't afford all day service on the main parts of the KW/Gtown line. The truly expensive part (the roadblock thrown our way for over 20 years) has/is being done. By 2015, the line will be capable of carrying the required service due to the combo of Union upgrades/Strachan crossing/west diamond/and improved tracks and overpasses. Failure to deliver that full service at that time is, in a way, "wasting" all that money ; and/or

2). The notion that we somehow can afford 30 minute offpeak on Lakeshore but we can't afford bringing this line to current Lakeshore levels.

2 is not so much money as shuffing around people. If you take a 10:28 out of Oakville during the week,you can see about 8 trains sitting there. It's just more hours from more people IMO. But still the same thing is happening at brampton. so no excuse.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

I think you're completely misreading both Steve's post and the Metrolinx document he linked to. There were a smattering of discrepancies between GO's plans and Metrolinx's plans from before the two sides merged. GO's plan had said let's have all day service on that line running as far as Mt. Pleasant in the medium term, and Metrolinx's plan had said have it as far as Georgetown in the medium term. What I got out of that Metrolinx document is that now that they've come to an opportunity to match the plans up with one another, the old GO position is prevailing. The piece that's left between the two stations gets punted to the longer-term list.

We'll see, I hope so.

 

[vegeta_skyline]

The point made was that the Barrie line had/has such low ridership that weekend service was cancelled

That's incorrect. While the ridership was indeed lower than expected, even if the initial expectations were met, the service would have still been discontinued at the same time since it was only planned to last for the same duration as the Falls service.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

That's incorrect. While the ridership was indeed lower than expected, even if the initial expectations were met, the service would have still been discontinued at the same time since it was only planned to last for the same duration as the Falls service.

Vegeta, how exactly is go planning to get the full service done, are they actively searching for engineers or are they go with new hires and the 2 year process.

 

[ShonTron]

That's incorrect. While the ridership was indeed lower than expected, even if the initial expectations were met, the service would have still been discontinued at the same time since it was only planned to last for the same duration as the Falls service.

There were lots of issues with the (botched) Barrie Line service - poor schedules for day trips from Toronto, aggressive GO-PO enforcement without adequate payment options at unstaffed stations, lousy marketing. The Niagara Falls trains are quite successful, especially with the bike train car.

 

[vegeta_skyline]

There were lots of issues with the (botched) Barrie Line service - poor schedules for day trips from Toronto, aggressive GO-PO enforcement without adequate payment options at unstaffed stations, lousy marketing. The Niagara Falls trains are quite successful, especially with the bike train car.

I'm not disputing that at all and the only way I was comparing it to the falls service was in regards to its duration. All I'm saying is that the service wasn't "cancelled" per say, only that it was initially intended to be just seasonal in nature. Hopefully those issues will be addressed when the service resumes.

 

[vegeta_skyline]

Vegeta, how exactly is go planning to get the full service done, are they actively searching for engineers or are they go with new hires and the 2 year process.

Well, they've had this job posting for almost 3 1/2 years now; http://jobs.bombardier.com/job/Downsview-Train-Operator-Job-ON/1562798/

There's been some success with this method but most of those are older individuals (retirees from CN/VIA), so it won't be a long term solution. This method will always be very limited as only a few people would be willing to work after retirement and even fewer still would want to switch company's in the middle of their career after they've already established themselves elsewhere. And of course there's only a relatively small pool of qualified locomotive engineers out there to begin with.
If people don't show any interest there's very little one can do to persuade them to come over. Even those who left for VIA only did so because they were always interested in it. Its not like VIA actually went door to door or called us and asked, 'hey... think maybe you want to come over here?' (if they did, they forgot to call me! )
No, nothing of the sort went on. People just wanted to go to the national national carrier because its more prestigious and they have better pay and benefits. There's really little that they could do about it except lessen the disparity between us, which is exactly what was done.

Which means the only realistic option that is left is to hire off the street and as we're all aware it is not an expedited process. Unfortunately there's just no way around it.

In regards to hiring, there's been a suggestion that someone has failed in this regards... unfortunately I cannot speak to any specifics in this matter.

The situation is quite complicated but ultimately its really as simple as this;
Bombardiers does what GO tells them to do in this regard.
GO meanwhile, is limited by their operation budget.
Which means that those ultimately responsible are those who actually set the budget for GO/metrolinx
i.e. the government of Ontario. So if one must vent their frustration at someone, you only have to look at the top.

But don't get me wrong, this is not a condemnation of the liberals. No, because I honestly don't think the situation would be any better with any of the other party's in charge.
And since Ontario is broke, maybe we should be thankful that we're getting any service increases??

 

[vegeta_skyline]

I'm kidding about that last part, of course I wish governments would allocate more funds to transit. But I guess I just realized that the likelihood of getting more than whats been promised is quite low. And there certainly are legitimate arguments to be had over just how that small piece of pie will be cut.

 

[ShonTron]

I'm not disputing that at all and the only way I was comparing it to the falls service was in regards to its duration. All I'm saying is that the service wasn't "cancelled" per say, only that it was initially indented to be just seasonal in nature. Hopefully those issues will be addressed when the service resumes.

