GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[crs1026]

The question is - just what can be done after the fact? You can't unload them on the spot; you can't even move the trains much to the next station down the line because those are far fewer potential stops than subways. It isn't like they haven't been in this stuck trains situation before - what had been learned from a customer service perspective?

AoD

My suggestion would be 1) Do try to bring as many trains as possible to the next station platform 2) Do try to have any following trains that don't fit at a platform proceed at restricted speed to as close to station platforms as possible (the premise being that this is the most accessible point if there were to be an on-train health emergency, hence time saved) - perhaps one ends up with three trains bunched up behind a platform, but that's ok 3) the third crew member, who is normally in the cab, proceeds to the CSA station and monitors radio and passenger alarms and provides PA announcements while 4) the CSA patrols the length of the train, providing face to face contact with customers 5) develop specific PA protocols for that situation to feed information to train crews and instructions for announcement to passengers.

- Paul

 

[smallspy]

Are all the trains not GPS tracked at this point? Assuming that is the case, and their locations are known, could they not be approved by dispatch to move to the next station without signals?

As long as you know where all the trains are, I don't understand why you can't manage that? (I'm open to the fact there's an entirely logical explanation I'm unaware of).

GPS is not used to operate trains by. The signal system does that. And even though one section of signal may be dead, there will be others around it where the dispatchers can see the occupancy of a specific block.

Now that said, there are rules in place to allow trains to pass through red signals, with the permission of the RTCs. And crews are (supposed to be) in constant communication with Commuter Central, which is supposed to help keep everyone informed in case anything like this came up. So yes, a train should be able to proceed to the next station, even at a limited speed through a dead section, without much difficulty.

Part of the problem with Monday, however, was that as CN is in the process of moving its Toronto RTC office to Montreal, that the staff there isn't at knowledgeable of the territory here as the staff here was. As well, they have continued to consolidate desks, so that they have fewer people managing the same amount of track but with more trains operating. In situations like this, they get overwhelmed, and it's not uncommon to hear stories of trains sitting for 20 minutes to a half-hour waiting for a permissive signal because the RTC forgot about them or didn't notice them.

I get where running anything like full service with a huge chunk of territory in the dark would difficult and dangerous. But could not more limited service still be run. If you used, say 4 train sets to track from Exhibition to Aldershot, could that not be managed?

My understanding was that they were, or at least trying to. But the issue with the one train with a rules violation occurred on a crossover, which then tied up 2 of the 4 tracks through the area. And the rules in place limit the number of trains operating over a crossover "in hand" (signals out) to one per plant. So you can imagine that all of these things then limited the throughput even more than otherwise may have been the case.

Can the track ladders and crossovers be operated manually or do they require the signal plant to be up?

USRC has its own set of rules (the entire USRC is considered a humongous interlocking), but as I wrote above normally a crossover can be operated "in hand" if the signals go down. As with everything else, there are all sorts of rules that need to be followed in order to do this.

One thing to keep in mind. Virtually every single rule used on today's railroads was written in blood - meaning it came about by some accident or incident that would have caused damage, injury or death. This is why rule changes are simply not made willy-nilly.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[Allandale25]

^ Helpful context Dan. Certainly provides useful insight that shows just how complex the situation is. This seems to me to be one of the big future benefits when GO's Oakville RTC opens.

 

[Northern Light]

GPS is not used to operate trains by. The signal system does that. And even though one section of signal may be dead, there will be others around it where the dispatchers can see the occupancy of a specific block.

Now that said, there are rules in place to allow trains to pass through red signals, with the permission of the RTCs. And crews are (supposed to be) in constant communication with Commuter Central, which is supposed to help keep everyone informed in case anything like this came up. So yes, a train should be able to proceed to the next station, even at a limited speed through a dead section, without much difficulty.

