GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[TOareaFan]

So, in the height of last night's Kitchener line stuff caused by the person-freight train collision..I had a brief chat with AMA...I did not pursue it because, honestly, I assumed she would be busy and did not see the point in it at that time.

But I wonder if others ever have the thought that sometimes the reaction to incidents is too "formatted" into an one size fits all situation that leads to a "accident on any line leads to closure of the line"....rather than a decision making tree that leads to a different solution depending on the situation.

Here is the very brief convo..

I know they eventually did run a couple of trains out to Bramalea....but, in the meantime, I understand havoc and overcrowding was the situation as everyone gathered at Union.

In my (easy to format from armchair, I know) view, a decision tree would have said....

1. Line is clear to Bramalea....so we can serve Bloor, Weston, EN, Malton and Bramalea.
2. Busiest station on line is Bramalea (followed by Brampton and Mt. Pleasant)
3. So getting people to Bramalea gets a lot of people to where they are going anyway and the next two busiest stations are within that same municipality so people headed for Brampton and Mt. Pleasant customers are able to, either, use already existing local transit partner (BT) or call a cab, or a ride home (or to those other stations to collect their cars)
4. Even if it takes us a while to get the shuttle buses running...it makes more sense to get people away from Union (where they get mixed in with people from other lines who are unaffected) and the portion of the customers that were headed beyond Bramalea is smaller than having all the customers on the line gathered at Union.

It just seemed to me to be a very knee jerk ("that's what we do in a crisis") reaction to suspend all operations on the line when a good number of the people on the line who otherwise would be unaffected by an incident at Brampton then become impacted by it.

Am I totally out to lunch here?

 

[Northern Light]

So, in the height of last night's Kitchener line stuff caused by the person-freight train collision..I had a brief chat with AMA...I did not pursue it because, honestly, I assumed she would be busy and did not see the point in it at that time.

But I wonder if others ever have the thought that sometimes the reaction to incidents is too "formatted" into an one size fits all situation that leads to a "accident on any line leads to closure of the line"....rather than a decision making tree that leads to a different solution depending on the situation.

Here is the very brief convo..


View attachment 78086

I know they eventually did run a couple of trains out to Bramalea....but, in the meantime, I understand havoc and overcrowding was the situation as everyone gathered at Union.

In my (easy to format from armchair, I know) view, a decision tree would have said....

1. Line is clear to Bramalea....so we can serve Bloor, Weston, EN, Malton and Bramalea.
2. Busiest station on line is Bramalea (followed by Brampton and Mt. Pleasant)
3. So getting people to Bramalea gets a lot of people to where they are going anyway and the next two busiest stations are within that same municipality so people headed for Brampton and Mt. Pleasant customers are able to, either, use already existing local transit partner (BT) or call a cab, or a ride home (or to those other stations to collect their cars)
4. Even if it takes us a while to get the shuttle buses running...it makes more sense to get people away from Union (where they get mixed in with people from other lines who are unaffected) and the portion of the customers that were headed beyond Bramalea is smaller than having all the customers on the line gathered at Union.

It just seemed to me to be a very knee jerk ("that's what we do in a crisis") reaction to suspend all operations on the line when a good number of the people on the line who otherwise would be unaffected by an incident at Brampton then become impacted by it.

Am I totally out to lunch here?

No, for a change, you're completely on point!

 

[steveintoronto]

Am I totally out to lunch here?

No, albeit I'm reticent to agree with all points fully w/o knowing more from GO's side, but one point really struck me, the last tweet (editing a pic attachment difficult)"We can't have thousands of people arriving at one station with no ride from there".

That troubles me. Are there liability issues? Perhaps....but that decision should be the individual passenger's, not some bureaucrat. An announcement should be made that "We take no responsibility beyond conveying you to Bramalea if you board this train. If you have a follow-on plan, please set your plans in motion now" (someone can pick them up at the station, get a cab, bus, bike, camel, whatever). It is technically true that GO (or any other carrier) can't guarantee carriage in an emergency. However, to wholesale deny everyone the opportunity to make whatever decision is felt best in their own interest is really troubling. I can see no logistical reason to deny carriage to Bramalea. Will it be crowded? Doubtless, call ahead to Peel Region to have an officer or two there , but where's the difference between the crowd at Union and a fraction of it at Bramalea? The train is going to have to be parked up the line anyway at some point. In all fairness, there might have been a decision made at CN dispatch that GO had no choice but to follow.

