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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

Still got to deal with the mess between Bramalea & Georgetown as will downtown Guelph.

Until there is a plan in place as well funding for any bypass, you have to use what there now and that still require investment to upgrade to 4 tracks, grade separation, electrify and flyunders.
 
Actually, it should be further northwest, since that enroaches Hydro lands. I think it straddles along the line between the hydro corridor and the 407.
 
I'm looking over the new GO changes and see that the Richmond Hill line will have 5 southbound and 7 northbound services as of the new schedule (vs 5/6 now). Presumably at least two of the latter head back to Willowbrook? Given the lack of passing track in the Don Valley, is it fair to assume that the first five are stored at the layover and the last two turn and return?
 
mdrejhon said:
Actually, it should be further northwest, since that enroaches Hydro lands. I think it straddles along the line between the hydro corridor and the 407.
Click to expand...

Care to draw your own version? Are you suggesting that because hydro is on the south, the tracks would have to go on the north side of the 407? If it's in a trench, can the hydro towers be slightly moved?
 
drum118 said:
Still got to deal with the mess between Bramalea & Georgetown as will downtown Guelph.

Until there is a plan in place as well funding for any bypass, you have to use what there now and that still require investment to upgrade to 4 tracks, grade separation, electrify and flyunders.
Click to expand...
Those 4-or-more-track tunnels under the 401 will be needed.

But once you reach a freight-free Brampton (nighttime customer freight service only) you only need 3 tracks the rest of the way from Bramalea.

Without CN, they can manage with 2 tracks in Guelph, and 3 tracks in Brampton. And various triple track passing elsewhere.

It seems CBTC signalling (part of RER), and 100 percent passsenger, and electric (and peak-direction-only expresses / VIA) you can pull it off. 4 track beyond Bramalea no longer critical to a reasonable AD2W stopping scheme with frequent allstop + hourly expresses under a modified initial service plan.

So the big question is... How fast can Feds make this happen?
If fast enough, then 4 tracks may not be initially needed.
 
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Allandale25 said:
Care to draw your own version? Are you suggesting that because hydro is on the south, the tracks would have to go on the north side of the 407? If it's in a trench, can the hydro towers be slightly moved?
Click to expand...
Not correct. I mean only a few meters north. It will still be south of the 407.

The line isn't even drawn on top of the 407-Hydro boundary!

The drawn line overlaps the hydro wires, so needs to be moved a few meters northwestish, to the dividing line south 407 and north of electric pylons (hard to see in photo, but if you zoom in on Google Eaeth, you will see them very clearly and realize the line is slightly misaligned.

There will be negotiations needed with both the 407 Consortium and also Hydro One, but it will likely touch or overlap the boundary. I am almost certain it will probbably abut the boundary for a large sedtion.

But I could be wrong and Hydro One is letting them trench between the pylons (wow!) as the drawn line suggests.
 
Okay. I'll try to draw this out later on. I'm a visual person so I'll have to see it.

mdrejhon said:
Not correct. I mean only a few meters north. It will still be south of the 407.

The line isn't even drawn on top of the 407-Hydro boundary!

The drawn line overlaps the hydro wires, so needs to be moved a few meters northwestish, to the dividing line south 407 and north of electric pylons (hard to see in photo, but if you zoom in on Google Eaeth, you will see them very clearly and realize the line is slightly misaligned.

There will be negotiations needed with both the 407 Consortium and also Hydro One, but it will likely touch or overlap the boundary. I am almost certain it will probbably abut the boundary for a large sedtion.

But I could be wrong and Hydro One is letting them trench between the pylons (wow!) as the drawn line suggests.
Click to expand...
 
Here is an extreme closeup. The best place for the 407 freight rail bypass is a diagonal line roughly in the middle, south of the 407 but north of the Hydro pylons. This creates big safety buffer zones away from residentials and not millimeters away from pylons (if threaded between pylons).

