GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[drum118]

I think, as we should, we recognize with compassion that it cannot be "easy" on a crew that, through no fault of their own, just "took another life"......so I would bet the statement by drum is that they get time off to address their own mental state.....and that, reading between the lines, some people just never get over it and are never able to return.

You are correct.

Each person handles things differently and it has a short or long impact on them, depending on what took place.

I have known 2 engineers personally where one worked for CP and the other for CN who kill people at night. One was off for 6 months and the other a year.

The one off a year could not handle trips at night and being low on the list for daytime runs local, he packed it in after 6 months as well after 10 years on the job that he love. He love the Buffalo run. He kill 2 kids caught on a bridge at night in the northern section of Toronto. A few others jump from the bridge and were injury.

I know someone who kill another passenger in a car that was not their fault and doesn't drive anymore. They are only in their 40s.

Time off various with systems, but their day is done if its an accident, someone hit or kill. One reason for a spare board in the first place. You have also lost a train until a crew is found and taken to the site to see if it can continue in service or be taken back to the yard. If it going back to the yard, another train will have to be put into service with a new crew.

Not only does it effect the crew involved, but the other drivers on line where they will be saying that could have been me if this took place at x time when they pass that point.

 

[TOareaFan]

Well, despite announcing it via schedule release last week, as we know nothing in the GO/ML world is official until Steven DelDuca has a press conference on a GO platform. This morning he IS at Mt Pleasant station with the Brampton Mayor doing just that.

Most disturbing, however, is that the Brampton Mayor, in her tweets, is calling it a #TWADGO announcement......if the "AD" in that is "All Day" then she is vastly overstating what she is announcing.

 

[Adjei]

Politicians are so annoying. They way they pat themselves on the backs with all these announcements you would think they were actual workers laying down rail and building train stations.

 

[ShonTron]

Remember in the discussion a while back that GO/Metrolinx still suffers from a shortage of train crews? The midday schedule, if written correctly does allow for crews already assigned to rush hour trains to operate the midday service. My hope is that there will be more crews ready soon to phase in more trains on that corridor. I'm willing to wait until November, January or even April.

 

[TOareaFan]

Remember in the discussion a while back that GO/Metrolinx still suffers from a shortage of train crews? The midday schedule, if written correctly does allow for crews already assigned to rush hour trains to operate the midday service. My hope is that there will be more crews ready soon to phase in more trains on that corridor. I'm willing to wait until November, January or even April.

We really don't have any choice but to wait...do we?

 

[mdrejhon]

You are correct.

Each person handles things differently and it has a short or long impact on them, depending on what took place.

I have known 2 engineers personally where one worked for CP and the other for CN who kill people at night. One was off for 6 months and the other a year.

The one off a year could not handle trips at night and being low on the list for daytime runs local, he packed it in after 6 months as well after 10 years on the job that he love. He love the Buffalo run. He kill 2 kids caught on a bridge at night in the northern section of Toronto. A few others jump from the bridge and were injury.

I know someone who kill another passenger in a car that was not their fault and doesn't drive anymore. They are only in their 40s.

Time off various with systems, but their day is done if its an accident, someone hit or kill. One reason for a spare board in the first place. You have also lost a train until a crew is found and taken to the site to see if it can continue in service or be taken back to the yard. If it going back to the yard, another train will have to be put into service with a new crew.

Not only does it effect the crew involved, but the other drivers on line where they will be saying that could have been me if this took place at x time when they pass that point.

I learn something new everyday.

I knew it was sad, but, I now realize, working a train for say, 15 years with no incidents like these, and then suddenly you see people who are about to die in front of your train, and...

It's sad for everyone involved...even the families of the driver too, not just the families of the ones on the tracks.

 

[crs1026]

Well, despite announcing it via schedule release last week, as we know nothing in the GO/ML world is official until Steven DelDuca has a press conference on a GO platform. This morning he IS at Mt Pleasant station with the Brampton Mayor doing just that.
Most disturbing, however, is that the Brampton Mayor, in her tweets, is calling it a #TWADGO announcement......if the "AD" in that is "All Day" then she is vastly overstating what she is announcing.

The text of Del Duca's announcement
http://news.ontario.ca/mto/en/2015/08/more-go-service-between-brampton-and-toronto.html says that service will grow from 80 trips per week at present to "more than 250" over the next five years.

I'm saving that press release for when I need a chuckle. Anyone want to start a pool on how many trains there will be on September 8, 2020?