Still, you ask good questions, and the last is a very good one. I suspect we won't hear a peep of an answer.

 

[mdrejhon]

I wonder if UPX achieved 100% farebox recovery for the day of June 8.

 

[Markster]

I can see no logistical reason to deny carriage to Bramalea.

I imagine that GO operations are not equipped to handle turnbacks.
Sure, the first train after the incident can head out to Bramalea, but what does it do from there? Hold? Return to Union? If it holds, it takes up track and platform space. What happens with the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th train after? If it returns it will interfere with scheduled operations for other lines.

GO doesn't have a graceful fall-back plan, and so they fall back to the only plan they have, which is to suspend all service.

Clearly, they need to change this.

 

[Jonny5]

I imagine that GO operations are not equipped to handle turnbacks.
Sure, the first train after the incident can head out to Bramalea, but what does it do from there? Hold? Return to Union? If it holds, it takes up track and platform space. What happens with the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th train after? If it returns it will interfere with scheduled operations for other lines.

What would they do if this happened at 5:15pm and one or two trains were already on route there? Would they kick everyone off at Malton or Etobicoke North and say "You're on your own!"?

They must have a plan for that scenario.

 

[crs1026]

You are right on that GO could have maintained service to the intermediate stations, getting that many people out of Union.

I'm less convinced that passengers for the longer haul should have been encouraged to head for Bramales. Yesterday was a nice day but in a thunderstorm, or winter, that option could have had serious consequences.

I agree that some generic scenarios and contingency plans are needed for each line that are short of full closure.

If (accident beyond Bramale) then x .... Else if (accident beyond Guelph) then y ...kind of thing.

- Paul

 

[TOareaFan]

I imagine that GO operations are not equipped to handle turnbacks.
Sure, the first train after the incident can head out to Bramalea, but what does it do from there? Hold? Return to Union? If it holds, it takes up track and platform space. What happens with the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th train after? If it returns it will interfere with scheduled operations for other lines.

GO doesn't have a graceful fall-back plan, and so they fall back to the only plan they have, which is to suspend all service.

Clearly, they need to change this.

Well, in that there was a freight train incident at Brampton...there would have been no freight traffic between Brampton and Bramalea....and GO owns/controls the tracks essentially from Bramalea to Union....it would seem to me (as a layman) that some sort of turnback plan could be be facilitated at Bramalea.

As crs1026 notes, some sort of "if, then" decision tree is needed and, clearly, the same sort of incident east of Bramalea would be a different decision than one at Mill street in Brampton....but the simple fallback of "cancel everything" seems to make no sense.

 

[DonValleyRainbow]

I'm actually lost on why there aren't more robust contingency plans. If an accident occurs closer to Union (during PM), then sure, there's little that can be done. But shuttle buses from Bramalea certainly seems a bit more feasible from my armchair too. I mean, it's really close to the 407, and you could cut out running them to Brampton and Mount Pleasant GO on the rationale that they are in Brampton Transit's service area.

If there was an emergency plan in place for Georgetown, Acton, Guelph and Kitchener shuttles, maybe it could be done based on bus availability. Drivers would be the big question mark.

 

[TOareaFan]

I'm less convinced that passengers for the longer haul should have been encouraged to head for Bramales. Yesterday was a nice day but in a thunderstorm, or winter, that option could have had serious consequences.
- Paul

By the time WB trains on that line leave Bramalea they are no more (likely less) than half full....the Bramalea station has a decent (not perfect) amount of sheltered space....and of the people left on the trains after Bramalea the majority of those are headed for Brampton or Mt Pleasant....so a decent number of them will either take the bus from Bramalea or have used their cell phones to make alternate arrangements....something that "trapping" them at Union does not allow them to do.

 

[steveintoronto]

Sure, the first train after the incident can head out to Bramalea, but what does it do from there? Hold? Return to Union? If it holds, it takes up track and platform space. What happens with the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th train after? If it returns it will interfere with scheduled operations for other lines.

There are some very good answers from others, but I'd thought that through before I posted. Georgetown stables quite a number, and K/W stables at least two. Quite a few of those trains would have to have been put in place for tomorrow's run (today) back anyway. So that is somewhat moot. Plus there is turn-back capability at Bramalea, plus some track that could act for lay-by if need be. I'll allow others to detail switches and tracks, I don't have diagrams handy.