Part of the problem with Monday, however, was that as CN is in the process of moving its Toronto RTC office to Montreal, that the staff there isn't at knowledgeable of the territory here as the staff here was. As well, they have continued to consolidate desks, so that they have fewer people managing the same amount of track but with more trains operating. In situations like this, they get overwhelmed, and it's not uncommon to hear stories of trains sitting for 20 minutes to a half-hour waiting for a permissive signal because the RTC forgot about them or didn't notice them.



My understanding was that they were, or at least trying to. But the issue with the one train with a rules violation occurred on a crossover, which then tied up 2 of the 4 tracks through the area. And the rules in place limit the number of trains operating over a crossover "in hand" (signals out) to one per plant. So you can imagine that all of these things then limited the throughput even more than otherwise may have been the case.



USRC has its own set of rules (the entire USRC is considered a humongous interlocking), but as I wrote above normally a crossover can be operated "in hand" if the signals go down. As with everything else, there are all sorts of rules that need to be followed in order to do this.

One thing to keep in mind. Virtually every single rule used on today's railroads was written in blood - meaning it came about by some accident or incident that would have caused damage, injury or death. This is why rule changes are simply not made willy-nilly.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

I very much appreciate the thoughtful and detailed response.

Thank You!

 

[Filip]

Except that the service was out for about an hour when it hit rush at 5 - the most critical time - there are no reasons not to call it and compound the problem by having these overstuffed combined local and express trains out of Union only to get stuck - and it is actually more useful to follow the Twitter accounts of other riders at different points on the line and triangulate how f**ked the situation was than to follow the GO accounts, which is pretty damning in my books.



The question is - just what can be done after the fact? You can't unload them on the spot; you can't even move the trains much to the next station down the line because those are far fewer potential stops than subways. It isn't like they haven't been in this stuck trains situation before - what had been learned from a customer service perspective?

AoD

Haha.. I was sadly part of the cohort stuck on Monday. My 4:10 train from Union stopped in front of my condo for 1.5h.

It was very annoying to look at my apartment for that long and be unable to get to it. I considered pulling the emergency door release and running out - apparently someone did that Monday evening around Union Station.

However, this was the 4:10 and the 4:00 in one train. There was no room. I was squeezed against the door in a sea of people. I had minor claustrophobia at the beginning prior to getting friendly with my neighbours. I can see this being dangerous. No idea why they couldn't just roll the train into Mimico with the help of a flag man or something. Do not leave a train filled with 2000 people in the heat for that long. It's inhuman.

 

[Allandale25]

^ Maybe @smallspy or @crs1026 can provide a better answer but my sense is that there are certain federal rules and regulations GO has to follow that have to do with safety. So a 'flag man' may not be allowed because of the rules they have to follow that prioritize safety over comfort.

 

[Filip]

^ Maybe @smallspy or @crs1026 can provide a better answer but my sense is that there are certain federal rules and regulations GO has to follow that have to do with safety. So a 'flag man' may not be allowed because of the rules they have to follow that prioritize safety over comfort.

I do regret not pulling the emergency door release - I wouldn't have missed my medical appointment. 1.5h That's not fair.

 

[hw621]

I do regret not pulling the emergency door release - I wouldn't have missed my medical appointment. 1.5h That's not fair.

At least there should be AC

 

[crs1026]

Part of the problem with Monday, however, was that as CN is in the process of moving its Toronto RTC office to Montreal, that the staff there isn't at knowledgeable of the territory here as the staff here was. As well, they have continued to consolidate desks, so that they have fewer people managing the same amount of track but with more trains operating. In situations like this, they get overwhelmed, and it's not uncommon to hear stories of trains sitting for 20 minutes to a half-hour waiting for a permissive signal because the RTC forgot about them or didn't notice them.

A very senior CN RTC of my acquaintance, who worked the Oshawa-Oakville desks for many moons and in the past could run the territory in his sleep, told me about a recent experience where in a pinch he had to sit down and run the Oakville Sub at rush hour after a few years running other territories. He was baffled.... the line has reached the point where, with the intensive storage of trains at Willowbrook and the added equipment moves to Union, plus all the revenue trains to points west, the daily movements are choreographed to the extreme.