My bet is the bypass will "abut" the boundary between 407 land and Hydro land, taking a sliver from either or both depending on negotiations with the stakeholders. If you have to build on Hydro One land because the 407 Consortium will not sell their reservation for an unlikely 15th or 16th lane (several lanes away into the grassland away from the shoulder) then you get damn unnervingly close to the pylons.

In the diagrams it is probably a mostly accurate but approximately-drawn line, just accidentslly drew over where I know existing Hydro pylons exists. So, good general idea, but mostly tweaks to fix Hydro conflict.

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Thanks! Helpful.
mdrejhon said:
Here is an extreme closeup. The best place for the 407 freight rail bypass is a diagonal line roughly in the middle, south of the 407 but north of the Hydro pylons. This creates big safety buffer zones away from residentials and not millimeters away from pylons (if threaded between pylons).
Click to expand...
 
407 won't be free flowing forever, though I admit it actually getting bad is a while off. The highway normally gets widened whenever it starts to congest.. but many portions of the highway are now at maximum width. Once those start to congest, they congest for good.
 
ShonTron said:
The 407 is supposed to have a Transitway attached to it, and I don't ever see the need for one. Wouldn't the CN freight corridor do so much more for transit than a conceptual bus roadway next to a toll highway that's generally free-flowing?
Click to expand...
Indeed. Is the busway reservation along the boundary?

Yes, reassigning to freight would do so much more for GTHA transit over the next 50+ years (Brampton, Kitchener, Milton, Midtown). Almost too easy a decision to forget about a busway here. The 407 is almost a defacto BRT for any buses that get onto it.

If a BRT is ever needed along 407, use the shoulders. Next step is dynamic shoulders (German style with electric signs) and use them as BRT lanes but becomes a shoulder if a breakdown car goes into it.

Shoulders switch to traffic lanes and back -- Electric signs, hundreds of video cameras, central monitoring centre, and sensors monitors obstructions (stalled cars) and the lane ceases to be a traffic lane -- like those dynamic shoulders on some Germany autobahns. This tech exists comparatively affordably and safely now, where it didn't really exist back when the 407 was being blueprinted along with the transitway ideas.

It is like switchable-direction lanes with green arrows and red X, but applied to a freeway shoulder -- it is like a red X activated automatically only if any obstruction such as a stalled car. They do the equivalent of that in Germany nowadays.
 
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ShonTron said:
Hopefully the announcement of the all-day Bramalea-Waterloo express bus means additional trains (evenings/weekends, counter-peak) to Mount Pleasant in September.
Click to expand...

The rest of the off-peak schedule will happen in April.

dowlingm said:
I'm looking over the new GO changes and see that the Richmond Hill line will have 5 southbound and 7 northbound services as of the new schedule (vs 5/6 now). Presumably at least two of the latter head back to Willowbrook? Given the lack of passing track in the Don Valley, is it fair to assume that the first five are stored at the layover and the last two turn and return?
Click to expand...

4 trains will be stored overnight at the Richmond Hill Yard - only 3 are now. The first train, 830 (6.25 from Richmond Hill), will become an L6 and will deadhead north from Willowbrook in the morning. In the afternoon, 829 (15.10 from Union) will deadhead back to Union to become 285 (17.02 to Mount Pleasant), 835 (17.30 from Union) will deadhead back to Union to become 841 (20.00 from Union) and 839 (19.00 from Union) deadheads back to Willowbrook.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
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Why is that train only L6? Lack of coaches to make it L10 or L12?

smallspy said:
The rest of the off-peak schedule will happen in April.



4 trains will be stored overnight at the Richmond Hill Yard - only 3 are now. The first train, 830 (6.25 from Richmond Hill), will become an L6 and will deadhead north from Willowbrook in the morning. In the afternoon, 829 (15.10 from Union) will deadhead back to Union to become 285 (17.02 to Mount Pleasant), 835 (17.30 from Union) will deadhead back to Union to become 841 (20.00 from Union) and 839 (19.00 from Union) deadheads back to Willowbrook.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
Click to expand...
 
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