I know, and it wasn't a response to your explanation. This Thanksgiving weekend had somewhat lousy weather, but I took the Niagara train last year's October long weekend to enjoy the spectacular weather and bike the many paths and trails in the region. There was no Thanksgiving service this weekend, was that because of the King St underpass work that all but closed the Oakville Sub west of Burlington?

 

[TOareaFan]

Well, they've had this job posting for almost 3 1/2 years now; http://jobs.bombardier.com/job/Downsview-Train-Operator-Job-ON/1562798/

There's been some success with this method but most of those are older individuals (retirees from CN/VIA), so it won't be a long term solution. This method will always be very limited as only a few people would be willing to work after retirement and even fewer still would want to switch company's in the middle of their career after they've already established themselves elsewhere. And of course there's only a relatively small pool of qualified locomotive engineers out there to begin with.
If people don't show any interest there's very little one can do to persuade them to come over. Even those who left for VIA only did so because they were always interested in it. Its not like VIA actually went door to door or called us and asked, 'hey... think maybe you want to come over here?' (if they did, they forgot to call me! )
No, nothing of the sort went on. People just wanted to go to the national national carrier because its more prestigious and they have better pay and benefits. There's really little that they could do about it except lessen the disparity between us, which is exactly what was done.

Which means the only realistic option that is left is to hire off the street and as we're all aware it is not an expedited process. Unfortunately there's just no way around it.

In regards to hiring, there's been a suggestion that someone has failed in this regards... unfortunately I cannot speak to any specifics in this matter.

The situation is quite complicated but ultimately its really as simple as this;
Bombardiers does what GO tells them to do in this regard.
GO meanwhile, is limited by their operation budget.
Which means that those ultimately responsible are those who actually set the budget for GO/metrolinx
i.e. the government of Ontario. So if one must vent their frustration at someone, you only have to look at the top.

But don't get me wrong, this is not a condemnation of the liberals. No, because I honestly don't think the situation would be any better with any of the other party's in charge.
And since Ontario is broke, maybe we should be thankful that we're getting any service increases??

If we have been trying for 3 + years to fill these positions then it might be time to look elsewhere. With the Federal Gov't looking to fastrack immigration from people with skills we need and most of heavily trained Europe in a long deep recession, it might be time to host train engineer job fairs in Europe.

 

[vegeta_skyline]

There was no Thanksgiving service this weekend, was that because of the King St underpass work that all but closed the Oakville Sub west of Burlington?

Didn't hear any official word on the matter but I would assume that to be the case as well.

 

[smallspy]

Didn't hear any official word on the matter but I would assume that to be the case as well.

Officially it was because of the construction. Or more specifically, orders from CN that they didn't want additional rail traffic tying up the construction zone. As it was, they only allowed the highest-priority freight trains through there - anything else was temporarily redirected to another yard, or cancelled for the weekend.

That was also why VIA didn't run any trains via Brantford that weekend.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[Northern Light]

January Service Changes are online:

http://www.gotransit.com/public/en/updates/schedulechanges.aspx#January

I'm not going to list all the bus trip changes here.

The train service changes are on the disappointing side, though there appear to be five new trains total.

Three new trains on Lakeshore West; I haven't figured out which are the added runs yet.

One new Afternoon Train for Richmond Hill at 3:10pm, departing Union

One new Afternoon Train for Stouffville departing at 2:18, from Union (to Unionville only)


***

Some new capacity (L12s I assume on various runs)

Some Lakeshore West Trains shifted to start at Aldershot (I assume from Burlington)

Kitchener Corridor - Acton Station opens, minor schedule changes

***

I am at a loss as to why they're adding the early afternoon Stouffville run instead of one at 7pm which would seem much more useful.....

 

[TOareaFan]

Knowing that actually adding trains to the KW line is an impossibility until 2105, I kinda expected a couple of service improvements this time around and neither happened.

One was that some of our trains would get stretched to 12 car trains.....the platforms were extended over a year ago and it seems that a line with growing usage that can't have new trains would be a good candidate for longer trains.

The other was having the existing late eastbound train (9:40 a.m. from Bramalea) start its journey further west. I know no one west of Bramalea that takes the connecting bus to this train. For, I guess, scheduling flexibility the bus that leaves Brampton to connect to this train leaves the Brampton station at 9:00 a.m........so what is normally an 8 minute train ride turns into a 40 minute commute by bus and a total (to Union) commute of 49 minutes turns into a 1:20 commute (at the same price). The few people I know that normally board at Brampton and take this train either drive to Bramalea or if they are leaving that late just drive downtown (at that time Brampton to DT is a +/- 1 hour commute). Since there is dbl track from Bramalea to Brampton (and, I think beyond) now I really expected that a token service improvement would be for that train to make its way further west before starting its journey down to Union.

Instead we get "minor schedule changes". Ah well, roll on 2015.

 

[Markster]

Knowing that actually adding trains to the KW line is an impossibility until 2105, I kinda expected a couple of service improvements this time around and neither happened.

...
were you going for the sarcasm of 2105, or was that just a typo of 2015 (the actual date when service can start to increase)?