- Paul

 

[nfitz]

The text of Del Duca's announcement
http://news.ontario.ca/mto/en/2015/08/more-go-service-between-brampton-and-toronto.html says that service will grow from 80 trips per week at present to "more than 250" over the next five years.

I'm saving that press release for when I need a chuckle. Anyone want to start a pool on how many trains there will be on September 8, 2020?

250 isn't that many. The September increase takes it from 80 to 150.

Back in April they already announced they'd add 2 more peak trains a day and 18 off-peak trains in fiscal 2015-16. So far they've only added the 14 off-peak trains, so we have 6 more trains still to be added this year. That will take us from 150 to 180.

And for fiscal 2016-17 they announced that they'd add a further 6 weekday off-peak trains and 28 weekend trains. Those 58 trains a week would bring the total from 180 to 238.

And (again back in April) for fiscal 2017-18 they announced 2 more daily peak trains; and also 2 more for 2019-20. So that bring us to 258 trains a day.

So what we essentially got today was nothing new.

Chuckle? I want to cry.

 

[andrewpmk]

250 isn't that many. The September increase takes it from 80 to 150.

Back in April they already announced they'd add 2 more peak trains a day and 18 off-peak trains in fiscal 2015-16. So far they've only added the 14 off-peak trains, so we have 6 more trains still to be added this year. That will take us from 150 to 180.

And for fiscal 2016-17 they announced that they'd add a further 6 weekday off-peak trains and 28 weekend trains. Those 58 trains a week would bring the total from 180 to 238.

And (again back in April) for fiscal 2017-18 they announced 2 more daily peak trains; and also 2 more for 2019-20. So that bring us to 258 trains a day.

So what we essentially got today was nothing new.

Chuckle? I want to cry.

It sounds like the Kitchener line will gradually be increased to the 30 minute diesel service that the Lakeshore line currently has, then increased to 15 minute electric service once RER is complete. If you do the math 250 trains/7 days a week/20 hours=1.7857 trains per hour so this likely means 30 minute off peak service with hourly during lightly traveled times like weekend mornings and late evenings and a marginal increase in peak service perhaps. My guess is that it will have hourly service (similar to what Lakeshore used to have) by next September. This needs more drivers but only a small number of new trains. There isn't any guarantee that this will actually happen particularly if the Conservatives get elected or there is a severe recession which seems increasingly likely, though my guess is that a whole lot of contracts for electrification and track improvements and new trains will be signed just before the 2018 provincial election so that the Conservatives can't cancel it. The worst that is likely to happen is that Metrolinx decides to run trains every 30 minutes at certain times of day instead of every 15 minutes to save money.

 

[andrewpmk]

Or does 250 trains mean the number of trains both ways? In that case it probably means hourly service not every 30 minutes.

 

[Adjei]

If the Conservatives decide to cancel or alter any part of GO RER for the worst, they can say goodbye to winning any seats in the GTA. Good luck to forming government without winning the GTA.

 

[crs1026]

Hourly service both ways 12 hours per day x 7 days is about 168 trains. Eight more peak trains on weekdays is another 80 trains.per week. That equates to about 20 minute service at peak. Hopefully the Kitchener trains skip some stops to keep trip times down. It fits, I guess.

- Paul

 

[nfitz]

Or does 250 trains mean the number of trains both ways? In that case it probably means hourly service not every 30 minutes.

Adding the 7 eastbound and 7 westbound departures is 14 trains a day or 70 trains a week.

If you ran a train an hour in each direction 7-days a week from 7 AM to midnight that would be 18 trains per direction per day. So 14 times 18 = 252 trains a week.

250 trains won't get you half-hourly service. Given trains are more frequent than hourly in rush hour, 250 trains a week doesn't give you as quite as good a service as Lakeshore East/West had years ago.

 

[Jonny5]

What is up with these antiseptic wipes in GO train bathrooms? Over the past five years or so I have seen a box of them in the washroom about one in every 10 times I use it. The box is almost always full. Considering they are pretty handy little things I assume that means it was recently placed there. I have never seen an empty or a partially filled box. I doubt anyone is stealing the whole box.

Who is putting them there and why does it appear to happen so rarely and inconsistently? I mean why bother with them at all if you only have enough to have 5-10% of the bathrooms stocked with them? Or perhaps they are putting them regularly in all the washrooms but people actually are stealing the whole box?

 

[mdrejhon]

They seem to be putting them in bathrooms whenever the water faucets are not working, or has no water.