The Mimico interlocking is a choke point. Issuing pass-stops to each outbound train to reach the platform at Mimico GO is not a simple task and in this kind of an event, I can understand why the RTC's would just let trains sit.

In theory, one could double-berth a GO platform by having the leading train pull down so that only three or four cars were at the platform....allowing the following train to enter and likewise have a few cars at the platform. That would let people walk through the train (if it is not crowded beyond reasonable limits) and get off if they needed to. I can understand why GO would not allow people to get off short of the platform and walk along the ROW.....their lawyers would have a fit if this happened.

All the same, I believe GO needs a protocol where a train that has sat, loaded, away from a platform, for x minutes, becomes a serious rescue/recovery matter. I'm a diabetic and while three hours on a GO train might not kill me, I can appreciate what the implications of that kind of stranded-on-the-train scenario might be.

- Paul

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

At least there should be AC

GO Train AC can be fairly hit and miss - and if the car is packed, you will need all the luck you can get.

I do regret not pulling the emergency door release - I wouldn't have missed my medical appointment. 1.5h That's not fair.

I think it happened last time with the hours long delay at LSE. Of course, who remembered that? And the changes following that are...

AoD

 

[mdrejhon]

We really need that big Oakville control centre up and running ASAP.

Hopefully they will then quickly find all the choke points and begin to optimize them -- now having full control over their systems.

A much more modern electronically-reprogrammable RTC system that makes switch upgrades easier since newer RTC technology can (in theory at least) be much more quickly reprogrammed with new infrastructure.

Replacing the current mishmash mess we have of a RTC situation (Royal Trash Crap......Really Too Crazy.....Running To Crash.....Ridiculus Train Cram.....find your own acronym).

I hope that new Oakville centre (along with USRC signal upgrade) has a National Geographic special someday, showing the journey of bringing 1930s tech to 2030s.

 

[Filip]

GO Train AC can be fairly hit and miss - and if the car is packed, you will need all the luck you can get.



I think it happened last time with the hours long delay at LSE. Of course, who remembered that? And the changes following that are...

AoD

I definitely should have pulled the door release... Hahahaha.. Regrets.

My colleague was stuck at a later train that stopped right after Union - and she said some guy pulled it and ran across the rail corridor.

 

[hw621]

I definitely should have pulled the door release... Hahahaha.. Regrets.

My colleague was stuck at a later train that stopped right after Union - and she said some guy pulled it and ran across the rail corridor.

So much with fine for misuse? Is it misuse, under the circumstances?

 

[smallspy]

Haha.. I was sadly part of the cohort stuck on Monday. My 4:10 train from Union stopped in front of my condo for 1.5h.

It was very annoying to look at my apartment for that long and be unable to get to it. I considered pulling the emergency door release and running out - apparently someone did that Monday evening around Union Station.

However, this was the 4:10 and the 4:00 in one train. There was no room. I was squeezed against the door in a sea of people. I had minor claustrophobia at the beginning prior to getting friendly with my neighbours. I can see this being dangerous. No idea why they couldn't just roll the train into Mimico with the help of a flag man or something. Do not leave a train filled with 2000 people in the heat for that long. It's inhuman.

The train in front of yours was the one caught by the potential rules violation, and did so inside the plant at Mimico - and thus was blocking all of the following trains from accessing the north platform. Your train had already passed Gardiner, and thus would have needed to reverse (and call up the RTC to get permission to do so) in order to change tracks.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[drum118]

Kitchener Line passengers: Beginning today, and continuing each day until Friday, July 27, track maintenance is taking place on your line. The work is happening between Georgetown and Kitchener GO Stations. Trains will need to operate slower through the construction area, and delays of up to 20 minutes are possible along the entire line.

We appreciate your patience and we'll try to make the work as convenient as possible.