If there was an emergency plan in place for Georgetown, Acton, Guelph and Kitchener shuttles, maybe it could be done based on bus availability. Drivers would be the big question mark.

When I was living in Guelph up to late last year, there was a case one morning where (and I'm assured by a GO operative that this is true) "the trains can't get out of the yard" one morning. (Ostensibly frozen switch) The notification on platform was very poor, it was only due to a number of passengers having i-pads that the rest of the passengers were alerted that shuttle buses had been set-up, and in surprisingly short time for the morning. (perhaps an hour). Each station (K/W, Guelph/Acton) had its own emergency shuttle that ran express to Georgetown to a waiting train (albeit they barely gave you time to catch it). The point is that there do appear to be contingency plans set-up. There's a missing piece to this puzzle yesterday. It might help MX to come clean on the situation, issue a mea-culpa, and state: "We didn't do our best, but we've learned from this. Here's how we'll handle this next time...".

But alas...

 

[Markster]

There are some very good answers from others, but I'd thought that through before I posted. Georgetown stables quite a number, and K/W stables at least two. Quite a few of those trains would have to have been put in place for tomorrow's run (today) back anyway. So that is somewhat moot. Plus there is turn-back capability at Bramalea, plus some track that could act for lay-by if need be. I'll allow others to detail switches and tracks, I don't have diagrams handy.

I don't doubt that something can be done. I mostly mean to point out that GO hasn't got the plan in place, and can't make it up on the fly.

 

[TOareaFan]

I don't doubt that something can be done. I mostly mean to point out that GO hasn't got the plan in place, and can't make it up on the fly.

yep...I think we are all saying the same thing in different ways......in the absence of detailed/structured/variable plans, the only thing the operational people have the leeway to do is suspend/cancel service until they can figure it out.

 

[crs1026]

By the time WB trains on that line leave Bramalea they are no more (likely less) than half full....the Bramalea station has a decent (not perfect) amount of sheltered space....and of the people left on the trains after Bramalea the majority of those are headed for Brampton or Mt Pleasant....so a decent number of them will either take the bus from Bramalea or have used their cell phones to make alternate arrangements....something that "trapping" them at Union does not allow them to do.

In my perfect hindsight 20/20 contingency plan, I would hold the first train at Bramalea to accommodate the remaining passengers, then let it fill up as the following trains arrive, dump passengers, and turn back east. The unknown is how long it takes to fill up completely (and how many people can grab a bus, etc). The other question would be how many trains have to hold because they need to tie up at the outer ends. There is enough platform capacity at Bramalea for a 'shelter' train plus the turnbacks, but that may not be the case at all stations.

Under no (avoidable) circumstance should a GO train hold between stations for an hour or more with passengers on board.... a health and wellbeing issue. But I could buy one staging at Malton, the next at Etobicoke North, etc once Bramalea is full.

Definitely something that should be planned out ahead of time, and not attempted on the fly.

- Paul

 

[smallspy]

In my (easy to format from armchair, I know) view, a decision tree would have said....

1. Line is clear to Bramalea....so we can serve Bloor, Weston, EN, Malton and Bramalea.
2. Busiest station on line is Bramalea (followed by Brampton and Mt. Pleasant)
3. So getting people to Bramalea gets a lot of people to where they are going anyway and the next two busiest stations are within that same municipality so people headed for Brampton and Mt. Pleasant customers are able to, either, use already existing local transit partner (BT) or call a cab, or a ride home (or to those other stations to collect their cars)
4. Even if it takes us a while to get the shuttle buses running...it makes more sense to get people away from Union (where they get mixed in with people from other lines who are unaffected) and the portion of the customers that were headed beyond Bramalea is smaller than having all the customers on the line gathered at Union.

It just seemed to me to be a very knee jerk ("that's what we do in a crisis") reaction to suspend all operations on the line when a good number of the people on the line who otherwise would be unaffected by an incident at Brampton then become impacted by it.

Am I totally out to lunch here?

The problem is that the line was likely not clear at Bramalea. I understand that CN was stacking trains up on the triple-track in the expectation of sending through a bunch of them as soon as the line cleared up, and did the same on the west side with eastbounds. It wouldn't surprise me if they made use of all of the available track space to wait out the delay.

That said, in theory they could have sent the trains to Malton, and then simply staged the trains there immediately west of the station, and out of the way of everyone. The bus loop isn't big at Malton, but it shouldn't be such a problem provided they had the buses ready - and access to Bramalea should have been reasonably easy from there as well.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.